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JOHN LEE HOOKER
I'm Bad Like Jesse James!!!
Liner notes from the ACE CD (CDCHD 474) "Everybody's Blues"?

A few blocks from where I live in Los Angeles there is an old bar called The Mint. For decades, it was a home to juiceheads and alkies of various stripes. Recently, under new management and in its new incarnation as a blues club, it has become a hangout for mini-celebrities and wannabes and soap opera actresses.

My friend Darrell plays trumpet there one or two nights a week and tells the storv of the night John Lee Hooker pulled up out in front in his white stretch limo, emerging in his white suit white shoes, white hat-with-diamond-stickpin and cane, and making his grand entrance. On each arm he had a starlet/bimbo-type, complete with big eyes, big hair, and big breasts popping out of a too-tight dress. He spent a lot of money, flashed a lot of jewelry, and had a grand old time for himself

Now, given my choice of stereotypes between that and some old wino on a front porch of a plantation, playing in his overalls-broke-John Lee Hooker is theway I prefer my bluesmen. The man knows how to have a good time.

Hooker is probably the most recorded of all bluesmen. He has recorded for more labels under more names than anybody I can think of. On King, he was Texas Slim or John Lee Cooker; on Savoy-Delta John, Birmingham Sam & his Magic Guitar or the Boogie Man; John Lee Booker on DeLuxe, Chance, and Chess; Johnny Williams on Gotham; Sir John Lee Hooker on Fortune; Johnny Lee on Deluxe and even John L. Hooker on one Modern release.

Even today, he has a recent gold record of his own, The Healer, and has appeared on Bonnie Raitt's multi-platinum, four-Grammy-winning album and is all over MTV and VH-1 in her video. The man is a star by anyone's criteria.

Hooker's road to stardom began in Clarksdale, Mississippi on August 22, 1917 or 1920, depending upon the source. He was one of eleven children born into a family of sharecroppers. He credits his stepfather, William Moore, with not only teaching him guitar but also the "country boogie" beat he used to make his fortune. I remember hearing that boogie beat of his for the first time in high school in 1962 on his Vee-Jay single "Boom Boom," later recorded by the Animals, one of Great Britain's blues-crazed bands of the period. My own little band used to play the song in the twist clubs. It always got the dancers up on the floor.

ln the early 1930's, Johnnie Lee (the spelling on his letters in Specialty's files to Art Rupe) ran away from home to play music, first to Memphis and then to Cincinnati, where he played with gospel groups from 1938-42. The Big Six, the Delta Big Four, and the Fairfield Four employed his services when he wasn't on his day gigs.

During the war, he moved to Detroit where he played his blues at joints like Henry's Swing Club and various Hastings Street lounges, as celebrated in song on this album. He started recording in 1948 for Bernie Besman, a local record distributor whose Sensation label boasted artists such as Todd Rhodes, Wild Bill Moore, Russell Jacquet and be-boppers Sonny Stitt, Milt Jackson, and Leo Parker. Often, these masters were leased or sold to labels with better national distribution, like King or Modern. In the case of Hooker, the cagey Besman sold Johnnie Lee's masters-and even alternate takes- to a number of companies, including Specialty and the earlier Graveyard Blues (Specialty 7018).

John Lee Hooker's sources are varied, taken from real-life people, places, and, sometimes, other songs, his own and other people's, causing nightmares for publishers. From this album alone, "I'm Mad" appears on a later record as "I'm Bad Like Jesse James," and "No More Foolin"' is a thinly veiled "No More Doggin" by Roscoe Gordon. "Backbiters and Syndicators" refers to a line in Percy Mayfield's "Two Years ofTorture." Unless you are a copyright owner, however, you cannot fail to fall under the spell of the hypnotic Hooker boogie beat.

The remaining cuts on Evervbody's Blues come from a series of 1954 sessions done in Detroit for Specialty. The first was supervised by Specialty's then-A & R man, Johnny Vincent Company president Art Rupe was less than satisfied with the results and, not long afterwards, Vincent left to start his own Ace Records in Jackson, Mississippi, taking with him Frankie Lee Sims and Earl King. Rupe did release "I'm Mad" biw "Everybody's Blues," Hooker's only (and rare) Specialty single. He then had Joe Siracuse of Detroits United Sound oversee another session in October, but was unhappy with that as well and let Hooker's recording contract lapse.

Rupe appears to have had little patience for the process of recording the more primitive blues performers. He was used to the more rehearsed and arranged sessions of Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, and Percy Mayfield whichwere easier to control. The risk factor, which was great with a John Lee Hooker or a Guitar Slim, for that matter, had no appeal for a man like Art Rupe,who liked to hedge his bets with as much control of the various elements as possible.

One year later, Hooker was on Vee-Jay where he was to stay, with a time-out for a couple of Riverside and Fantasy albums, until 1964. While on Vee-Jay, he had solid sellers like "Mambo Chillun" and "Dimples," and the chart hits "No Shoes" and "Boom Boom."

By now, he was cashing in on the campus blues revival/craze, playing at coffeehouses from Berkeley to Greenwich Village, enjoying his role as elder statesman of the blues and mentor to a new generation of white aficionado/musicians like Canned Heat with whom he cut a best-selling album, Hooker'nHeat, and English bands like John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and the Rolling Stones.

Since then, he has continued to record and perform all over the world, often with a who's who of rock and blues luminaries who consider him a touchstone of constant inspiration-a living root of blues-based American music

Billy Vera, 1991

Editors Note:   John Lee Hooker passed away in his San Francisco area home on June 21, 2001.