John Lee Hooker (Coahoma County, Mississippi, August 22, 1917 – Los Altos,… Read Full Bio ↴John Lee Hooker (Coahoma County, Mississippi, August 22, 1917 – Los Altos, California, June 21, 2001) was a highly influential American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter.

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 Need Some Money
John Lee Hooker Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

The best thing in life is free,but you can give it to the birds an' bees
I need some money, need some money
Oh, yeah, what I want
Your love gimme such a thrill,but your lovin' don' t pay my bills
I need some money, need some money
Oh, yeah, what I want
I need some money, honey
I need some money right away

I need some money bad
I need some money
Oh, yeah, what I want
Money don't get ever'thing it's true
But what it don't buy, daddy, I can't use
I need money, I need money, yeah
What I want
(I need some money, honey
I need some money so bad
All o' my bills behind
I need some money right now
I know your love is good, baby)
I need some money, oh yeah

What I want
What I want

Overall Meaning

In John Lee Hooker's song "I Need Some Money," the singer expresses his desires for the financial stability that love cannot bring. He recognizes that while love may be free, it cannot pay his bills or debts. Hooker repeats the phrase "I need some money" throughout the song, emphasizing the urgency and desperation he feels for financial security. This also presents a sad contrast between the power of love and the power of money over his life.

In the line "Money don't get ever'thing it's true, but what it don't buy, daddy, I can't use," Hooker acknowledges that money is not everything in life, perhaps suggesting that he values love as well but realizes that it cannot solve every problem. However, he ultimately concludes that he needs money to survive and achieve his goals.

Overall, "I Need Some Money" is a lament on the importance of money in our lives and how it can often overshadow other aspects of life such as love and happiness. It tells the story of a struggling individual who understands the limitations of love and recognizes the need for material stability.

Line by Line Meaning

The best thing in life is free, but you can give it to the birds an' bees
Although things in life might not cost anything, it is still not useful as it cannot be converted into money that is required for survival.

I need some money, need some money
The singer is voicing their desire and requirement for money.

Your love gimme such a thrill, but your lovin' don' t pay my bills
Although the love of the singer's partner is enjoyable, it is of no financial help to them and they still need sufficient funds to pay their bills.

I need some money, honey
Once again, the artist is stressing their need for money.

I need some money right away
The artist is in urgent need of money.

I need some money bad
The singer's financial situation is in dire straits, and they require money urgently.

Money don't get ever'thing it's true, but what it don't buy, daddy, I can't use
Though money may not be able to buy everything, there are still things that money can buy without which the singer cannot survive.

I need money, I need money, yeah, what I want
The artist is emphasizing their requirement for money.

(I need some money, honey, I need some money so bad
The artist continues to express their need and urgency for money.

All o' my bills behind, I need some money right now
The artist is far behind on their bills and needs money immediately to overcome their financial problems.

I know your love is good, baby)
The singer appreciates and acknowledges the love of their partner, but despite this love, they still need money to survive and pay their bills.

I need some money, oh yeah, what I want, what I want
The artist reiterates their need and desire for money to fulfill their financial requirements.

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Peermusic Publishing
Written by: PAUL EMMANUEL ROBINSON, RAMON NOVA

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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