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 Want You To Roll Me
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Roll me mama, I don't want no fault
I said roll me, mama roll your daddy right
Roll your daddy right
I want you to roll me roll me roll me
‘Til I don't want no more
I want you to tease me, tease me, tease me, like you tease your father doll
I said tease me, mama tease your daddy right
I want you to tease me, tease me, tease me, know honey it make me feel
I want you to roll me, roll me, roll me like you roll a wagon wheel
Roll me, roll me, roll me like I ain't got no bone
I said roll me, mama roll your daddy right
I want you to roll me, roll me, roll me out all night long got done
I want you to love me, love me, love me, like you love your baby child
Love me, love me, love me, like, honey it make me feel
‘Til my love come down
I want you to love me, love me, love me, till I don't' want no more
I want you to tease me, tease me, and tease me, like you tease your father doll
Tease me, tease me, tease me like my back ain't got no bone
I said tease me, mama tease your daddy right
I want you to tease me, tease me, till I don't want no more
John Lee Hooker's "I Want You To Roll Me" is a sensual blues song about his desire for physical affection from a woman. The lyrics feature Hooker requesting for "mama" to roll him, tease him, and love him until he can't take it no more. He uses metaphors such as "roll me like you roll a wagon wheel" to express his longing for touch, and "tease me like you tease your father doll" to evoke the playful nature of his request.
The repetitive chorus "I want you to roll me, roll me, roll me" emphasizes his desperation for attention and highlights the hypnotic quality of the blues. The song builds up to a climax, with the final lines "I want you to tease me, tease me, till I don't want no more," leaving the listener with a sense of unresolved desire.
Overall, "I Want You To Roll Me" showcases Hooker's signature raw vocals, powerful guitar riffs, and evocative lyrics that capture the essence of the blues.
Line by Line Meaning
I want you to roll me, roll me mama, roll the wagon wheel
I want you to move me around, mama, like you move a wagon wheel
Roll me mama, I don't want no fault
Move me gently, mama, without any mistakes or errors
I said roll me, mama roll your daddy right
I told you, mama, to move me properly like you move your partner
Roll your daddy right
Move your dad correctly
I want you to roll me roll me roll me / ‘Til I don't want no more
I want you to keep moving me, moving me, moving me, until I'm completely satisfied
I want you to tease me, tease me, tease me, like you tease your father doll
I want you to play with me, play with me, play with me, like you play with your toy doll
Tease me, tease me, tease me doll, how it make me feel
Tease me, tease me, tease me, baby, it makes me feel good
I want you to tease me, mama tease your daddy right
I want you to play with me properly, mama, like you play with your romantic partner
I want you to tease me, tease me, tease me, know honey it make me feel
I want you to keep playing with me, playing with me, playing with me, because it makes me feel great
I want you to roll me, roll me, roll me like you roll a wagon wheel
I want you to move me around, move me around, move me around, like you move a wagon wheel
Roll me, roll me, roll me like I ain't got no bone
Move me, move me, move me without any resistance or rigidity
I said roll me, mama roll your daddy right
I told you, mama, to move me properly like you move your partner
I want you to roll me, roll me, roll me out all night long got done
I want you to move me, move me, move me all night until we're finished
I want you to love me, love me, love me, like you love your baby child
I want you to care for me, care for me, care for me, like you care for your child
Love me, love me, love me, like, honey it make me feel / ‘Til my love come down
Care for me, care for me, care for me, because it makes me feel good, until I can't take it anymore
I want you to love me, love me, love me, till I don't' want no more
I want you to keep caring for me, caring for me, caring for me, until I'm completely satisfied
I want you to tease me, tease me, and tease me, like you tease your father doll
I want you to play with me, play with me, and play with me, like you play with your toy doll
Tease me, tease me, tease me like my back ain't got no bone
Play with me, play with me, play with me, as if I have no rigidness or resistance
I said tease me, mama tease your daddy right
I told you, mama, to play with me properly like you play with your romantic partner
I want you to tease me, tease me, till I don't want no more
I want you to keep playing with me, playing with me, until I'm completely satisfied
Contributed by Jacob K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.