John Lee Hooker

John had six brothers and four sisters. During his childhood, the family moved to another farm on a banana plantation, where he met the blues musicians Snooky Pryor and Jimmy Rogers. In 1928, his parents separated, and John was the only child who remained with his mother.Hooker's mother remarried William Moore, a local blues musician, who taught John to play the guitar at thirteen years old. Hooker remembered that, thanks to Moore, he met legendary figures such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton, who visited his home.In 1931, Hooker decided to migrate northward to the industrial north, following the example of many African Americans from the south.

He first settled in Memphis, where he lived with an aunt, worked in local cinemas, and played with Robert Lockwood. In 1935, he moved to Cincinnati, where he alternated between jobs as a bootblack and a usher in theaters with performances in gospel groups. After a period in the army, he moved to Detroit during World War II in 1943, where he found work in the automotive industry and supplemented his income by singing in suburban bars. In Detroit, he married twice and had six children with his second wife, Maude Mathis.Hooker's music career took off in 1948 with the success of the single "Boogie Chillen", performed in a semi-spoken style that became his signature.

His music was rhythmically free, a common characteristic among the first acoustic blues musicians of the Delta. His phrasing did not conform to the usual standards of blues singers. Although this informal style gradually faded with the emergence of Chicago's electric blues bands, Hooker maintained his unique sound even when he did not play solo.In 1955, he ended his contract with Modern Records and signed with Vee Jay, a Chicago-based company that released the classics Dimples and Boom Boom. Despite this, he continued his solo career, remaining popular among blues and folk fans in the early 1960s, which allowed him to reach also a white audience.