John Lee Hooker leaves immortal legacy

Brown Burnett We’ll start with the fact that when I heard of John Lee Hooker’s death I looked for an album or CD of his and discovered to my amazement I didn’t have a single one. Not one. I’ve been reviewing music for many years. I own and have owned thousands of albums and CD’s, so this was a great mystery to me. After pondering it for a while I finally figured it out. John Lee Hooker left such a large footprint on American and British rock and pop music, it’s hard to NOT listen to his music, through the works of his disciples. His trademark boogie beat has been a pop staple for decades - the Animals, the Doors, ZZ Top, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Canned Heat – a seminal sound that survives generation after generation. Also, in his later years, countless pop and rock musicians paid tribute to John Lee with guest spots on shows and his albums. The man did not suffer from underexposure. He was everywhere and will continue to BE everywhere through his music. I didn’t NEED John Lee Hooker recordings. His music was already all around me. The Friday night after he died, I called John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom Room in San Francisco to get some atmosphere. Born in Clarksdale, Ms., musically schooled on Beale Street in Memphis (don’t ALL blues musicians pass through Memphis?), he gained his fame while in Detroit. But Hooker lived in the San Francisco area and his Boom Boom Room was, of course, a favorite haunt of his. I was told that the marquee out front said, "John Lee, we’ll miss you." Television crews from all over the world began arriving and hovering. The music world was in its second day of mourning and this had become its center. Inside, John Lee’s favorite booth was roped off and filled with flowers. There were candles and photos of the blues giant as the 700-plus who packed the club honored their hero as best they could. And this continued all weekend. By coincidence, one of his oldest friends, singer Alberta Adams, also from Detroit, had been booked there for the weekend and had planned to see the man she had known since the 40’s. She took the stage Friday night and, in a most emotional moment, said, "John Lee Hooker was supposed to meet at the club for coffee today and come to my show tonight. I was just getting ready to call him and let him know I was here when I received a phone call telling me he’d passed." The crowd got very quiet for a moment. "I can’t believe it, so please bear with me," she said. Then applause erupted and the amazing Alberta Adams gave an equally amazing show in tribute to her friend of more than a half a century. Another of our musical giants has fallen to time, but eighty years is a good run by anyone’s standards. He left behind a huge catalog, spanning more than 50 years. And all his friends got to tell him goodbye over the past decade or so, whether it be Keith Richards, or Carlos Santana or Bonnie Raitt on one of the latter tribute albums – or his old friend Alberta Adams, with his fans, in his favorite club in his hometown. Immortality now belongs to John Lee Hooker.