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.
Louise Louise
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
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Louise, you the sweetest gal I know
Yeah, you made me walk from Chicago, baby
Down to the Gulf of Mexico
Now, look a-here, Louise
Now, what you tryin' to do?
You tryin' to make me love you
Whoa, Louise, baby, that will never do
Yeah, you know you can't love Big Bill, baby
And love some other man too
Louise, I believe
Somebody been fishin' in my pond
They been catchin' all my perches
Grinding up the bone
Whoa, Louise, baby, why don't you hurry home?
Yeah, you know, you know, Louise
I ain't had no lovin', not since you been gone
Louise, you know you got ways
Like a rattlesnake and a squirrel
Now, when you start the lovin'
I declare, it's out of this world
Whoa, Louise, baby, why don't you hurry home?
Yes, I ain't had no lovin', baby
Not since my Louise been gone
Louise, the big boat's up the river
Now she's on a bag of sand
Now she don't strike deep water
I declare, she'll never land
Whoa, Louise, baby, why don't you hurry home?
Yeah, you know, you know, Louise
I ain't had no lovin', not since you been gone
John Lee Hooker’s song, “Louise Louise,” tells the story of a man named Big Bill who is deeply in love with a woman named Louise. He describes Louise as the sweetest gal he knows and she made him walk from Chicago down to the Gulf of Mexico. However, Big Bill suspects that Louise is seeing another man, and he tells her she can’t love another man while loving him. He also believes someone else has been “fishing in his pond” and catching all his “perches,” grinding up the bone. He wants Louise to hurry home because he hasn’t had any loving since she left, and he misses her very much.
The lyrics in this song are straightforward, but they convey strong feelings of love, jealousy, and longing. Despite Big Bill suspecting Louise of seeing another man, he is still deeply in love with her and wants her to return to him. The imagery in the song of walking from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico emphasizes the hard journey he had to go through for love. Similarly, the reference to fish and perches in the song conveys the idea of someone intruding into what belongs to you, even if it is intangible, such as love.
Line by Line Meaning
Louise, you the sweetest gal I know
Louise, you are the most kind and loving person I have ever met
Yeah, you made me walk from Chicago, baby, down to the Gulf of Mexico
You compelled me to take a long and arduous journey from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico
Now, what you tryin' to do? You tryin' to make me love you and you love some other man too
Louise, are you attempting to entice me to love you while you have romantic interests elsewhere?
Whoa, Louise, baby, that will never do. Yeah, you know you can't love Big Bill, baby, and love some other man too
Louise, this behavior is unacceptable. You cannot simultaneously have a romantic relationship with Big Bill while also being with me
Louise, I believe somebody been fishin' in my pond. They been catchin' all my perches, grinding up the bone
I suspect that someone has been taking advantage of me and reaping the rewards of my hard work, leaving me with nothing but scraps
Whoa, Louise, baby, why don't you hurry home? Yeah, you know, you know, Louise, I ain't had no lovin', not since you been gone
Louise, please come back to me as soon as possible. I have been without any affection or love since you left
Louise, you know you got ways like a rattlesnake and a squirrel. Now, when you start the lovin', I declare, it's out of this world
Louise, you have a distinct charm and allure that is both mysterious and captivating. Your affection is like nothing else
Louise, the big boat's up the river, now she's on a bag of sand. Now she don't strike deep water, I declare, she'll never land
Louise, the boat that symbolizes our relationship is stuck and going nowhere. It seems it will never reach its intended destination
Whoa, Louise, baby, why don't you hurry home? Yeah, you know, you know, Louise, I ain't had no lovin', not since you been gone
Louise, please come back to me as soon as possible. I have been without any affection or love since you left
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
John Bouttell
The big boat's up the river, she's on a bag of sand, she don't strike deep water, she'll never land
LLJ Nail53
to south....