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.
Keep Your Hand to Yourself
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
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Keep your hand to yourself; she belong to me
All mine, she's all mine
Leave her alone
Hands off
Hands down
All mine
I love her
She's gonna love me
Oh, baby
Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah
Now, look, buddy; keep your hand down to yourself
It's all mine, all my property
Don't belong to you
Hands down and eyes open
Oh, baby, you're mine
Oh, baby, all mine
All mine
The lyrics of John Lee Hooker's song "She's Mine" express a man's possessive love for his romantic partner. He warns other men to keep their hands off of her because she belongs to him. The repetition of the phrase "keep your hand to yourself" emphasizes the man's desire to protect his relationship and maintain control over his partner. He describes her as "all mine" and declares his love for her, affirming that she will love him in return. The song's straightforward lyrics and simple guitar riff create a sense of urgency, making it clear that this man's love is something that cannot be denied.
The song's lyrics reflect the common theme of possessive love in blues music. It speaks to the societal norms of a patriarchal culture where men were expected to exert control over their romantic partners. This possessive love is often seen as a sign of ownership and can be linked to domestic violence. However, it is important to note that the lyrics of this song should be interpreted within the context of the time and genre it was produced.
Line by Line Meaning
Keep your hand to yourself; she belong to me
I am warning you to keep your hands off my woman because she is mine and only belongs to me
All mine, she's all mine
My woman is wholly and completely mine
Leave her alone
Stay away from my woman and do not interfere with our relationship
Hands off
Do not touch my woman or attempt to be physically affectionate with her
All mine
I possess the full ownership of my woman and she belongs to me only
She's my baby
I love and cherish my woman as if she were my own child
I love her
My feelings towards my woman are laced with love, and I cherish and treasure her deeply
She's gonna love me
I am confident that my woman loves me just as much as I love her
Oh, baby
I express my affection and endearment towards my woman
Oh, yeah
I express agreement and confirmation to the truth of the situation
Now, look, buddy; keep your hand down to yourself
Listen carefully, friend; I am warning you to keep your hands off my woman
It's all mine, all my property
My woman is completely and wholly mine, and I exercise full ownership over her
Don't belong to you
My woman is not yours to touch or interfere with
Hands down and eyes open
You should lower your hands and act with caution and awareness to the assertiveness of my warning
All mine
My woman is completely mine and does not belong to anyone else
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind