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.

Mr Lucky
John Lee Hooker Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

They call me, Mr. Lucky.
Bad luck don't follow me.
They call me, Mr. Lucky.
Bad luck don't follow me.
Evrything I touches turn to gold.
That mean I can't do no wrong.
I woke up early one mornin'.
Mr. Lucky, standin' by my bed.

I woke up early one mornin'.
Mr. Lucky, standin' by my bed.
I listened to him real closely.
This is what he said.
'You was born for good luck, Johnny.'
'Bad luck can't do you no harm.'
'You was born for good luck.'
'Bad luck can't do you no harm.'
'Keep your black cat bone and a mojo hand.
'I guarantee you'll never go wrong'.
(guitar solo & instrumental)
That's why they call me, Mr. Lucky.
Bad luck don't follow me.
That's why they call me, Mr. Lucky.
Bad luck don't follow me.

Ev'rything I touches turn to gold.
I never felt misery.

Overall Meaning

The song "Mr. Lucky" by John Lee Hooker is an ode to the idea of being lucky in life. Hooker sings about how he is referred to as Mr. Lucky and that bad luck does not follow him. He explains that everything he touches turns to gold and that he is incapable of doing anything wrong. The lyrics are a clear proclamation of Hooker's confidence in his own abilities and lock on life.

The chorus is repeated throughout the song and is a testament to Hooker's good luck. He claims that he is immune to bad luck, and he was born for good luck. He goes on to tell the listener that if they keep a black cat bone and a mojo hand, they will also have good luck.

Mr. Lucky stands by Hooker's bed telling him he was born for good luck, and he will never experience bad luck. The song's guitar solo and instrumental portion help to reinforce the power of good luck and how everything seems to fall into place when that luck is present.

Overall, "Mr. Lucky" is a song about personal success and how luck plays a significant role in one's life. It showcases Hooker's confidence and his deep faith in the power of luck.

Line by Line Meaning

They call me, Mr. Lucky.
I am known as Mr. Lucky.

Bad luck don't follow me.
I am immune to bad luck and misfortune.

Evrything I touches turn to gold.
I have a Midas touch, everything I do turns into success.

That mean I can't do no wrong.
I am infallible, I can't make any mistake.

I woke up early one mornin'.
I woke up early one morning.

Mr. Lucky, standin' by my bed.
I felt a positive aura around me, as if good luck was present.

I listened to him real closely.
I paid attention to what he had to say.

This is what he said.
And this is what he told me.

'You was born for good luck, Johnny.'
You were destined to have good fortune, Johnny.

'Bad luck can't do you no harm.'
Bad luck can't hurt or affect you in any way.

'Keep your black cat bone and a mojo hand.
To ensure good luck, carry a black cat bone and a mojo hand with you.

'I guarantee you'll never go wrong'.
I promise you'll always be protected from misfortune.

(guitar solo & instrumental)
(interlude of guitar music without lyrics)

That's why they call me, Mr. Lucky.
My good fortune and prosperity have earned me the nickname Mr. Lucky.

I never felt misery.
I have never experienced sadness, misfortune or bad luck.

Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: John Lee Hooker, Albert B Smith

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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