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.
I'm Goin Upstairs
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And bring down all of my clothes
I'm goin' upstairs
And bring down all of my clothes
Where I go, baby, you will never know
My mother dead and gone, my father don't want me around
My mother dead and gone, my father don't want me around
You know, you know, you don't want me no more
(No, you don't)
You know, you know, baby, you don't want me no more
You can love, babe, with your younger stud, baby
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
Got a house on the water; you know I don't need no land
(Have mercy on me)
Got a house on the water; you know I don't need no land
When I'm dead and gone, bury me in the deep blue sea
Hmm, mmm, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
The lyrics of John Lee Hooker's song "I'm Going Upstairs" embody the pain of rejection and isolation. The singer declares his intention to go upstairs and bring down all of his clothes. This metaphorical action symbolizes the fact that he is leaving the woman who has rejected him and moving on with his life. He acknowledges that wherever he goes, she will never know. He then reveals that his mother has died, and his father does not want him around. He feels like he has nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
The repeated verse "You know, you know, you don't want me no more" emphasizes the sense of rejection that the singer feels. He acknowledges that the woman he loves has found a younger stud and has moved on from him. This knowledge adds to his sense of isolation and loneliness. However, the final verse serves as a closing statement for the song. The singer reveals that he has a house on the water and does not need any land. He then declares that when he dies, he wants to be buried in the deep blue sea. This verse can be interpreted as a proclamation of the singer's desire for freedom from his pain.
Line by Line Meaning
I'm goin' upstairs
I am moving upstairs
And bring down all of my clothes
I will be carrying all of my clothes downstairs
Where I go, baby, you will never know
I am leaving and you will not know where I am going
My mother dead and gone, my father don't want me around
My mother has passed and my father does not want me here
Don't you know, baby, I ain't got no place to go?
Do you not understand that I have nowhere to go?
You know, you know, you don't want me no more
You are aware that you do not want me anymore
(No, you don't)
You truly do not want me anymore
You can love, babe, with your younger stud, baby
You can be with your younger lover
Got a house on the water; you know I don't need no land
I have a house on the water and do not require any land
(Have mercy on me)
(Please show me compassion)
When I'm dead and gone, bury me in the deep blue sea
When I pass, please bury me in the ocean
Hmm, mmm, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
(Humming an indiscernible tune)
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@jekk23
This is a masterpiece from the universe ♥️
@paulhart6926
Best John Lee song. I'm blessed to know this masterpiece.
@macarius8802
AGREE .. been listening to this for decades now and never gets old!
@putziiputz9439
Still THE SONG in 2021 and will be for a long time.
@diannerussell4849
The arrangement is sensational.
@JacketsOnFire
To me, this is his best song bar none. Remember listening to this at 16. 29 now and look at past genres I’ve explored. Great song
@macarius8802
Glad others feel this way too. This never gets old. What a groove and perfect singing!
@mula92
Was für eine Masterpiece 🙏
@MrHarryFlowers
“Got a house on the water, lord I don’t need no land”
The definition of tough..
@SantosGames
This song, this masterpiece should appear in The Wolf of Wall Street