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.
How Long
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Deep down in my heart, baby, feel an achin' pain
How long, oh, baby, how long?
Baby, how long, baby, how long
Has that evenin' train been gone?
How long, oh, baby, how long?
If I could holler like a mountain jack
How long, oh, baby, how long?
I could see the green grass
Growin' up on the hill
But you can't see a green-black drawin' on a
On a dollar bill
Baby, how long?
Baby, how long?
How long, baby, how long
Has that evenin' train been gone?
Baby, how long, oh baby, how long?
Baby, how long, oh baby, how long?
The lyrics of John Lee Hooker's "How Long?" convey a sense of heartache and loss. The singer is standing at the train station, feeling a deep pain in his heart as the train passes by, symbolizing the departure of his loved one. He laments, asking "how long" the train has been gone, wishing that he could call his lover back like a "mountain jack" if he had the ability to be heard over the distance.
The lyrics are rich with imagery, and the contrast between the "green grass growin' up on the hill" and the image of a "green-black drawing on a dollar bill" is particularly striking. This contrast emphasizes the stark difference between the natural world and the artificiality of modern life, where money takes precedence over the beauty of nature.
This song reflects the themes that are common in blues music, such as love, loss, and heartache. The repetition of the phrase "how long" adds a sense of urgency to the song, as the singer is desperate to understand the length of his separation from his loved one. The use of repetition also creates a sense of emotional intensity in the song, as though the singer is caught in an endless cycle of longing and pain.
Line by Line Meaning
Standin' at the station when the train come by
I am at the station waiting for a train to arrive.
Deep down in my heart, baby, feel an achin' pain
My heart is aching with sadness and longing.
How long, oh, baby, how long?
How much time has passed? How much longer do I have to wait?
Baby, how long, baby, how long
My feeling of sadness and longing is directed towards a loved one.
Has that evenin' train been gone?
Has the train I am waiting for already left?
If I could holler like a mountain jack
If I had the voice and strength of a mountain man, I would call out to my loved one.
I'd go up on the mountain, call my baby back
I would climb a mountain to call out to my loved one and bring them back.
I could see the green grass
I can see the natural beauty around me.
Growin' up on the hill
I see grass growing on the hills nearby.
But you can't see a green-black drawin' on a
However, I cannot see the value or meaning behind having money.
On a dollar bill
A dollar bill, a symbol of wealth and financial power.
Baby, how long?
My feeling of sadness and longing towards my loved one persists.
Baby, how long?
I am still waiting for my loved one and feeling sad and alone.
How long, baby, how long
I am still waiting for a sign that my loved one will return to me.
Has that evenin' train been gone?
I still wonder if the train I am waiting for has already passed me by.
Baby, how long, oh baby, how long?
My love and longing for my loved one continue to grow.
Baby, how long, oh baby, how long?
I am still waiting for a sign that my loved one will return to me.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: LEROY AUTHUR CARR
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Jenny L.
I "Santa" ed myself this vinyl for Christmas. Merry Christmas to me.
billysaz1
I had one of his tape cassettes in the 9's this tune was on it with a bunch of others that I really dug. I don;t recall if this was the album..
Francois Froge
♥♥♥