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.
House Rent Boggie
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
It's the house rent boogie
I come home last Friday, i will tell the little woman that I lost my job
She says don't confront me an' so I have my rent next Friday
I come home next Friday come, I didn't have the rent an' out the door I went
I'm going right towards the streets over here,
'Cause i can't seem to even move it and I know
I got this rent together, now
Let's get on back and have a ball
Nah, let's boogie awhile
The House Rent Boogie by John Lee Hooker is an energetic blues song with a simple yet powerful message. The lyrics are about the struggle of paying rent and the desperation that comes with it. The song starts with the catchy line "Hey, it's the house rent boogie" that sets the tone for the rest of the song. The singer explains how he lost his job and couldn't pay rent, which leads to a confrontation with his wife. He eventually goes out to the streets to find a way to collect money for rent. The song ends on a high note with the singer successfully getting the rent and wanting to celebrate with a boogie.
The lyrics of the song are straightforward, but the way John Lee Hooker delivers them is what makes it special. His soulful, gravelly voice complements the bluesy guitar riffs, and the whole song creates a feeling of urgency and excitement. The repetition of the phrase "house rent boogie" throughout the song makes it catchy and easy to sing along to.
Overall, John Lee Hooker's House Rent Boogie is a classic blues song that captures the struggle of everyday people trying to make ends meet. The lyrics are relatable, and the music is timeless, making it a must-listen for any blues fan.
Line by Line Meaning
Hey
Hello
It's the house rent boogie
This is the song about not having rent money and having to get creative to find a way to pay it
I come home last Friday, i will tell the little woman that I lost my job
I arrived home last Friday and intended to inform my wife that I was unemployed
She says don't confront me an' so I have my rent next Friday
My wife didn't want to discuss the issue and requested that the rent be paid the following Friday
I come home next Friday come, I didn't have the rent an' out the door I went
The next Friday arrived, and unfortunately, I still didn't have the rent money and had to leave the house to avoid any confrontations
I'm going right towards the streets over here,
I am walking towards the streets to find a solution for my rent problem
Thinking i'll get this rent together
I hope to find a way to gather the funds necessary to pay my overdue rent
'Cause i can't seem to even move it and I know
I am struggling to gather the funds for rent and need help
I got this rent together, now
I've managed to put together enough money to pay my rent
Let's get on back and have a ball
Now that the rent money is available, let's go back home and celebrate
Nah, let's boogie awhile
Actually, let's celebrate and dance a little bit longer – this whole ordeal has been quite stressful!
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: BERNARD BESMAN, JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Trunk Davis
Absolute classic.
Alpha Six Five
Real Blues will never die !
a1b1c184
Timeless music. I'm not even a blues fan really but I should be. Every blues song I've heard I like.
I know this is kind of random but I really liked the music in that movie Black Snake Moan. It was "gangsta blues".
Letby Morgan
Killer tune , sustained me many times
mkrcompton
What a storyteller, biographical, no doubt.
Neil Mulholland
I may be homesless next week,but this is awesome! es
Mark Sama
How you doing, chief?
a1b1c184
I hear one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer is good for that.
ProvDog
This is my very favorite version of this song. I used to have it on cassette. Thanks for posting it! Did you get this version from a compact disc? If so, would you please tell me the title of the CD? Thanks again! ~ ProvDog
Country King
Dude I’m here to tell you about the future