YEAR
1991
INDUCTED BY
Bonnie Raitt
CATEGORY
Performers
Funky. Mesmerizing. Prehistoric. Timeless. John Lee Hooker is in a league of his own.
The mean licks, the gruff voice and the rumbling funk are all part of the mysterious figure that is John Lee Hooker. He got his start in the Forties and chugged along for the rest of his life, picking up a Grammy at the ripe age of 81.
John Lee Hooker
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By John Milward
The blues according to John Lee Hooker is a propulsive drone of a guitar tuned to open G, a foot stomping out a beat that wouldn’t know how to quit, and a bear of a voice that knows its way around the woods. He plays big-city, big-beat blues born in the Mississippi Delta. Blame it on the boogie, and you’re blaming it on John Lee Hooker.
Without the music of John Lee Hooker, Jim Morrison wouldn’t have known of crawling kingsnakes, and George Thorogood wouldn’t have ordered up “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”
