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.
Drive Me Away
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Long and travelled make me stay
Lord the boy that you travellin'
Fully you drive me away
For you drive me away
For you drive me away
Yes I's went down
Swim and drown em all, deep blue sea
I've had all of these, good lookin' women
Now boys thinkin'out for me, thinkin'out for me
thinkin'out for me, thinkin'out for me
Yes I'm goin', yes I'm goin'
And you're trying lord, make me stay
Yes the more that you try little women
The more you drive me away
Fully you drive me away, for you drive me away
For you drive me away, for you drive me away
For you drive me away
Yeah can I, come to your house baby?
Yeah let's sit down, on your step
If I can't come in little women,
Then I'm on your step, then I'm on your step
Then I'm on your step, then I'm on your step
Mmmm, mmmm
Tried make me stay
You know you done me wrong once young women
Trust your love no more
Don't trust your love no more
Trust your love no more, your love no more …
The song "Drive Me Away" by John Lee Hooker is a blues classic about a man who is tired of being controlled and needs to leave the woman who is driving him away. The song has a strong sense of loneliness and desperation that is conveyed through Hooker's raw vocal delivery and sparse guitar playing. The lyrics are straightforward and evoke a sense of vulnerability and a desire for freedom. Hooker's use of repetition in the chorus emphasizes the urgency of the situation and the singer's need to get away.
The first verse sets the tone for the rest of the song by expressing the singer's longing to leave and the woman's attempts to make him stay. The second verse describes a past experience with women and how they have caused problems in his life. The third section is a plea to be let into her house, but ultimately, he knows he must leave.
Overall, "Drive Me Away" is a blues classic that captures the essence of John Lee Hooker's music. It is a song about the difficulties of relationships and the need for freedom, and Hooker's raw vocal delivery and sparse guitar playing perfectly convey these emotions.
Line by Line Meaning
Yes I'm goin', yes I'm goin'
I am leaving and there's nothing you can do to stop me.
Long and travelled make me stay
I might have stayed if you had treated me better, but your behavior pushed me away.
Lord the boy that you travellin', Fully you drive me away
The way you treat me and act around me why I am leaving you behind forever.
Yes I's went down, Was a catfish
I have been hurt before and I'm not letting it happen again.
Swim and drown em all, deep blue sea
I have experienced a lot of pain and heartbreak, and I'm willing to let it all go.
I've had all of these, good lookin' women
I have had many relationships with attractive women, but they haven't satisfied me.
Now boys thinkin' out for me, thinkin' out for me
Nowadays, people are always trying to take advantage of me or use me for their own benefit.
And you're trying lord, make me stay
You are desperately trying to keep me from leaving, but it's too late.
Yes the more that you try little women
The more you try to hold on to me, the more I want to leave you behind.
Fully you drive me away, for you drive me away
Your behavior and actions are what have made me want to leave you and never look back.
Yeah can I, come to your house baby?
I want to see you and try to work things out, but it might be too late.
Yeah let's sit down, on your step
Let's talk about things and see if there's any hope left for us.
If I can't come in little women
If you can't let me in and make things right between us, then it's over.
Then I'm on your step, then I'm on your step
If I can't come inside, then I'll just have to wait outside and hope for the best.
You know you done me wrong once young women
You have hurt me in the past and I'm not willing to let you do it again.
Trust your love no more
I can't trust you to love me and treat me right anymore.
Don't trust your love no more
I have been hurt too many times to trust you with my heart again.
Trust your love no more, your love no more …
I am done with you and your love, and I'm moving on to something better.
Contributed by Carson S. Suggest a correction in the comments below.