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.
Mambo Chillun
John Lee Hooker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Mambo, baby
I didn't care if mama didn't allow me
I goin' to mambo in da house
Beat there, baby, Mambo wit' you baby
All night long, Mambo wit'chu baby
Mambo don't lie, lie me to mama
I don't care; Mambo don't lie
I heard papa told my mama
Let the boy Mambo all night long
Mama told papa, boy can't Mambo!
I don't care; Mambo don't care
I goin' to mambo, I goin' to mambo
Mambo now
Mambo chillun
Last night, baby, night before
I did this to mama
Mama didn't know what my papa did
I didnt care what Mambo did to me
Who did mama in da house
Do the Mambo, yeah, do the Mambo
All night long, baby, do the Mambo
I love to do the Mambo
I love to do the Mambo
I love to do the Mambo
Baby, all night long
The lyrics to John Lee Hooker's song Mambo Chillun are about a young man who is determined to dance the mambo in the house, even though his parents disapprove. He is so passionate about the dance that he does not care about the consequences of going against his parents' wishes. In the first verse, he says that Mambo allows him to dance and he is going to do it no matter what. He wants to dance with his partner all night long and is willing to lie to his parents to do it.
Then, he talks about how his father allowed him to mambo all night long, but his mother didn't want him to dance. The boy does not care and will do it anyway. He also mentions that Mama did not know what his father was doing the night before, implying that his father was also dancing the mambo behind Mama's back.
Overall, the song is about the joy and passion of dancing, even in the face of disapproval. It speaks to the rebellious spirit of youth and the power of music and dance to break down barriers.
Line by Line Meaning
Mambo allow me
Mambo, give me permission
Mambo, baby
Mambo, my dear
I didn't care if mama didn't allow me
I didn't mind if my mother didn't permit me
I goin' to mambo in da house
I'm going to dance the Mambo in the house
Beat there, baby, Mambo wit' you baby
Dance together, my dear, Mambo with you
All night long, Mambo wit'chu baby
All night long, dance the Mambo with you, my dear
Mambo don't lie, lie me to mama
Mambo never deceives, don't deceive my mother
I don't care; Mambo don't lie
I don't care, Mambo is honest
I be there, baby, Mambo wit' you lie
I'll be there, my dear, to dance the Mambo with you
I heard papa told my mama
I heard my father telling my mother
Let the boy Mambo all night long
Allow the boy to dance the Mambo all night long
Mama told papa, boy can't Mambo!
Mother told father, the boy can't dance the Mambo
I don't care; Mambo don't care
I don't mind, Mambo doesn't mind
I goin' to mambo, I goin' to mambo
I'm going to dance the Mambo, I'm going to dance the Mambo
Mambo now
Dance the Mambo now
Mambo chillun
Children, dance the Mambo
Last night, baby, night before
Last night, my dear, and the night before
I did this to mama
I did this to my mother
Mama didn't know what my papa did
Mother didn't know what father did
I didnt care what Mambo did to me
I didn't mind what Mambo did to me
Who did mama in da house
Who is dancing with mother in the house
Do the Mambo, yeah, do the Mambo
Dance the Mambo, yeah, dance the Mambo
All night long, baby, do the Mambo
All night long, my dear, dance the Mambo
I love to do the Mambo
I love to dance the Mambo
Baby, all night long
My dear, all night long
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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