Old and Blue
By Ben Tausig

January fifteenth of the year 2000 would mark the seventieth birthday of arguably the greatest blues guitarist of all time, were he alive. His life is filled with the stuff of blues legends, his sound is engaging, and he recorded for major blues labels. But most people don’t even know his name. Why? Personally, I think it's because Earl Hooker couldn't sing.

Well, he couldn't sing the blues, I mean. He could sing country music, which he learned from Gene Autry on television, but he couldn't sing the blues. As a result, Hooker recorded a lot of instrumental songs, or played just as a sideman. He was not extensively recorded until the 1960's, past his prime and eventually near death.

Earl Hooker spent much of his life on the road, playing not only at blues venues, but at country-and-western establishments as well. In fact, he very much enjoyed surprising patrons at all-white bars by playing solid renditions of Hank Williams' songs. Many people were very surprised to see, as Hooker himself put it "a colored guy playing hillbilly music-in a hillbilly joint."

Actually, he played a hybrid of blues, honky-tonk, and rock and roll, and effectively fit the use of a wah-wah pedal into that equation. Hooker's slide-guitar mastery was the greatest of his era, and perhaps of all time. In fact, he learned to play personally from the great guitarist Robert Nighthawk.

It's enticing to hear Hooker use a wah-wah pedal as he does. His amazingly smooth slide work is accentuated by the wah-wah, but still jagged and gritty when it needs to be. A handful of other guitarists have done the same thing, but never in quite the same way. The best explanation for this, I think, is that wah-wah pedals sound like absolute garbage if you don't have the right touch. Especially in blues music. So maybe it's just a style that a lot of musicians are afraid of trying to copy.

It wasn't until 1968, then, that Hooker recorded for Arhoolie records, and by that time he was ill from the tuberculosis that would eventually claim his life. He cut a number of tracks for that label in the last two years of his life, although they didn't quite reach the caliber of his earlier work. He also became somewhat obsessed with his medical condition, and recorded songs such as "Two Bugs and a Roach," which is a nickname for tuberculosis.

If you want to hear a great Earl Hooker song, I suggest "One-Eyed Woman." Hooker himself does not sing, but I believe he wrote the words, which are hilarious. It's one of the meanest songs I've ever heard. Not only that, but the slide solo is nothing short of vicious.

Through his lack of vocal ability made it nearly impossible for Earl Hooker to achieve any great commercial successes, his creativity and adeptness at slide guitar were exceptional.