John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen" (1948) and "Boom Boom" (1962).
There is some debate as to the year of John Lee Hooker's birth, 1915, 1917, 1920, and 1923 have all been cited, 1917 (the date on his grave marker in Oakland, California) is the one most commonly cited although Hooker himself claimed, at times, 1920.
Hooker was the youngest of the eleven children of William Hooker (1871–1923), a sharecropper and a Baptist preacher, and Minnie Ramsey (1875–?).
Hooker and his siblings were home-schooled. They were permitted to listen only to religious songs, with his earliest musical exposure being the spirituals sung in church.
In 1921, his parents separated. The next year, his mother married William Moore, a blues singer who provided John's first introduction to the guitar (and whom John would later credit for his distinctive playing style). The year after that (1923), John's natural father died; and at age 15, John ran away from home, never to see his mother and stepfather again.
He was a cousin of Earl Hooker,
Throughout the 1930s, Hooker lived in Memphis where he worked on Beale Street and occasionally performed at house parties. He worked in factories in various cities during World War II, drifting until he found himself in Detroit in 1948 working at Ford Motor Company. He felt right at home near the blues venues and saloons on Hastings Street, the heart of black entertainment on Detroit's east side. In a city noted for its piano players, guitar players were scarce. Performing in Detroit clubs, his popularity grew quickly, and seeking a louder instrument than his crude acoustic guitar, he bought his first electric guitar.
Though he stuttered slightly in his normal speech, he performed in a half-spoken style that became his trademark. Rhythmically, his music was free, a property common with early acoustic Delta blues musicians. His vocal phrasing was less closely tied to specific bars than most blues singers'. This casual, rambling style had been gradually diminishing with the onset of electric blues bands from Chicago but, even when not playing solo, Hooker retained it in his sound.
Hooker's recording career began in 1948 with the hit single, "Boogie Chillen" cut in a studio near Wayne State University.
Despite being illiterate, he was a prolific lyricist. In addition to adapting the occasionally traditional blues lyric (such as "if I was chief of police, I would run her right out of town"), he freely invented many of his songs from scratch. Recording studios in the 50s rarely paid black musicians more than a pittance, so Hooker would spend the night wandering from studio to studio, coming up with new songs or variations on his songs for each studio. Due to his recording contract, he would record these songs under obvious pseudonyms such as "John Lee Booker," "Johnny Hooker", or "John Cooker".
His early solo songs were recorded under Bernie Besman.
John Lee Hooker rarely played on a standard beat, changing tempo to fit the needs of the song. This made it nearly impossible to add backing tracks. As a result, Besman would record Hooker, in addition to playing guitar and singing, stomping along with the music on a wooden palette.
John Lee Hooker's guitar playing is closely aligned with piano Boogie Woogie. He would play the walking bass pattern with his thumb, stopping to emphasize the end of a line with a series of trills, done by rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs. The songs that most epitomize his early sound are "Boogie Chillen," about being 17 and wanting to go out to dance at the Boogie clubs, "Baby Please Don't Go," a more typical blues song, summed up by its title, and "Tupelo," a stunningly sad song about the flooding of Tupelo, Mississippi.
He maintained a solo career, popular with blues and folk music fans of the early 1960s and crossed over to white audiences, giving an early opportunity to the young Bob Dylan. As he got older, he added more and more people to his band, changing his live show from simply Hooker with his guitar to a large band, with Hooker singing.
In 1989 he joined with a number of musicians, including Keith Richards and Carlos Santana to record The Healer, which won a Grammy award — one of many awards.
He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83.
Hooker recorded over 100 albums and lived the last years of his life in San Francisco, California, where he licensed a nightclub to use the name Boom Boom Room, after one of his hits.
Among his many awards, John Lee Hooker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 1991 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Two of his songs, "Boogie Chillen" and "Boom Boom" were named to the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
John Lee recorded several songs with Van Morrison, including "Never Get Out of These Blues Alive", "The Healing Game" and "I Cover the Waterfront". He also appeared on stage with Van Morrison several times, some of which was released on the live album "A Night in San Francisco".
John Lee also recorded in the sixties with british blues band The Groundhogs. These recordings are still available as a CD "John Lee Hooker with The Groundhogs". More importantly, Hooker recorded with the Blues-rock outfit Canned Heat, delivering the album 'Hooker N' Heat' in 1971. Hooker was influential and topical even in his lifetime, as evidenced in the MC5 cover of "Motor City's Burning" on their first album, recorded almost immediately after the riots which are the song's topic.
Black Snake
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
He's a mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
And if I catch him down he won't come back no more
And he crawl to my window and he crawl up in my bed
He crawl up to my window crawl up in my baby's bed
He is a mean, mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
Mix it up together
Gonna whoop it up good
I bet you my bottom dollar
He won't suck my rider's tongue no more
Mean mean mean black snake
Been crawling round my back door
Been crawling round my back door
He worry me all through the day
He worry me all night long
He worry me all through the day
He worry me all day long
I bet you my bottom dollar
I'm going to kill that black snake
He won't suck my rightest tongue no more
He won't suck my baby's tongue
That mean mean black snake
He won't bother me no more
The song "Black Snake" by John Lee Hooker is a blues track that is about a black snake that is sucking on his rider's tongue. The snake is portrayed as mean and is causing a lot of worry and trouble for the singer. Hooker sings about how the snake crawls into his window and into his bed and how it's been crawling around his back door. The singer talks about how the snake is constantly worrying him all through the day and night and how he's going to kill the snake so that it won't bother him anymore.
The song uses the black snake as a metaphor for something that is causing trouble or worry in the singer's life. It could be interpreted as a representation of addiction or another type of bad habit that is taking over the rider's life. The use of toad frog hips is also interesting in the song, as it could be a reference to Hoodoo, a form of African-American folk magic. This adds another layer of depth to the meaning behind the song.
Line by Line Meaning
He's a mean black snake sucking my rider's tongue
There is a vicious black snake that has been harming someone I care about
He's a mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
The snake has been inflicting harm for some time
And if I catch him down he won't come back no more
If I'm able to catch the snake, it will not be able to harm us anymore
And he crawl to my window and he crawl up in my bed
The snake has been creeping around and getting uncomfortably close to me and my loved one
He crawl up to my window crawl up in my baby's bed
The snake has even been getting into our baby's sleeping area
He is a mean, mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
The snake is relentless in its harm and has caused significant damage to my loved one
Get me some toad frog hips
I need to gather some specific ingredients for a plan to take care of the snake
Mix it up together
I will combine these ingredients to create a special concoction
Gonna whoop it up good
I will use this concoction to beat the snake
I bet you my bottom dollar
I am confident that my plan will work
He won't suck my rider's tongue no more
After my plan works, the snake will not be able to cause any more harm to my loved one
Mean mean mean black snake
The snake is incredibly dangerous and vicious
Been crawling round my back door
The snake has been lurking around my home, waiting to cause harm
He worry me all through the day
I am constantly anxious and afraid because of the snake
He worry me all night long
Even when I'm trying to rest, the snake is causing me stress and fear
I'm going to kill that black snake
My plan is to eliminate the threat of the snake completely
He won't suck my rightest tongue no more
After I take care of the snake, it will not harm anyone anymore
He won't suck my baby's tongue
The snake will not be able to harm my innocent child anymore
That mean mean black snake
The snake is truly evil and dangerous
He won't bother me no more
After I eliminate the threat, I will be able to live my life without constantly worrying about the snake
Contributed by Chloe V. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Stephen Eric Berry
Please correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I believe Mr. Hooker's lyrics for this masterpiece are:
He's a mean black snake sucking my rider's tongue
He's a mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
And if I catch him down he won't come back no more
And he crawl to my window and he crawl up in my bed
He crawl up to my window crawl up in my baby's bed
He is a mean, mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
Get me some toad frog hips,
Mix it up together,
Gonna whoop it up good,
I bet you my bottom dollar
(He) won't suck my rider's tongue no more
mean mean mean black snake,
been crawling round my back door.
been crawling round my back door.
He worry me all through the day,
he worry me all night long.
He worry me all through the day,
he worry me all day long.
I bet you my bottom dollar,
I'm going to kill that black snake.
He won't suck my rightest tongue nomore
He won't suck my baby's tongue
that mean mean black snake
he won't bother me nomore
hmmmm
The Renaissance Blann
All Them Witches just did you justice John Lee!! People are still playing and covering your song in 2022. Much love and much respect!
Luã Zogno
A voz desse cata é linda Slc
Dan Jameson
my personal favorite Hooker album
Asmus Übermensch
Yeah, there's something special about this one.
Nexus I
David Bowie's too.
Matteo Mosolo
mine too! this is the Blues!
Renan Kurchner
Que loucura me sinto exatamente nessa época
Stephen Eric Berry
Please correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I believe Mr. Hooker's lyrics for this masterpiece are:
He's a mean black snake sucking my rider's tongue
He's a mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
And if I catch him down he won't come back no more
And he crawl to my window and he crawl up in my bed
He crawl up to my window crawl up in my baby's bed
He is a mean, mean black snake been sucking my rider's tongue
Get me some toad frog hips,
Mix it up together,
Gonna whoop it up good,
I bet you my bottom dollar
(He) won't suck my rider's tongue no more
mean mean mean black snake,
been crawling round my back door.
been crawling round my back door.
He worry me all through the day,
he worry me all night long.
He worry me all through the day,
he worry me all day long.
I bet you my bottom dollar,
I'm going to kill that black snake.
He won't suck my rightest tongue nomore
He won't suck my baby's tongue
that mean mean black snake
he won't bother me nomore
hmmmm
Dan Jameson
this song goes back AT LEAST as far as 1934 on Okeh records you can hear it on the double album "Okeh chicago Blues" recorded by...who was it....Roosevelt Sykes? Big Boy Edwards? Roosevelt Scott? one of those....less explicit lyrics, which of course was not always true on these early "race" records.
Tony Kibble
Think it is Writers not riders