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.
Chill Out
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
One of these days things gonna change
You'll try not baby
After while gonna be mine, gonna be mine
One of these days
I'm old and lonely baby
Cry, crying won't be long, long
Sometime, in the middle of the night
You're so long, and so long and so long
Things gonna change, things gonna change
Change, change, change, things gonna change
Further on up the road baby, things gonna change
Change, change, change, change, change, change
Change baby, you'll try not to leave
But after while gonna be, my time, my time baby
Things gonna change, change, change, change
Change, change, change, things gonna change, yes it is
Things gonna change, change, change, change
Change, change, change, change, change
Things gonna change, got the blues
Things gonna change, things gonna change
Change, change, change, change, things gonna change
The lyrics to John Lee Hooker's song "Chill Out" are very straightforward, but carry a powerful message of hope and optimism for the future. The repetitive line "One of these days things gonna change" is a mantra that Hooker repeats throughout the song, emphasizing the idea that no matter how difficult our current situation may be, we should remain hopeful that things will get better with time.
The verses of the song hint at the struggles and hardships that Hooker has faced, particularly in relationships. He sings about being "old and lonely" and expecting that "crying won't be long" before things change. The middle section of the song seems to be a more free-form expression of emotion, with Hooker repeating the phrase "things gonna change" several times before launching into a series of exultant "changes" that build in intensity.
The final verses of the song return to the central message of hope and optimism, with Hooker singing about how "things gonna change" and "got the blues." The repetition of this phrase at the end of the song reinforces the idea that no matter how bad things may seem in the moment, we should always hold onto the hope that things will ultimately get better.
Overall, "Chill Out" is a powerful song that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the face of difficulty and adversity.
Line by Line Meaning
One of these days things gonna change
Someday, things will be different.
One of these days things gonna change
Again, someday things will be different.
You'll try not baby
You'll try, baby.
After while gonna be mine, gonna be mine
Soon enough, you will be mine.
One of these days
Once again, someday things will be different.
I'm old and lonely baby
I'm feeling old and alone, baby.
Cry, crying won't be long, long
Crying won't last forever.
Things gonna change
Things will change.
Sometime, in the middle of the night
At some point during the night...
You're so long, and so long and so long
You seem far away and distant.
Things gonna change, things gonna change
Things will change.
Change, change, change, things gonna change
A lot of change is coming.
Further on up the road baby, things gonna change
As we move forward, things will change.
Change baby, you'll try not to leave
You'll do your best not to leave.
But after while gonna be, my time, my time baby
But eventually, it will be my turn to have what I want.
Things gonna change, change, change, change
There's going to be a lot of change.
Things gonna change, got the blues
I'm feeling blue, but things will change.
Things gonna change, things gonna change
Things are going to change.
Change, change, change, change, things gonna change
There's definitely a lot of change headed our way.
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management
Written by: JOHN LEE HOOKER, CARLOS SANTANA, CHESTER THOMPSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@AshleyOulton
John and Carlos together... just like peaches and cream 💗
@user-hu3qr9im6t
😂😂
@butterflytv7240
❤❤ Classic Combi
@larryb6715
This song has the power to change lives. John and Carlos, what a powerful combination.
@RudolphGrant-bh6qd
😮
@jozsefandrasschubert620
igazad van🙏
@reinmansmith
Two geniuses playing together makes the world a better place, one of my favourite collaborations 👍
@Blueluise
Candyman
@bobymox
Thank you Carlos for this historic duet!😎🙏✌
@RobertoCRichard
2 King's!!