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.
Bottle Up
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Thought it was a duck
Put him on the table with his legs stickin' up
You gotta bundle up and go, yeah
You gotta bundle up and go
Well, ya high pile o' women
Sho' gotta bundle up and go
You ain't too old just to shift them gears
You gotta bundle up and go
You gotta bundle up and go
You gotta bundle up and go
Sho' gotta bundle up and go
Yeah
Well, a nickel is a nickel, dime is a dime
House full-a chillun and now one's mine
I gotta bundle up and go, I gotta bundle up and go
Well, you high pile o' women sho' gotta bundle up and go
The lyrics in John Lee Hooker’s song Bottle Up & Go are a reflection of blues’ repetitive nature and themes of hardship and yearning for a better life. The song tells the story of a man who is struggling to make ends meet and must leave his current situation to find better prospects. The lines "Well, mama killed a chicken, / Thought it was a duck / Put him on the table with his legs stickin' up" point to the idea of poverty in rural settings where people have to make do with what they have. The man must leave his homestead and travel to other places to find work, hence the refrain “You gotta bundle up and go”, repeated throughout the song.
The concept of leaving or moving on is central to the song, as evidenced by the repetition of the words “bundle up and go.” The man’s situation is uncertain, but he is determined to go forth and seek his fortune, as the lines “May be old, may be gray / You ain't too old just to shift them gears” suggest. Despite the overarching themes of struggle and hardship, the song has an upbeat rhythm that reflects the resilience of the human spirit.
Line by Line Meaning
Well, mama killed a chicken
His mother mistakenly killed a chicken, thinking it was duck.
Thought it was a duck
The chicken was mistaken for a duck, leading to its death.
Put him on the table with his legs stickin' up
The chicken was placed on the table, legs sticking upwards.
You gotta bundle up and go, yeah
One has to pack up and leave quickly.
You gotta bundle up and go
One has to pack up and leave quickly.
Well, ya high pile o' women
Refers to a group of women.
Sho' gotta bundle up and go
The women also have to leave quickly.
May be old, may be gray
Someone could be old or grey-haired.
You ain't too old just to shift them gears
Even if they are old, they still can shift gears to go faster.
You gotta bundle up and go
One has to pack up and leave quickly.
You gotta bundle up and go
One has to pack up and leave quickly.
You gotta bundle up and go
One has to pack up and leave quickly.
Sho' gotta bundle up and go
Everyone has to leave quickly.
Well, a nickel is a nickel, dime is a dime
Refers to the difference in value between a nickel and dime.
House full-a chillun and now one's mine
The singer is saying he has too many children to take care of; one more child would be too much.
I gotta bundle up and go, I gotta bundle up and go
The singer has to pack up and leave.
Well, you high pile o' women sho' gotta bundle up and go
Referring back to the group of women, they also have to pack up and leave.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@reggiebrousseau5283
I love metal but All rock comes from black culture. Robert Johnson. Howlin Wolf. Hooker. Albert King. Bb King. Buddy Guy. Willie Dixon. Thank you so much for building the foundation
@kenken467
What treasure he was
@sammymarshall2437
Jhon Lee Rooker :
Amazing , amazing .
@hernanrodriguezsilvera5645
Thank you, very much...!!!
Regards from Uruguay...
@DrBoneright
There's no substitute for THE HOOK!
@mattbluesmain1359
saw him at ann arbor blues/jazz festival then at the trobador slapped me 5 as he walked past my isle seat at break i said you're the king john lee he back slapped my outstretched
hand as he walked by
@presuntoequeijo
Classic!
@KartKing4ever
This guy was a pretty big inspiration for Led Zeppelin, specifically Robert Plant's lyrics.