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21 Jun 01 - 07:08 PM (#489251) Subject: OBIT: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Mountain Dog Just heard on the radio that John Lee Hooker, the original "boogie man", has crossed over at the age of 80. Sad news. One consolation is thinking of so many other blues luminaries waiting there to welcome him back! |
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21 Jun 01 - 07:13 PM (#489254) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Shields Folk BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM |
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21 Jun 01 - 07:20 PM (#489263) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: katlaughing Oh that is sad...thanks for letting us know, MD. |
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21 Jun 01 - 07:33 PM (#489272) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Lonesome EJ Damn. He had me convinced he'd never stop. He was a great link from the beginnings of Delta Blues to modern day blues performers. The music lives on. |
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21 Jun 01 - 07:55 PM (#489298) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Steve Latimer God Bless you John. |
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21 Jun 01 - 07:59 PM (#489302) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Mountain Dog My first introduction to John Lee Hooker was through the double album "Hooker and Heat". Soon after, I went digging through the racks of used record stores looking for "rootsier" JLH recordings, but I'm still glad to have have met him the way I did. The most remarkable cuts on the Hooker and Heat LPs are those on which the potent chemistry between John Lee and harp-player Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson spontaneously combusts - and there are several of these gems. At one point, after a particularly hot workout, John Lee says with a mixture of admiration and mild astonishment: "I don't know how that boy follow me...but he do!" And you're right, LEJ, he was one of the last direct links between the era of Charlie Patton to the present. The brief elegy I heard earlier said he'd recorded over 100 albums in his career; what a legacy! |
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21 Jun 01 - 09:16 PM (#489346) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: SeanM *sigh* :^( Yet another... |
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21 Jun 01 - 09:20 PM (#489348) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: McGrath of Harlow Don't really trust anybody under sixty. Maybe 80.
John Lee confirmed that for me. |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:01 PM (#489395) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Sorcha We all "gotta leave this old world" sometime, and he had a good run. Get on with ya, John Lee, and have a good time elsewhere. |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:02 PM (#489396) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,Driveby The Great John Lee Hooker is gone, but his music will never die. Boogie Chillun' |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:09 PM (#489400) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: SDShad Look sharp up there, y'all, a blues man's comin'. Well, we all gotta cross the veil some time, but it means a lot when it comes after a life fully lived. Good on ya, John Lee. Chris |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:13 PM (#489403) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: JenEllen Singing 'Whiskey and Wimmen' tonight for you. ~Jen |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:47 PM (#489431) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Amergin Well shit...what a day...what a year... guess Carroll O'Connor died also... |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:52 PM (#489434) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,Bluebeard Rest easy, John Lee. Thanks for the music for as long as I remember. |
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22 Jun 01 - 12:02 AM (#489443) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: gus C " I heard papa tell mama, you gotta let that boy boogie woogie. He's got in 'em , it's gotta come out." It sure sounded like it all came out. God Bless you John Lee, Rest in Peace |
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22 Jun 01 - 12:05 AM (#489445) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Lin in Kansas When my son was about 15 and heavily into acid rock, heavy metal, Ozzie Osborne, etc., etc., I conned him into going to a John Lee Hooker concert with me. It totally blew him away. He still talks about it: one old black man with a guitar, sitting on stage sipping from a bottle on the floor next to his stool--and the music that came out of that man! Mr. Hooker, your music's immortal. Thanks for the memories. |
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22 Jun 01 - 01:22 AM (#489475) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: gus C What a sad day. John Lee was the last of the Mohicans, the last of the great pre-Chicago Blues men.John Lee was a force of nature like the sea or the wind. John was old when I was born. He was elderly when I first heard "Mad Man Blues", "louise", and "I Cover the Waterfront". He was ancient by the time I was legally able to order one Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer. I was relatively sure he would outlive us all before the evening news tonight. They don't make them like that anymore. I kinda wish I didn't know. I could imagine John was somewhere defying age stomping out a tune or dancing his way on to or off of the stage to the cheers of an appreciative crowd while the band plays a fanfare............JOHN LEE HOOKER, LADY'S AND GENTLEMAN, JOHN LEE HOOKER. |
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22 Jun 01 - 01:59 AM (#489489) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,.gargoyle Sad....HELL NO....there was nothing sad about his passing.
This was a great man....who "DID NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT."
There are some pretty "sick souls" calling it "sad." |
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22 Jun 01 - 02:07 AM (#489492) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: JedMarum God blessed John Lee Hooker! sad to him see him go, so glad he stayed with us and contributed so much! |
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22 Jun 01 - 02:26 AM (#489498) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: fat B****rd Years ago the "Record Mirror" featured him in the Great Unknown section, shortly after that I heard Dimples, Boom Boom and the rest. Wonderful music. I was knocked out that he received so much attention in later years. respect is definitely due and always has been. Boogie on JLH |
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22 Jun 01 - 03:17 AM (#489510) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Steve Parkes When he gets up there, he'll bring a whole new meaning to "blues harp"! Thanks for a lifetime of music and inspiration, John: the song is ended, but the melody lingers on. Steve |
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22 Jun 01 - 03:38 AM (#489514) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler UK radio news gave this good coverage this morning. Herself was particularly moved as he's always been one of her favourites. At least we'll still have the recordings. RtS ("I love the way you walk") |
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22 Jun 01 - 03:41 AM (#489515) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Peter K (Fionn) There seems to be some doubt about his origins, in the best Robert Johnson tradition. Yesterday BBC World Service gave his age as 83, but later a BBC domestic bulletin said "his age was uncertain, but between 80 and 85." I think I've heard somewhere that he was born in Mississippi,but only took up the music some years after he'd left the delta. Anyway, more than quite a few others, this death closes an era. With any luck, it will kick-start another, with retrospectives, re-releases etc, and really put blues and R&B back on the agenda. |
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22 Jun 01 - 03:44 AM (#489516) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: gus C Gargoyle, you are strange. No one said "poor John Lee". It was a full life and it should be celebrated.Death is never sad for the deceased. It is sad for the survivors. |
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22 Jun 01 - 04:04 AM (#489522) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Trevor When I was a kid of about 15 I went to see him at Birmingham Town Hall. I was completely knocked out and realised that it was HIS music, not mine! |
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22 Jun 01 - 04:31 AM (#489534) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Brian Hoskin tragically young - I could have listened for ever. |
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22 Jun 01 - 04:39 AM (#489539) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: mooman Another great talent passes on...so many in recent months. I heard it said by his biographer on the radio this morning that John Lee said: "When I die they will try to bury the blues with me. But the blues will live on..." And they will very largely thanks to you John. Thank you. mooman |
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22 Jun 01 - 05:48 AM (#489562) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,Dancing mom We saw him at a street festival in Winston-Salem around 1984 or so. He was awesome, with that energy. Goodbye, John Lee Hooker. Sharon |
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22 Jun 01 - 08:13 AM (#489621) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GMT RIP John Lee Hooker. Ya gotta bundle up an' go. |
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22 Jun 01 - 10:10 AM (#489685) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Steve Latimer John Lee Hooker had one of the very best blues voices I've ever heard. I first heard him in the Brief cameo he did in the Blues Brothers and was knocked out by the power of that voice. There sure aren't many of the originals left.
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22 Jun 01 - 10:11 AM (#489686) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Jon Freeman Copied over - Jon
Subject: Death of John Lee Hooker Hi so shocked to learn of the above. Must say I will miss him. surely must be the last of the great bluesmen. Well we will have plenty to listen to by him unlike some who left very little material. Condolences to his family/ friends if any read this page.
Subject: RE: Death of John Lee Hooker Another fine old blues man done gone.
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22 Jun 01 - 10:12 AM (#489688) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: M.Ted Here is the NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY: June 22, 2001 Blues Guitarist John Lee Hooker Dies at 83 By JON PARELES ohn Lee Hooker, the bluesman whose stark, one-chord boogies were some of the feistiest and most desolate songs of the 20th century, died yesterday in his sleep at his home in Los Altos, Calif., said his agent, Mike Kappus. He was 83. Mr. Hooker's music stayed close to its Mississippi Delta roots. Usually playing an electric guitar with a menacing hint of distortion, he picked barbed, syncopated guitar riffs that went on to become cornerstones of rock. Electrified for tough urban crowds, they harked back to the rural South and to West Africa. "I don't play a lot of fancy guitar," he once told an interviewer. "The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean, mean licks." And with his deep, implacable voice, he sang of lust and loneliness, rage and despair in songs so bleak that they sometimes made him cry behind his dark glasses. "No matter what anybody says, it all comes down to the same thing," he once said. "A man and a woman, a broken heart and a broken home." Mr. Hooker's songs stoked the blues-rock of the 1960's. They were picked up by English and American rockers, among them the Rolling Stones, Canned Heat, the Animals and, later, Z Z Top and George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Mr. Hooker estimated that he recorded more than 100 albums, and he toured everywhere from juke joints to concert halls. Mr. Hooker was born Aug. 17, 1917, near Clarksdale, Miss. He was one of 11 children in a sharecropper family on a cotton plantation. His father was a minister, and he learned gospel songs in church. But he learned the blues and the beat he called the "country boogie" from his stepfather, William Moore. The bluesmen Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton were among the visitors to the Moore household; Mr. Hooker also learned from other Mississippi musicians and from phonograph records. He started playing on strings made from strips of inner tube nailed to a barn, then moved on to the guitar. As a teenager, he ran away to become a musician. "I was young and had a lot of nerve," he said in an interview with David S. Rotenstein. "I knew I would get nowhere down in Mississippi and I ran away by night. I thought for sure I was gonna make it." Mr. Hooker made his way to Memphis, where he worked as an usher in the segregated W. C. Handy movie theater on Beale Street. He soaked up more blues playing with musicians like Robert Nighthawk before heading farther north. In Cincinnati at the end of the 1930's, he sang with gospel groups, including the Fairfield Four and the Big Six, and in 1943 he moved to Detroit. There, he worked in steel and automobile factories and played in the blues clubs. Mr. Hooker made his first recordings in 1948 for Sensation Records, and he almost immediately had rhythm-and-blues hits, beginning with "Boogie Chillun," a guitar-driven tour of the Detroit ghetto. In the song, the narrator reminisces: "One night I was layin' down/I heard Mama and Papa talkin'/I heard Papa tell Mama,/Let that boy boogie-woogie/It's in him and it got to come out!" Soon he quit his job to play the blues full time. Evading exclusive recording contracts, Mr. Hooker's label leased his recordings under pseudonyms, including Delta John, John Lee Booker, Birmingham Sam and His Magic Guitar, The Boogie Man and Texas Slim. Although Mr. Hooker played clubs with a band, he often recorded solo, stomping his foot for a beat. He continued to make hits under his name, including "Crawling Kingsnake Blues," "Hobo Blues," "I'm in the Mood" (a million-selling single in 1951), "Dimples" and, in 1962, "Boom Boom." By then, he had moved to Chess Records, then to Vee-Jay Records, a Chicago label, and was recording with full bands. Mr. Hooker was discovered by collegiate crowds during the blues revival, and switched in the early 1960's to the solo acoustic guitar format that pleased the folkies. But rock musicians soon latched on to his electric boogie, and during the 1970's he recorded with Canned Heat and Van Morrison. He moved to northern California, forming bands with local musicians. He appeared as a street musician in the movie "The Blues Brothers." Mr. Hooker's career was revitalized in 1989 when he recorded "The Healer" (Chameleon Records) with guest musicians who included Carlos Santana, Los Lobos and Robert Cray. Its new version of "I'm in the Mood," a duet with Bonnie Raitt, received a Grammy Award. Yesterday, Ms. Raitt said in a statement: "I'm deeply saddened by the loss of my dear friend and one of the last and greatest of the original Delta bluesmen. John Lee's power and influence in the world of Rock, R & B, Jazz and Blues are a legacy that will never die. Getting to know and work with him these last 30 years has truly been one of the great joys of my life. I'm so very grateful to have known him, and know that he went not in pain, truly loved and appreciated the world round." "When I was a child he was the first circus I wanted to run away with," Mr. Santana, the guitarist, said of Mr. Hooker. "He, Jimmy Reed and Lightnin' Hopkins were the foundation for all of my music." Mr. Hooker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and received a tribute concert at Madison Square Garden with performances by Ms. Raitt, Gregg Allman, Bo Diddley and others. Although he announced he would retire from touring in the mid-1990's, he continued to record until 1997 with many other guest musicians for Pointblank/Virgin Records, and received two more Grammy awards in 1997 for his album "Don't Look Back" (Best Traditional Blues Album) and for a duet with Mr. Morrison (Best Pop Collaboration). A compilation from his 1989-1997 albums, "The Best of Friends," was released by Virgin in 1998. In 1997, Mr. Hooker bought a San Francisco club to present the blues, calling it John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room. Through five decades of recording and countless collaborators, Mr. Hooker maintained the Delta style. "I just got smarter and added things on to mine," he once said, "but I got the same bottom, the same beat that I've always had. I'd never change that, 'cause if I change that, I wouldn't be John Lee Hooker any more." Mr. Hooker is survived by eight children: Francis McBee Hooker, Diane Hooker-Roan, Zakiya Hooker Bell, John Lee Hooker Jr., Robert Hooker, Shyvonne Hooker, Karen Hooker and Lavetta Williams. He is also survived by a nephew, Archie Hooker; 19 grandchildren; and numerous great-grandchildren. |
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22 Jun 01 - 11:53 AM (#489753) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,Superdad As I sit at this keyboard, I've got a plain white towel sitting on a stack of records, that John Lee used in a performance in Montreal some years ago that my son attended. At the end of the evening, John Lee threw Dave the towel. It's a true souvenir from a legend. David aka superdad |
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22 Jun 01 - 12:36 PM (#489786) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Clinton Hammond John... I'll see you after! 'Till then, give 'me hell eh! |
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22 Jun 01 - 12:48 PM (#489797) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Mudlark A powerful man...powerful music. We were so lucky to have him. |
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22 Jun 01 - 03:31 PM (#489902) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Peter K (Fionn) Thanks for pasting the obit in, M Ted. Trevor, I assume you're the Trevor in or around Shrewsbury, so that would be second-city Birmingham rather than Birmingham Alabama (or anywhere else)? |
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22 Jun 01 - 04:40 PM (#489935) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: chip a Saw him in Boston in "65 or so. What a show! He just sat there on his stool and mesmerized the whole house. Rock on John. |
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22 Jun 01 - 05:05 PM (#489952) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,Nick I saw him at a music festival in Boston in 1999. Maybe his last show on the East Coast. It was incredible. About 20,000 fans, all on their feet dancing to his boogie. Simply put, he was the best and will be sorely missed. I also just finished his biography. It seems that there are a lot of cuts that were meant to be included in his recent CD's but didn't make the grade. I expect that they'll be released soon. |
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22 Jun 01 - 05:58 PM (#489991) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Justa Picker One of my all time favorite bluesmen. I'll miss him (he says as he reaches for a copy of "Mr. Lucky" and inserts into CD player.) |
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22 Jun 01 - 06:08 PM (#490000) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,R. pepperdine I'm in complete shock, I just now started to get into his music. God bless him for his music and delightful soul. PEP |
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22 Jun 01 - 06:29 PM (#490013) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Quincy God Bless.... Yvonne |
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22 Jun 01 - 06:31 PM (#490014) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Jon Freeman Copied over from another (now marked duplicate) thread - Jon
Subject: let's pay our respects to JOHN LEE! Well, Well... it seemed like it would never happen, like he'd survive everything and everyone, like the blues itself... goodbye boogie man!
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22 Jun 01 - 06:36 PM (#490020) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: gnu A tear... and a smile. Thanks John. |
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22 Jun 01 - 11:24 PM (#490154) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: Coyote Breath He was so complete a bluesman, he seemed as though he'd been invented. And so he was, by his life and his love of the music.
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23 Jun 01 - 04:50 AM (#490238) Subject: RE: John Lee Hooker passes on... From: GUEST,.gargoyle Fionn...it is hard to imagine such an idiot reigning supreme ...anywhere but the MudCat.
How can you "start a whole new" when your examples are nothing but repetition. Let me guess, you are an "example of the British Public School System." Thank God for the Americas!!!! |