John Lee HOOKER
(1917 – 2001)
Born in Mississippi probably in 1912 (or 1917: his exact date of birth remains unknown), John Lee Hooker is one of the most famous bluesmen in history, the man who brought the blues from its roots into the modern era. The eleventh child of a poor family (his father was a sharecropper and Baptist minister), John Lee Hooker first learned to play the guitar in 1922 with his mother's second husband, a blues singer. At the age of 14, he runs away from home, and begins an itinerant life working in factories and playing the occasional gig. In 1948, he releases his first record, Boogie Chillen: his haunting electric guitar and his rough, deep voice become a sensation. John Lee Hooker brings the blues into homes all around the world. Over the years, he records with Canned Heat, Van Morrison or Santana, sings Boogie Chillen alongside Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and performs another of his hits, Boom Boom, in the film The Blues Brothers (1980). He keeps touring and recording until the end of the 1990s. He dies peacefully in his sleep in California at the age of 88 (or 83?).
