80 John Lee Hooker (1917-2001) “Boogie Chillen” 1948

“John Lee Hooker was born in 1917 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. He was the fifth son of Minnie and William Hooker, a sharecropper and devout Christian who forbade secular music in his home. When Hooker’s parents divorced, Minnie married William Moore, a blues singer and guitarist who had performed with Charley Patton…At fourteen, Hooker ran away to Memphis, where he became an usher in a movie theater before finding work with gospel groups who were partial to his deep, gravelly voice. After periods in Knoxville and Cincinnati, he moved to Detroit in the late 1930’s and worked as a factory janitor while playing his guitar in nightclubs” (Michael Adams, Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2016). Listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.

John Lee Hooker "Boogie Chillen'"