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.
Give Me Your Phone Number
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Who could yo', yo' lover be?
Real nice, you pretty baby
You sho' look good to me
I know that people oh, all wonder
Why I look at you like I do
I don't care if the whole world knows it, darlin'
Yes, I'm deep in love wit' you
I can call you up some time
I don't care if the whole world knows it, baby
Yes, I deep in love wit' you
Yes, I could love you-ooo
Yes, I could love you
Yeah, it's a cry'in a shame
I could love you, love you, baby
'Til sunlight in your eye
In John Lee Hooker's song "Give Me Your Phone Number," the lyrics revolve around a man who is infatuated with a woman and wants to pursue a romantic relationship with her. The opening lines ask the woman who her lover is, suggesting that the man is interested in taking her away from her current partner. He compliments her appearance, expressing his attraction to her, and admits that he is in love with her. Despite knowing that the world may judge him for his feelings, he isn't deterred and wants her to give him her phone number so that he can call her sometime. The song maintains a slow, bluesy rhythm, with Hooker's iconic guitar licks adding to the depth of the emotion in the lyrics.
Line by Line Meaning
Now won't you tell me, pretty mama
The singer is asking the woman if she will reveal who she is in a relationship with.
Who could yo', yo' lover be?
The singer is directly asking the woman who her lover is.
Real nice, you pretty baby
The singer is complimenting the woman on her appearance.
You sho' look good to me
The artist is expressing his attraction and appreciation for the woman's appearance.
I know that people oh, all wonder
The artist acknowledges that people may wonder why he looks at the woman the way he does.
Why I look at you like I do
The singer is asking why he is so enamored with the woman.
I don't care if the whole world knows it, darlin'
The singer doesn't care if others know how he feels about the woman.
Yes, I'm deep in love wit' you
The artist confesses that he is deeply in love with the woman.
Now, won't you give me yo' phone number?
The artist is requesting the woman's phone number so he can contact her.
I can call you up some time
The artist is expressing his desire to call the woman and talk to her sometime.
Yes, I deep in love wit' you
The singer reiterates that he is deeply in love with the woman.
Yes, I could love you-ooo
The artist is expressing his potential to love the woman deeply.
Yes, I could love you
The singer is reassuring the woman that he has the capacity to love her deeply.
Yeah, it's a cry'in a shame
The singer recognizes that it's unfortunate that the woman may not know how much he loves her.
I could love you, love you, baby
The singer reiterates his potential to love the woman deeply.
'Til sunlight in your eye
The artist is expressing his commitment to loving the woman until the end of time.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: BERNARD BESMAN, JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind