John Lee Hooker

"The Blues is Our Trademark"

Transcription of a videotaped interview with John Lee Hooker
Traveler's Inn Lodge, San Carlos, California, December 16, 1986
Interview conducted by James A. Standifer and Maxwell O. Reade
Tape running time: 71 mins., 37 secs.
Transcription by Randy K. Schwartz

S = Standifer
R = Reade
H = Hooker

S We're in Redwood City --
H We're in San Carlos now.

S Oh great, Mr. Hooker just told me we're in San Carlos, not in Redwood City. We were in Redwood City.
R We're in California, that's all you have to know.

S We're in San Carlos, California talking to Mr. John Lee Hooker. This is December 16, around 5:30. John Lee, first of all tell us, why are we in the Traveler's Inn Lodge?
H Well, why we here -- at least why I'm here, and why y'all here too -- because I'm in the process of moving into my new home. Which I have sold my other home which was very nice, and bought just a little bigger place. And so I'm here until I'm able to move into my new place, which will be around next month, er... the 27th of this month sometime.

S Is this new place here in San Carlos, or in the area?
H No, it's close by. It's in Redwood City Shores, which is a very nice area. It's not no stores, no town, nothing around, it's a residential place. It's about, oh 4-5 minutes from town by car, or walkin' by feet about 15 minutes from here in this city, or like shopping areas. But it's quiet and laid back, which I do like. When I'm off the road, I wanna place that I can come and just kick back and rest, and don't hear cars all night long runnin' and blowin' their horns, and people walkin' and hollerin' and bright lights. And just, I can come home from the road and rest, and just peace of mind and kick back.

S How many rooms do you have in there?
H Oh, three bedrooms, enough for the moment.

S Are you gonna live there by yourself, or do you have any other --
H No, I'm, uh, divorced, but I got a housekeeper that live there. She keeps the house.

S Where's your wife, your former wife?
H Well, she's in L.A., my last wife. I been married two or three times.

"There come that singing kid!"

S You have any children by any of those marriages?
H Yeah, I have children by Maude, my wife I was with for many years.

S Is that your first wife?
H No, second wife [married 1943]. I been married three times.

S And that's Maude, you say? M-A-U-D-E?
H Right. Martella.

S And what do you have -- how many children by her?
H If my memory serve me right, six.

S Mm. Girls, boys, or some of each?
H Well, some of each. Three girls and -- no, four girls, and two boys.

S Who's the oldest, the son or the daughters?
H The daughters, Diane.

S Is any one of them following your steps? In other words --
H Well, they started out real good, real good musicians. Robert was a really good musician, pianist and guitar, and he had the talent and he had the voice. And he dropped down and he took up the church. Y'know, he was in church. And then the next was my oldest boy, [John] Junior, and he started out, he was a heck of a singer, good comedian, and then he turned over and went into the church, y'know. So...

S Do they sing gospel music in the church?
H Yeah.

S Do any of them play guitar?
H Pardon me?

S Do any of them play guitar?
H Yeah, Robert do. Robert play guitar, piano and organ. Junior was just a singer. Y'know, I found that in these days, a lot of the tender, young and old, they turnin' from the blues and from the rock, y'know, and goin' into the church as ministers. Like Al Green and Little Richard, and a whole -- there's a bunch of them. Y'know...

S Is that good or bad?
H Well, it's just the way they want, it's good if they want it. Y'know, it's good. It's what -- they sure ain't doing nothing wrong, y'know...

S It also happens the other way, doesn't it? For example, did you get your first singing experience in the church, or --
H Yeah, I was gonna lead right around to that. I used to be one of the greatest gospel singers in the world, at the age of 12 years old. I used to sing with a group called the Fairfield Four. And I used to come into church, people say, "Well, there come that singing kid!" And we'd walk on the stand, the four of us. We'd walk in and people start hollerin'. They say, "That kid" -- I was the leader -- they say, "That kid can really sing," and people be shoutin' and hollerin', y'know.

S What denomination was this? Baptist or --
H Yes.

S It seems the Baptist Church has nurtured a lot of blues singers. In fact, I was talking to Alberta Hunter before she died. She said when she was a girl, she sang in the church like that. Do you think -- why do you suppose so many of the older -- when I say "older" blues singers, these are over 50 -- seem to have started by singing in the church?
H Well, it's something that me and you neither one can pinpoint.

S Maybe the opportunities were there --
H Yeah.

S -- more than the other clubs and --
H Aretha Franklin used to be in the church --

S Yeah --
H -- and she's not an old person. And her dad [Rev. C. L. Franklin] was, you know, a great minister --

S Right.
H And my dad was a minister.

S Oh, really? Baptist minister?
H Yeah. I had a brother who was a minister.

S And now what do you think [your father] he'd think of you now, when you became a blues singer? What did he think about that?
H Well, he didn't say anything about it. He just --

S Were they pleased about it?
H Well, he say "Well, it's whatever you want to do. Whatever makes you happy." He didn't down me. Matter of fact, he was happy of me, very happy when I become famous. But he never -- he lived to know I got famous, but he didn't never really seen me do that.

Going to Sleep with Guitar in Hand

S I ask that question because so often, at least thinking of my childhood, if you were a blues singer or you sang in the nightclubs, well first of all you had a reputation, and the preachers very often felt that that was the den, y'know "the den of iniquity."
H Well, my father felt that way too, but y'know he -- my father was very lenient, very out front. He didn't approve of it and he didn't dislike it. He told me, he said "Well, if that's what you wanna do, I can't stop you." He didn't down me and didn't dominate me or put me down, but it was something that, he said "I wouldn't do." He didn't approve of it, but he didn't dominate. And I went to live with my mother -- which they, my mother and father [Minnie Ramsey and William Hooker] wasn't together, they broke up -- and I remember there was a guitar player Will Moore [his step-father]. And he taught me how to play guitar.

S Is that who you bought your first guitar [from]?
H I didn't buy it, he give it to me.

S How old were you then?
H Oh, about 12, 13.

S Did you start pickin' on it yourself before he started giving you lessons?
H Yeah, well, I listened to him play. I was ready to pick up on things.

S But would you consider yourself self-taught, or do you say that you learned from your step-father?
H I figure myself self-taught.

S Why?
H Well, but I would listen to him, and he just spent too much time teaching me and showing me things that I would go on my own. I would play night and day with it. I would go to bed with it in my arms and I wake up with it in my arms.

S Now of course this was acoustic guitar. You didn't turn to electric 'til way, way down the road?
H No, I didn't know what electric guitar was.

S Probably at that time there weren't that many around anyway, were there?
H I don't think there was any. I didn't see none [chuckling]. 'Til after I had old Stella.

S Aha. Were you singing blues -- how old were you at that time?
H I repeat, around 12 or 13.

S Okay. Were there any famous blues singers that you had heard and you tried to imitate, or you had --
H Oh, many I'd heard of.

S Which ones did you like most and tried to be like, if any?
H Well, you take, uh, I heard Blind Lemon [Jefferson]. I heard Charley Patton and Leroy Carr, they was my two favorites. And you probably never heard of them, but --

S Yes, I have --
H -- but Leroy Carr and Charley Patton, they was my two favorites at that time. And I heard Blind Blake and I heard all -- but Charley Patton and Leroy Carr were more bluesy, they were so bluesy. Leroy Carr played piano. I remember that song I liked to play all the time by him, I liked this song:

"Early one morning the blues come falling down."

And,
"All I can do is hang my head and cry, Cause I know my baby she is gone."

S Are those the verses to that song?
H Yeah, I don't know all the song now. I used to know it all.

"The blues is not built upon a perfect frame."

S You know, that reminds me. When I listen to you, sometimes you sing and you rhyme, other times you don't. And I noticed it that time, you know like the 12-bar blues and how, y'know, the first two lines rhyme and then the last one -- like you know,

"Bed bug sho' is evil, that doesn't mean me no good,
Bed bug sho' is evil, they don't mean me no good,
Thinks I'm a woodpecker and he's a chunk of wood."

All that's rhyming. Do you prefer to be more natural by not rhyming, or do you do a little bit of both?
H I do it intentionally.

S Oh-h-h.
H Because that's the way people, that's the way people preach at me, y'know? I can rhyme anything that I want to rhyme, and when I want to rhyme. But if I got real perfect in it then he -- I wouldn't be doubtin' he go okay, well it was something wrong with me.

S Do you prefer the 12-bar blues form?
H No. I just play. Well, what's 7, 8, 9 -- that's the way the blues was built upon. The blues is not built upon a perfect frame. I repeat like I did to this man: people that go to school and learn only in a book, that's perfect but that's not the real blues. The real blues is come from when you got something on your mind and you're hurtin'. And you ain't got to be poor and hungry to have the blues; rich people have the blues. When it come up outta there, the hurtin' [he snaps a finger] come out. That's the real-born blues from the birth. And even [when] Adam was born, this world was start to rockin' with sin and misery.

S But why do you say now, "you don't have to be hurtin' to have the blues"? [Sic: John Lee's point was not that blues don't come from hurting, but that they can come from other kinds of hurting than poverty.] On the one hand, in fact I just read in this book you said, "What I sing about I've felt, and I've lived." Are you saying that you don't have to --
H Whoah, sometimes people write things that you don't say.

S I see, so you might not have said that? In other words, you don't have to get a broken leg to know that it hurts, huh?
H No!

S You can sing about the blues without having had them?
H Oh, yeah. Or y'know, I've had heartaches from women, but I never went hungry a day in my life.

S Now you said heartaches from women. You think -- is that what makes the blues the blues? Women doing men wrong, or --
H Well, that doesn't make the blues anything. It ain't the women doing the men -- the men, it's on both sides. There's a side to the story, the men doing the women, but the women sing the blues, too. Because their man mistreated -- you know, women hurt too. They loves, too. But a man, while he's a-hurtin' in women, women are hurtin' and holding it within. But a man -- well the whole world got the blues now. You can have this house, or a room full of money, and still have the blues. Because you can't hug that money at night, you can't kiss that money at night, you can't talk to it and say "baby." It's only material stuff. It gets what you want in life, but [slapping a thigh for emphasis] it can't buy love.

S Well, how did the blues help you, though, in that? Are you saying that you can use the blues to talk about those things?
H Well, you can use the blues as a scapegoat. You know, when you hurtin', you can sing the blues to ease your troubled mind.

S Oh, I see.
H I get my guitar and just play the blues.

S Did you say men hurt more easily than women?
H Sure.

S Why?
H Well, a woman is stronger than a man. A woman is powerful as an atomic bomb. She carries a heck of a weapon, she carries a heck of a punch. You take a -- a woman, she knows that she can go out there and get a man, sometimes more easily than you want to get the woman that you want, and the woman can go out there and she can get this man's money. And a woman just carries a bigger punch than a man. So you know, they can -- they may be hurtin' but they not gonna hurt bad as a man, or you, or somethin' like that. But you know what I'm sayin', you've been around, you seen people hurtin', feelin' her heartache, maybe some of your friends. You may believe that you have seen them when they hurtin'. And no matter how much money they have, their money ain't makin' 'em happy. They go out there, they spend money, drinkin', liquorin' and hurtin, and goin' we'll drink -- while their heartache is still there, and their money gone. And that woman still over there somewhere.

"I'm singing it for the people who feel the same way as I do."

S Do you think your greatest blues, the blues you think that you've written that you feel are your deepest and maybe greatest blues, were they inspired by this heartbreak that you're talkin' about?
H Well, it's a question I wanna ask you to repeat.

S Okay, you just talked about the heartache that women can cause?
H Yeah.

S Now insofar as John Lee Hooker is concerned, is there any one or two blues that you have written and/or sung that you can say I'm singing about a heartache that was caused by a woman? And this is the way that I can sort of release it?
H Yes. All blues singers sing tunes --

S But let me ask, what is one of your favorite blues tunes that you've written?
H "When My First Wife Left Me."

S What was the name of the song?
H That's the name of it. [Speaks lyrics:] "When my first wife left me I said I wasn't gonna get married no more.

[Singing now:]
"When my first wife left me
I said I wasn't gonna get married no more.
I started drinkin' and gamblin',
Took a freight train to be my friend.
I started drinkin' and gamblin' boy,
Travellin' both night and day.
I was thinkin' about my wife and my baby,
Lord, it hurt me deep down in my heart." [laughs]

S I know you're smiling, but I was smiling too because it was so true, I felt that myself. And I think that's maybe what the blues is about, too, is that you make people feel --
H Yeah.

S -- some of those things because it's a universal feeling --
H Yeah, it hits you. It hits everybody, not only me. I'm singing it for the people who feel the same way as I do. I can sit down in a nightclub, sit down and take my time. Sometimes I sit down there, I take a bow to my public, sit down in a chair, smile and I talk maybe a minute or whatever to 'em. Then I start to singing, and then I'll be singing and I can tell what I got on my hands. What I'm saying is that I can tell when I'm singing something that really hits them [points his index finger for emphasis]. I'm not sayin' that -- I'm gonna put it like this: it's somebody in that audience that, some lyric that I say, it hits 'em like atomic bomb. [Imitates in a hoarse whisper:] "So, this is what he just said. I just gotta..." I wrote a song, don't know whether you've heard it or not, "Serve Me Right to Suffer."

S "Serve Me Right to Suffer."
H [Continues with lyrics:]

"Serve me right to be alone.
Because I'm living in a memory
In the days that are passed and gone.
Every time I see a woman
She makes me think of mine,
That woman who treated me so bad
That I can't keep from cryin'."

You know, you find so many people today, they're livin' in the past. You know what the past is? You think you did some really good things you really enjoyed in life. You enjoyed this woman. You enjoyed all these good things. Now they're all gone. You follow me? They're all gone. But you still have to live that, you follow me? You still gonna live in the past, like the days of yesteryear. Maybe 10 years back, 20 years back. Your mind's still drifting back there. Do you know them days are gone, they ain't coming back? But you're living in a hope, you're living in a memory. And then it starts a-hurting. It serve you right to hurt, because you shouldn't be trying to live in the past and in a memory.

S But isn't that what the blues do -- make you live in the past and remember all those heartaches?
H Yes, I know that, but I'm telling you that, see that's what gets to the people. And that's true -- these lyrics I'm telling you is true [slapping hand for emphasis] because people, millions of people is living in the past. And that hits people when I say that, when I'm sitting there. I got people out in the audience livin' in the past. Wish they had the old lady back, wish they didn't tell so-and-so what they did 10 years ago, and they lay down in there saying -- y'know, things like that.

Today's Youth and the Blues

S There are a lot of blues singers says that young Blacks don't really care about the blues and they haven't in the past. And I even read you said that, something that only the older Blacks in your young days liked the blues?
H Right.

S Do you believe that?
H This is true.

S Do you think young Blacks like the blues any better today then they did when you were younger?
H Well, it's pretty sad for me to say this, but you ask me this so I got to give you comments. I wish more young Blacks -- my feeling is [removes his shades] I think the young Blacks they think about the past way, way, way, way back. They think that the blues is a downer. They think the blues is something that, the slavery thing. They think it ain't the thing to do. They don't think, they don't stop to think that's our culture, you know what I mean? The blues is the Black man's music. It don't matter whether you're young or old, but it's everybody's music. But we are the creator, the Black. The white never can sing the blues. And the young Blacks, they want the different types of things, like rock'n'roll, or disco, or rap and heavy metal, and they don't take the time to look back and say well, this is our music. The blues is our music, this is our trademark.

We gonna stay on this for a little while. I want to try to make this clear, 'cuz I know somewhere down the line, some young Black gonna listen to this tape and I wanna clear the air. It's a lot of 'em do like the blues, most of 'em that like the blues is college kids. The college Black kids love the blues. But just the everyday Black kids, high school, they don't, they don't look at the blues. But the young whites love them, 'cuz they haven't been into it all of they life, they just started to learn about the blues. And they reads up on people like me and Muddy Waters and stuff, and they know as much about it as we do! The young white kids do! They know a lot about our background just reading up on it, which the other Black kids don't read up on it 'cuz they don't wanna read up on it. But these kids read up on it and they know about it. They turns out in droves to come out to see -- my fans, more young fans than I do have older people. And on both sides, on both sides now. No older Blacks don't want to come out, no older whites don't want to come out. It's the young whites and a few college Black kids.

S Have you tried to go out and take a couple of young Black kids and sort of train them in --
H Why should I --

S Or should you -- I guess they should come to you, really.
H Right. Why should I go out? They know what it's all about. They know it's not a disgrace, the blues. They know everything come from the blues: the rock'n'roll, the ballads, the rap, the heavy metal. Everything is saying -- the blues is saying the same thing, but we singing it in a sad way. We singing it in a sad way and they singing it in a happy way -- blah blah blah [humorously imitating] and all like that. So they know that, why should I go to them? But I wish they would. But y'know, why should I lay in this bed and lose sleep at night and they, y'know all they gonna do is laugh at me probably, y'know?

S Does it worry you that since they don't --
H No.

S -- follow the blues that we might lose the tradition?
H No, it don't worry me at all.

S You think the whites are gonna preserve the tradition for us?
H Well, they doing it! [broadly smiling] What can you say, y'know? What can I say?

S Gimme some --
H [more seriously:] And I'm very proud of it, too.

S Gimme some names of some of the whites that you think are doing a good job in preserving these blues.
H Ooh, a lot of 'em.

S Yeah, I know you mention often the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and I don't think of them as blues singers even, myself.
H Y'know, they started off singing the blues. Well, I think the Stones, that was their whole act when they first started in London, y'know? When they first organized, they was singin' the blues. When they first organized -- Don Arden, the guy that had me in London, which I did live there for awhile, not a long time, but he organized the Stones and got 'em together as a group -- they didn't nobody know 'em, they just started singing at little houses and stuff like that probably, he organized and got them together. Don said, "I'm gonna send this group out which is called the Stones, the Rolling Stones." They went out there with me for a whole month there in London as openin' act for me. They were singing the blues then. Right now those guys, they looked up to me, the Stones, Animals and all of 'em, Z. Z. Top and all of 'em, they all got stuff from me.

"I want you to call me your little sister."

S Canned Heat -- are they still around?
H Yeah, matter of fact we gonna do a album together. On January 4th.

S This coming year? '87?
H Yeah.

S What's the name of this young harmonica player that's supposed to committed suicide but he's, I'm told he was obsessed with John Lee Hooker? Who was that?
H [sadly] Al Wilson.

S Is it Al Wilson?
H With Canned Heat?

S Yeah, and he finally committed suicide [September 3, 1970 in Torrance, California].
H Alan Wilson, yeah.

S What did he die of? Did he hang himself, or overdose, or, how did he --
H Overdose.

S Drugs?
H Yeah, out in the woods. He used to go campin' in his truck. That's the information that I got. He had this -- that's my information that I got.

S That they found him dead in the truck?
H Yeah, outside the truck or in the truck or what. That's my information that I got --

S That he had OD'd?
H Yeah, that's as far as I can go. I wouldn't say it's true but that's what was told to me, I want to make this clear for the tape. And he had a beautiful family lived in Boston, they still live there. Every time I go there, I must go out to they house for dinner 'cuz they son loved me so much, and his sister and his mother and his father. I go out there and they just treat me like a king. His sister called me, say "I want you to call me your little sister" [smiling], named Jamie. So okay, I call her my little sister, y'know?

S Could this young man sing the blues very well himself?
H Ooh! [closing his eyes]

S I know he was a pretty -- more than a fair harmonica player.
H Ooh! One of the fair, one of the fairest. He played piano, guitar, harmonica, he played them all. We did a number called "The World Today," and that was so beautiful. He was sitting at the piano with this chord, and I'm singing about -- do you remember the time they was fighting on campus, all these kids and stuff like that? In [Kent] Ohio and all that stuff like that, rioting? You remember those days, you remember the stuff that was going on?

S Yeah.
H And I wrote a song about that called "The World Today" [recorded May 1970; released on Hooker 'n Heat]. People fighting on campus. [Knock at door; tape turned off briefly.] I really -- that was a big loss.

S How old was he when he killed himself?
H Oh, about 24 or 5 maybe. Maybe younger.

The Blues Got a Bad Rap

S Do you think the young Blacks maybe don't like the blues sometimes -- if they don't really like the blues -- but some of them may think that the reputation associated with blues singers sometimes is not too good? [Interruption in tape.] Blacks confuse reality with what is the assumed reputation of blues singers. For example, first of all, y'know you think of Blacks being blues singers, and of course we know there are a lot of whites.
H Yeah.

S Secondly, there's so much been written about blues singers, and I think the blues singers themselves are as much responsible for it as anybody [John Lee puts a stick of chewing gum in his mouth]. Because when you have all these interviews with blues singers, sometimes they come out with the reputation of being womanizers maybe. They drink a lot. You know, I'm talking about reputation, whether it's true or not. Heartache. Women. Playmaking. Knives. Cuttings. Singing in dives. Standing up all night long. Sex. Drugs. Do you think that's what maybe has something to do with young peoples' view of the blues and blues singers?
H I never thought of it that way, but -- it could be and it could not. I really don't have any comments. I don't wanna say yes it is --

S Right.
H -- but it could go either way, it could be yes, it could be no. In this world today, generation after generation, they all got a different scene, a different light on music. And it ain't like it was in our time when we was kids. Kids, they work fast, they work hip, more freedom, everybody -- Black, white, blue, Chinese, everybody -- have more freedom than it was when we was coming. Y'know, we had a limit to freedom.

S Is there anything to that reputation, that reputation that we hear so much about blues singers? All those descriptions I gave, do you think --
H Not all of them, no.

S Is any of it true?
H Some of 'em might be. Some of 'em probably be true. But the rock'n'roll singers, they just as bad as the blues singers. They just -- y'know if you put 'em all in a sack, you don't know which is gonna fall out first. It ain't that way. And because I'm a blues singer -- but look at me, I'm a blues singer, there's nobody -- I ain't bragging 'bout myself, but I don't think there's nobody got much more class and intelligence than I am. There's a lot of blues singers like that.

S [tape interruption] that are any more hip or sensitive than you are?
H I don't think so, because I look at myself a very intelligent, very polite. I don't care who you are -- white, Black or blue -- I look at you as a person. I look at you as the company you keep, and the class you keep. I admit that I got a certain class of people that I deal with. But I look at myself very intelligent, very polite, very deserving. And always have been that, because I was raised that way. So now I'm a blues singer. Now I'm sure there's some other big-name blues singers that are like me, but we wear that brand. But once you get to know me and around me, you say "Well hmm, Mr. Hooker's an entirely different person than how I thought he would be. The man is very polite and he's, y'know, he's just an entirely different person." Just to be honest, looking at myself. And I don't put blues singers -- whatever anything people will say, people will say things, they would always agitate more if you do a little something just a little wrong. They gonna build it up way big. They gonna blow it up [holds hand up high], make it much worse, sound worse than it really is. And ever since there's been a world, blues singers been wearing that brand. They got a brand on 'em. No matter how good they try to being, highly developed and be nice and good, they still gonna go where they leave the blues singer [punches hand down like a branding iron]. Until you prove -- 'til they get to know you, they think you all the same. They put you all in the same bag together.

The Blues Knows No Skin Color

S What about white blues singers?
H They the same, man.

S Do you think white blues singers are as good as Black blues singers?
H Some of 'em is. I look at Joe Cocker and I love that man.

S Who?
H Joe Cocker.

S Joe Cocker?
H Yeah.

S Is that C-O-C-K-E-R?
H Ain't you heard of Joe Cocker?

S I'm just trying to get -- you know, there's a Joe Crocker, there's a Joe Cocker --
H Joe Cocker, yeah. Him, and Norman Brothers that guy, what's his name?

S What about Dr. Uh...
H Dr. John?

S Dr. John.
H Oh yeah, he alright, but I don't think of him as a really hard blues singer [smiling]. I can think of a young one I really like: Stevie Ray.

S Stevie Ray?
H Stevie Ray Vaughan, you heard of him?

S Yeah.
H There's a lot of good ones. So I don't look at what color your skin is when you sing the blues. Either you do it or you don't do it.

S Well, do you think the white blues singer brings the same thing that the Black blues singer brings to it? I'm fishing, obviously, I don't --
H Well, I can see you are. And you talkin' to a person who's outspoken 'cuz --

S Well that's why I ask this question. I want what you really feel.
H Well, my band is a mixed band. And they tight, too. It really good.

A String of Hard-won Lawsuits

S Have you ever been -- were you used or exploited as so many blues singers were when they were younger, by white managers and agents? [Pause.] Were you used, and you got the less money and they got the most?
H Repeat it again for me.

S As a younger blues singer -- many blues singers, including Alberta Hunter, Sippie Wallace, the big names, even Mama Yancey that I knew. Edith -- do you know Edith Wilson?
H No.

S I got a beautiful -- she was in Chicago, she died about 4-5 years ago, and Mama Yancey died about 2-3 years ago, Alberta Hunter who died a few years ago in New York. These blues singers related to me -- even the pianist Mary Lou Williams -- that they felt sometimes used and exploited by the white managers and the arrangers -- not arrangers, I'm sorry, but the agents -- because they felt, maybe as much it was their fault because they were ignorant when it came to finances. So they felt they'd made alot of managers and agents rich, and they ended up in their old age being very poor. Now having said all that, were you ever exploited when you were younger as a blues singer?
H Do I have to answer that?

S I'd like for you to, if you could.
H No comment.

S Why?
H I don't want to.

S I thought you were pretty candid about your life --
H [emphatically] I don't want to.

S Okay [chuckling], let's look at it another way, then. As a performer, do you think that you were able to do all you wanted to do when you were coming up through the ranks, and perform everywhere you wanted to perform?
H No, when I was coming up --

S Why couldn't you?
H Gimme a chance to answer each question.

S Alright.
H I'm going very slow, I like to set my pace.

S Okay.
H There were some places when I started out that the Black man couldn't play with integrated -- you know, it was segregated, the white here and the Black over there. But there was as many white come to see me as they did Black. But they had a line over here with half for the white and the other half Black. See, I knew [i.e. experienced] that, but as the years went by, y'know, they stopped. We have one man to thank for that, but he's gone. That was Dr. [Martin Luther] King, who was a very good man who admired me so much. But I never had problems -- y'know I never -- don't know how to put this to you -- y'know, I don't want you, don't be offended when I say this: I don't like to talk about race. To me, people are just, to me, just -- I don't care if you white, blue, Black. See, I knew [i.e. experienced] all this stuff, don't think I don't know it, but I don't like talking about it because we all know -- to me I'm just a person [a brief aside here is inaudible], I don't believe in the color of your skin, I believe in you as a person --

S Yeah, we're not talking about the color of my skin. I'm talking about your life as a performer. I'm just --
H As a performer, yes. I sing and perform all the time, but --

S We're talking about getting it -- your work is a job, too, isn't it? You make a living from blues singing?
H Right, right. Why, right --

S Could you make a living as you wanted to, when you could sing or perform where you wanted to?
H Well, yeah, in those days, the money we making then was just as important as the money we make now. But things were real cheap. I lived just as good on the money I was making then as I'm living now. But I make more money now than I do then. But I was just as happy. I was happy as a bird in the air 'cuz I was -- y'know, at the money I was making I was happy, I was satisfied with it. And when I come to be famous, I was young, I didn't know as much about the business as I do now. I never felt like -- y'know we all been taken somewhat, not a lot. White, Black and all been taken some way. They get a record company, you never know -- he never gonna give you the right figure, no matter how. If you get a million, you can bet he done got a million and a half. Because you got no way of keepin' account of every record that he sold. So you got to take your ten. That I know.

S Did you keep good records?
H No, no, you can't keep good records. You pry if you got a hit record, y'know. But you ain't the guy who organizes in there with them keepin' them books and stuff like that.

S Did you make a lot of money when you were onto many records when you were younger?
H Not like I do now, no. No, I sure didn't.

S Do you think you should have? I mean, were there --
H Well, yes. Yes, I should have.

S What happened to the money? Who got it, then, if you didn't get it?
H Don't you know who got it? [smiling]

S No, man, see I dunno. I'm asking you that.
H Well, if you were a record company and you ain't got it, who got it? [chuckling]

S Did those -- were these Black record companies? Were they Black-owned record companies?
H Yeah, that happens, like Vee-Jay Records.

S BJ?
H No, Vee-Jay.

S Oh, Vee-Jay. And these were --
H They were one of the biggest companies that was in the world.

S So then I guess we can say that the Blacks exploited the Blacks themselves, then?
H Well, they were some of the biggest crooks in the world. [Prof. Standifer laughs.] They was. They was out of Chicago. Jimmy Bracken, and Abner. And they all was -- they was as big crooks as Chess was. So we got a lawsuit against them and we won. We [also] got a lawsuit against the Bihari brothers [Modern Records, Los Angeles] and we won.

S You had a lawsuit against Chess as well? --
H Yes.

S -- or Chess dealt with you fairly?
H No, we had a lawsuit with the three of them and we won. I remember the last lawsuit we had was with the Biharis. We went on about five years, and we finally come out on top. We got at least $600,000 out of 'em.

S And when you say "we," that means your lawyer and yourself --
H Right.

S -- or you and your wife, or --
H No, I didn't have no wife.

S Just you and your lawyer?
H Right. Jeffrey Goldfarb in L.A. He's Jewish.

S I'm gonna say something, I hope you take it the right way 'cuz the audience is listening to you. I was once told that lawyers love to see people like you and go get these big lawsuits, because they're living in Beverly Hills and you're living in the Traveler's Inn after the lawsuits are over. Do you think your lawyers made the big bucks and you got the little bucks after those lawsuits?
H No, I'm gonna shoot back at you.

S Okay. Sock it to me.
H I am. Why I'm in the Traveler's Inn, I sold my home for $300,000.

S Uh-huh.
H And I'm buying another one. And my house is not ready. And the people that bought my house, they livin' in my house. And the house that I bought, the people is not out of it. So I'm livin' in a motel where I have my privacy, where I can afford to live in a motel. And the motel that I'm livin' in, the managers, they are good friends of mine. The lady just walked in here. They big fans of mine and they delighted to have me livin' here with them.

S Well, there's nothing wrong with the Traveler's Inn. I'm thinking about your lawyers who, I mean let's face it, if I come -- I'm a professor, and if I come --
H My lawyer lives in an apartment, he ain't no have a home.

S So you're much well off -- in other words --
H I don't know if I'm doing much better off than he are.

S When that lawsuit was over and it was your music --
H 60-40.

S 60-40. Who got the 60?
H Me [points to chest].

S That's great. In fact, that's a little unusual.
H No it ain't.

S Well, from what I know about lawsuits, even today -- one of the biggest lawsuits just recently won by uh, what's his name at the Las Vegas, the little short Black guy that dances?
H I dunno who you talkin' about.

S Uh, darn, he dances, he sings.

R Davis.

S Sammy Davis, Jr.
H Oh [smiles in recognition].

S He just won a big lawsuit, but his lawyer got 70 [percent]. But then, he got close to a million bucks.
H Oh, Sammy. I dunno, I never heard of that. But I never, uh, my lawyer, he was more like a friend, and his family, too. I knew his family, met his wife Mary and his children. He was a very good lawyer. He was living in San Francisco, and I come to him and we talked and we, about two or three weeks we talked and we got together all our things. And we got down and he said, "Look, let's get 60-40," he said. "I'll do it for 40% 'cuz I think I got a sure shot." So I bared him all the facts, all the contracts, all the copyrights for my tunes, all the statements that I had over the years, you following me? Laid them in his lap, and he studied them about a month. And then he sent letters out, used everything in there. To be mine, or to copyright people. It seemed that all these things had over the statute of limits -- you know what the statute of limits are?

S Um-hm, statute of limitations.
H And he found out they wasn't. We prepared all of that, got all of our rights. He found out I had a sure shot, and he said, "We got something here," he said. "I'll take 40 and you'll take 60 and I'll take the case." I said, "Sure," I said, "well, okay," I said, "60-40. And I will take care of your expenses if you have to go out of town." He had to go out.

S Well, obviously you think 60-40 is a fair share?
H It's a very fair share.

S Especially when he comes -- it's all your work and everything, but he comes in, he's the one that sort of recoups and does the research and everything.
H Well, if it wasn't for him I wouldn't have gotten anything.

S Yeah.
H If it wasn't for him, 'cuz he comes in there -- when a lawyer speak, they gonna listen. When me speak, I say something, they throw 'em in the garbage can.

S Right, you're paying for his skill and --
H Yeah.

S Sure.
H He say, oh, here's a letter [tape interruption].

R You know, that's the truth, really, you have no way of keeping track --
H Yeah, you have no way of keeping track, and they know that. They sweet-talk ya and all that kinda stuff like that, but y'know you got no way of keeping track and all that kinda stuff. I'm not gonna pin it all on the white. The Black is the same way. I dealt with both of 'em. They all wound up to be cutthroats and crooks, and they're liars and cheaters. I know that. Vee-Jay was, and Berry Gordy [counting on his fingers], and all of 'em. But you know, what can you do? Yes, I fought all of that. And I don't look back. I don't let that bother me, that's water under the bridge. And all I can say is, I'm doin' alright now.

R You're doing very well. Have you ever thought of having your own studio and doing your own -- or is that just too much of a hassle to do your own recording, --
H You said it.

R -- your own marketing? I mean, that's a hell of a job.
H You said it.

R They have you by the short hairs, and they know it, don't they?
H Well, I've thought of it a few times, but it's just a lot of headaches, a lot of everything that you, that can go wrong and that you wouldn't like so well. So...

R I think it was Bob Seeger -- who was from Ann Arbor --
H Yeah.

R -- who decided, damn it, he was going to do his own. I dunno how far he got with it, uh, maybe --
H Sometimes you don't get too far, I dunno --

R You need the publicity and everything else.
H Yeah. Some of the record companies are... I got this album now, it's from a small record company, doing pretty good, called I'm Jealous.

R Called what?
H The name of the album called I'm Jealous.

R [chuckling] I'm Jealous. What a lovely title for a record company.
H That's the name of my album. I'm Jealous.

R Right, I know the album.
H Yeah. You know the album?

R Right, I've read that it's either out or coming out.
H It's out.

R Is that the last one?
H It's out, yeah.

R It's out now.

A Few Quick Impressions

S How did you get your early experience? Did you sing in nightclubs mostly as a young -- before you made your first professional record?
H No, I was in nightclubs. And they discovered me in nightclubs, too.

S What was your first record that you had recorded?
H "Boogie Chillun," 1950.

S Is "Boogie Chillun," would you consider that a blues?
H They count it half and half.

S They have the words of "Boogie Chillun" in here [holding a book]. And of course you've done examples of that. Did you, when you composed it, did you compose it intending it to be a recorded example, or is it something that you --
H I recorded it, and I never thought it was gonna get that big. It was something different that no other blues singer had did. That's why it took also, it did. They could dance by it, and every place you go in, you could hear it. You'd hear it all in the drugstores. Everywhere, all over. And every store you went in, in the big markets, supermarkets, you'd hear it all in there. And that's what really -- I didn't expect it --

S Where'd you get that title, "Boogie Chillun"?
H Well, way way way back my step-father [Will Moore] used to play around the house. And he had one tune that go, "All the children get out here and let's boogie." But he played it different than the way I played it. He sung it different, but that's where I got the idea.

S Um-hm. I'm gonna name some performers, and what I'd like for you to do is something we call "quickies." You give me whatever comes to your mind in terms of your opinion about them or their work, just let me know. Let's talk about -- you say you don't know, you didn't hear Alberta Hunter's music very much?
H I heard it, but I didn't know her as a person.

S What do you think about her performance technique?
H Ooh, it's great.

S Hot lady, huh?
H Hot. That was the word, she's great.

S What about Victoria Spivey?
H Ooh! Same thing. Songs just keep on and on. Her standards that she -- I never, I never got to see her, but she lives on.

S Mamie Smith?
H She lives on. She's hot [smiling]. [And] Bessie Smith.

S Bessie, uh-huh.
H Ma Rainey.

S Ma Rainey.
H I never saw 'em, but they never died. They're dead but they ain't dead.

R How 'bout Chippie Hill, did you ever hear her?
H No, I didn't never hear her.

R At the Village Vanguard [club in New York City].

S What about some of the living ones, like Carmen McRae?
H Oh yes [smiling and nodding].

S Do you like her style?
H Sure. Everybody, most people do.

S Koko Taylor?
H Oh, blues -- that's my best friend [smiling broadly]. In Chicago?

S Yeah.
H Yeah, she's a sweet lady. You ever met 'er?

S Yep, she's been in Detroit quite frequently.
H Yeah, she's a sweet lady. She played the soup kitchens.

S Did you ever hear Mama Yancey? She didn't do a lot of stuff, but --
H No, I heard of her. Not into that sorta stuff.

S Willie Dixon?
H One of my best buddies [smiling broadly].

S Brownie McGhee?
H Oh, he was another one, he was great. I just worked with him not too long ago at a benefit, and his partner passed on.

S Who was that -- Sonny Terry?
H Yeah.

S You know, he and Sonny Terry for a long time --
H They didn't get along --

S -- didn't even speak.
H Well, these two stayed together and wouldn't even talk to each other.

S I know, when they performed together. I've taped from jump street with them doing some sessions for us in 1980 in Washington, D.C. And when they were on stage, when they performed, like they were like brothers. But after the lights went off, they wouldn't speak to each other!
H Oh, no. Stay in separate hotels --

S Yeah.
H -- and everyone gets to pay separate. I couldn't work with anybody like that.

S That's real strange.

R Brownie McGhee had a brother, didn't he?
H Stick McGhee.

S What about, uh, B. B. King, of course.
H Ooh! One of the greatest!

S Muddy Waters?
H And he's one of the greatest.

S What do you think about their style? Like Muddy Waters, for example?
H Well, it's kinda like my style. It's a country style, I dunno what they call it.

S Don't you think B. B. King has become a -- being to be commercial?
H Real commercial, real commercial. Really speaking, he one of the greatest blues singers that ever lived, but I like his old style better.

S Hmm. Course I notice you're getting pretty commercial with your electrified this and your bigger-band sound and --
H [chuckling] Yeah, I guess so.

S And even, I see you've strummed the big beat some like, even.
H Yeah, well, like I tell you -- I'll go back to about maybe 30 or 40 minutes ago when we first started talkin' -- you gotta do that with the young kids now, because the music has changed so. It ain't no more coffee houses, like I was telling your partner there [points to Maxwell Reade]. See, the coffee houses are gone. You can't sit around and just play your guitar and just strolling and people sit there and listen. The young kids, young generation coming on and on and on, they want to move, and you got to move with 'em.

S Did you know Sippie Wallace?
H Ooh yeah --

S You know, she died a few weeks ago --
H I know, I played with her at the Apollo.

S Some people say that her recent manager used her a lot.
H I dunno. I didn't know her too well. I only saw her once, down at the Apollo Theater.

S Just like I'm sitting her interviewing you, I sat in her house several times interviewing her. And one thing she always told me, she said "I never forget God. I try every chance I get, I get home on Sundays to go to church and play" [organ at Leland Baptist Church, Detroit].
H Well, she was kinda sick, too, when I met her.

S Yeah.
H She was about 80-something years old.

S Yeah, def -- easily. She had a problem with her teeth, --
H Yeah.

S -- this last set of false teeth. But I think she never should've gone to Europe on this last tour, which was bad.
H No [brief inaudible comment].

When I'm In The Mood

S I heard you read music?
H [Somberly] No, I don't.

S You don't? See, that's another lie you see in some of the books: "John Lee Hooker reads music."
H No I don't, neither. I just let it flow [smiling].

S How do you get the band to play in the same key you playin' in? You just play and tell 'em to join in?
H Oh, I know my keys. I go over my keys like --

S What's your favorite key that you sing in?
H Well, my favorite key is E and A.

S Is that -- well, which is easier going on the guitar, E or A?
H Both of 'em.

S Both of 'em easy for you?
H Yeah.

S When you're -- I notice you always are seated when I've seen you sing. But of course when you were in Ann Arbor recently, I think some of your best stuff was when you got up and got on your feet.
H When I boogie!

S Yeah, when you got to move around.
H In order to boogie, yeah. That moves everybody.

S I mean that -- you broke up the house, man!
H Oh, I do that all the time.

S But I mean, maybe you're more introspective and meditative when you're sitting down there and thinking about what you're doing?
H Yeah, well, I get 'em built up, and then on the last, uh, you know --

S Get 'em off their feet?
H I get 'em up to boogie. That's the thing I wrote, that "Everybody Tries to Play It." And they do play it. And it's a heck of a song.

S How 'bout, are there particular times of the evening that you feel most "on" when you're a singer? I mean, do you like late evenings, or do you like early evenings, or what is your --
H Doesn't matter, it just come and go. It may come at 12 o'clock, it may come in the morning, may come at night. Just be -- I never know when it's gonna flow.

S Most people think blues people are night people. Are you a night person? When I say "night" -- after dark when you become --
H Oh, let me put it like this. I would say "musicians," I wouldn't say "blues people." Most musicians are night people -- blues, rock, all of 'em, because they all workers at night. They never have no daytime gigs, they're night people. I'd say "musicians," I wouldn't say "blues singers," I'd say "musicians." Because you go out there and you come home 1 or 2 or 3 o'clock, you unwind and you sleep until about 12 o'clock, sometimes 10. Then when you not playing, it's hard for you to go to bed on -- hard for you to go to sleep at 8 or 9 o'clock at night and then you wake up at what, 12 or 1 o'clock and you can't go back, 'cuz your system's been built into that, like a [striking his fists together] hammer that you drove a nail into your system. It's not -- "musicians," I wouldn't say "blues singers," I would say "musicians." 'Cuz all musicians perform at night, and they all react back to the same. It doesn't matter whether you rock'n'roll, or common ballad, or what. I know I was -- I'm very acquainted with Sammy Davis' and Frank Sinatra's story they were telling, and maybe it's true: anybody got to sing some blues first before they -- blues come before any kind of music. So you got to know how to sing the blues before you can do ballads or rock or anything. This is just a big feeling, you let this big part of you go, and this is what he was talking about. And Frank can sing the blues. And Sammy can, too.

S What do you want young people to remember about John Lee Hooker? Let's face it, we all are not gonna live forever. And we want, most of us want to leave some type of legacy. What do you want to leave behind? Anything? Any memory?
H Yes, I want to leave a great memory. That John Lee Hooker lived a good, clean life. That he was a gentleman. He was a great blues singer. And he -- I would remember that it be said that he blazed a trail for many musicians followed in his footsteps, they admired him. That's what I want to leave behind. And I don't want them to say, well he was a bad person, he was this and he was that. I don't want to leave that. That's the memory I want to leave behind.

S Is there a person that you remember like that? A singer?
H Which is gone?

S Yeah, who's gone. Is there a blues singer who has inspired you, that you remember in that way?
H Oh, it's T-Bone Walker. That man I think was one of the gentlemens. But Muddy Waters was, too.

S Who had the greatest influence on your music and your style, do you think?
H Who had the greatest influence?

S On the way you play and the way you perform. Is there any one --
H Oh, George Thorogood [slight smile].

S Who, Thorogood?
H Yeah [smiling].

S George Thorogood?
H Yeah [smiling broadly and nodding].

S You listened to a lot of George Thorogood when you were performing?
H Well, yeah. When George Thorogood started he didn't play the blues, he played what you call rock'n'roll, but he played some hard blues. He comes to my house all the time. He sit there with his guitar.

S He still influences what you do?
H Yeah, well he does a lot of my stuff, you know. Sing about "One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer," he do that. And "I'm Bad Like Jesse James," and a lot of my stuff. "I'm Gonna Get You a One Way Ticket, Baby." Y'know, a one way ticket, that mean I'm gonna send you away and don't want you to come back [makes sweeping motion with hand]. Don't come back this way anymore. I don't care how you go: bus station, train station, airport, as long as you get away from here!

Setting It Down on Paper

S Since you want people to remember you, part of that's gonna happen because of who you are and how you perform and how you behave. But since you don't read music, how do you know you're not bein' ripped off?
H Well, you don't have to read music to be ripped off! Use common sense! Millions of people -- Errol Garner didn't read music.

S I know. But I'm asking you, how do you, how do you --
H I know --

S When you come up with a new tune, how do you get it to the publisher?
H I don't know how to answer that question, but [taking some offense] it's just a very, very question that I don't understand what you askin'.

S Okay, I guess I'm saying that, here you got an idea, let's say right now in the midst of our conversation --
H Read music, that don't make 'em be --

S Okay, maybe say write music, then.
H Well write, I write music. But I don't read music.

S Well how can you write it if you can't read it?
H Well, writing is lyrics.

S Oh, but I mean the music, I'm not talking about --
H Well, you write the lyrics and then you give the arranging -- you know what arranging is?

S Yeah.
H You, y'know just --

S But he has to get the, the arranger has to have the melody. So do you just, you hum the melody to him?
H Well, but blues don't have all of that. Now you talkin' and talk kind of in the way of --

S Well, I'm talkin', you're talkin' to a musician now. I'm a musician. We're, you and I are two of a kind now.
H Oh, I know that. I know you was a musician before you come.

S Okay, so I'm asking -- you're right -- so I'm asking you now. Okay, I got a melody, okay? And I'm -- so I say to you I want to get it published. I got the lyrics and I want you to arrange it. But I want to be careful 'cuz I don't want you to go and [not] too much later I hear it on some other album or whatever, and you've taken my music.
H Well, you can't do that if you have the copyright, can you?

S Well, a lot of things've been copyrighted and they've been stolen right and left. Half of the music of Black folks have been --
H Well, I'm pretty lucky and stuff over the years. I must've copyrighted -- they can do it in L.A., they do it in Washington, it's the first thing I do. I got a bunch of 'em coming back now, should be back any day from Washington --

S Mm-hm.
H -- about 15 songs like that.

S Did you say they're on tape, probably?
H Well, you can send them any way. They're the originals of whatever.

S I mean you hum the melodies on a tape recorder and then send 'em in?
H I don't know what you gettin' at.

S Okay, in other words, if you have, if you don't write the music, I'm trying to figure out --
H They got to have the words, you got to have the lyrics of the song to copyright.

S Right, but they also have to have the melody.
H Right.

S So how do you get the melody to them if you don't write it?
H Well, we get together and we do it. Me and Mr. Jones.

S Ah, so Mr. Jones. Well, you have to trust somebody in this business, I guess, too!
H Well, it ain't a matter of trust. It's a matter of if you send it to get it copyrighted, if they will wanna steal it. On all of my albums [banging on nightstand], the people that do my numbers, my name is right there and I get, I get a check for it being mine. All the time, I get big ones.

S Yeah. You mention here in this book, too, that you get -- there are some people who give you credit for your stuff and some people don't --
H Right.

S -- when they do it.
H Right. There's some of 'em, they don't put your name on there. But you can go -- it's copyrighted, like being mine.

S Yeah.
H If I look on the album and I see they don't give me credit for what I know I've written and it was copyrighted, someone gonna try to pull the wool. Me or my lawyer Judge Jeffrey Goldfarb, he's right out of L.A. Being out of L.A. too, now, I know you know that.

S Right.
H He go in terms of [imitating official voice] "Hey, here's a copyright and here's this man who got this tune here, on here-uh. And he got his name, his name appear on this album, but here's the copyright to the song. Here's the thing that -- " and be able, I'll put it in my file and be able to get him anytime. But you find some dishonest people in this world. You find some dishonest people.

Running From Home at 13

S Did you tell me you had brothers and sisters?
H I had. They gone.

S So, and are you the only one left now, John?
H Far as I know.

S And of course your parents are dead?
H Yes.

S Are they buried in Clarks -- is it Clarksdale?
H They're buried in Mississippi, yeah.

S Is there a family plot where your other brothers and sisters are buried there with them, or are they --
H Well, they buried in different towns.

S How long -- how old were you when you left Mississippi?
H Thirteen... or 14.

S Were you happy growing up at 13 in Mississippi, or did you know that you --
H Well, I always was a very proud, independent young man. And I fought my way through different things and different situations. I never was a person -- I was very, a lot of pride. I wouldn't take nothing, I didn't want no handouts. I would like to write [music] and earn my living, which I'm very lucky doing that. And I was a very man of luck to come from a good family, a family that taught me like that. And I was very successful. Oh hey, I got to [looks at watch].

S Okay.

[tape interruption]

Favorite Songs

S Let me ask you once again, John. John, I'd like to know that, of the songs you've done -- and you've done some great, great blues songs, let's face it -- I think a few moments ago you said you wanted to be remembered as a fine, honest person [knock at door]. You didn't say you wanted to be remembered as a fine musician [sic]. And I will say you will be remembered, and you are remembered, as a fine musician. Now, of the songs that you've done and the music that you've composed, which one has been the most financially successful?
H Well [smiling], "Boom Boom" [Vee-Jay Records, 1961].

S "Boom Boom." Now, just in case some of the audience doesn't know which one, could you give us a couple of verses of that so they can know which one you're talking about?
H [Singing softly:]

Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Gonna shoot ya right down

[Someone starts snapping fingers.]

Get offa your feet
Take ya home with me
Put ya in my house
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
When ya walk that walk
And talk that talk
And whisper in my ear
And tell me you love me
I love that talk
Uh how how how how! [chuckling]

S [chuckling] Beautiful!
H I did that in "The Blues Brothers" [1980 film, dir. John Landis].

S Oh yes, you did! Right! I'm curious, but I'm gonna diverge just for a minute: did you have to do many takes on that song when you did it in "Blues Brothers"?
H Yeah, he made me. Well, I know the director, but y'know, he kept me there for almost two weeks.

S Two weeks!
H He'd bring me out about 15 or 20 minutes a day, and I'd do it. "Go back to the hotel. Go on back, we'll call you." Next day, you come back and do the same thing.

S [chuckling] I see.
H He had about, oh, I dunno how many takes he took. But they picked that one, and it's alright.

S Okay. Now, we -- you're right, that has been financially rewarding. Which one is there, have you -- is there one or two that you've done that you feel is really closest to your heart and is the most artistically successfully to you?
H Well, the album called Endless Boogie [ABC/Dunhill Records, 1971]. Don't know whether you heard that album or not?

S No, I don't think I have.
H Endless Boogie. It's got a song on there called "I Was Born in Mississippi and Raised Up in Tennessee." [Sic: a version of the song "Born in Mississippi, Raised Up in Tennessee," recorded in September 1971, appeared as title cut on the album Born in Mississippi, Raised Up in Tennessee (ABC Records, 1973), but the song did not appear on Endless Boogie.] But I wasn't raised up in Tennessee, but that "Tennessee" make it -- "Tennessee" rhyme.

S Right.
H [Sings softly:]

I was born in Mississippi
And raised up in Tennessee.
I been getting' on freight trains
Ever since I was 12 years old.
Freight train, freight train,
Freight train my only friend.

That song, that song I really like, but it wasn't a big seller. But it just meant so much to me.

S Hmm. When were you, when was that composed? How old were you at the time, about? Was it recently?
H Well, I was a full-grown man then, but I was singin', thinkin' back, y'know.

S Um-hm.
H I was singin' back in my younger days, y'know. I made that comparison to my younger days. I was born in Mississippi, raised up in Tennessee, getting' on a freight train since I was about 12 years old.

S I see.
H And something like that, y'know. Drifting from town to town. And that song, it really taught me -- it wasn't a big, big seller, but y'know, I have it, y'know.

S I'm about to go ahead and buy that for our collection. Because if you feel like that's your most artistic song, when we put these on display this is what I'm gonna put up, and say: "John Lee Hooker says this is the song that was the closest to his heart."
H Called it "Born in Mississippi."

S "Born in Mississippi," written in 19 -- ... thereabouts?
H Uh, written in, I suppose in 19, I'll say the '50s.

S Okay.
H Late '50s, or maybe early '60s.

S Prof. Reade, do you have a question to ask Mr. --

R I have one question, that's all I have for the blues singer. When you unwind, do you come home with a guitar and sit down and sing?
H Repeat.

R Are there any occasions under which you unwind by simply playing your guitar and singing for yourself?
H When I was younger I did.

R How 'bout now?
H No, when I come off the job I'm really kinda tired. I just wanna get the guitar man, I give it to the roadie to put it in the case, and I come back to try and kick back. But sometimes it's hard to unwind on this form of job. You said that just right: you've got to unwind [moving an index finger in a circle] maybe an hour, an hour and a half maybe 'til you can really go to sleep. You're really wound up, you're hyped up.

R Right.
H So, no.

S Okay, Mr. Hooker, I'm gonna say goodbye to you. I want you to know that I think this has been one of the most interesting interviews that I've had in the many years that I've done -- and now, you know I've done almost everybody --
H Many, many, many more [smiling].

S Right. And I want to wish you every bit of good luck. And I think if you do what you've been doing and continue to do it as far as many people as you've been doing it, we can't help but remember you as being a good man and being a fine man and an excellent musician. My son, with whom you took a picture with, said "Dad," I said, "What do you think about" --
H I remember [smiling].

S He was in Ann Arbor, he was a big tall kid --
H Yeah, I remember, yeah.

S Okay, I said "What do you think about him?" He said, "Dad, he looks like Granddad." I said, "Whaddya mean?" He said, "Your dad." I said, "Yes." He said, "You know, I wonder if he's as good a man as your dad?" I said, "I think he is." I think that says it all. I'm old enough to know what you're like and what you were. I think that you're a fine man. So I think that your wish in terms of being remembered as a fine man, an honest man, a generous man, a sensitive man, is a wish that you can feel very comfortable about. Because my generation, who is not too far from yours, think that already. And I think the younger people, Blacks included, are beginning to feel the same way. So I think you should feel good.
H And thank you, and [thumbs-up sign] likewise to you.

S Been a pleasure.

END OF INTERVIEW