HOOKER, JOHN LEE

born Aug. 22, 1917, Clarksdale, Miss., U.S. bynames John Lee Booker, John Lee Cooker, Texas Slim, and Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar American blues singer-guitarist, one of the most distinctive artists in the electric blues idiom. Born into a Mississippi sharecropping family, Hooker learned the guitar from his stepfather and developed an interest in gospel music as a child. In 1943 he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he made his mark as a blues musician. On such early records as Boogie Chillen, Crawling King Snake, and Weeping Willow (Boogie) (194849), Hooker, accompanied only by an electric guitar, revealed his best qualities: aggressive energy in fast boogies and no less intensity in stark, slow blues. A primitive guitarist, he played simple harmonies, pentatonic scales, and one-chord, modal harmonic structures. Later hits included Dimples (1956) and Boom Boom (1962). He toured widely from the 1950s and appeared in the motion pictures The Blues Brothers (1980) and The Color Purple (1985). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.