Earl Hooker
Encyclopedia
Earl Hooker was an American
Chicago blues
guitarist, perhaps best known for his slide guitar
playing. Considered a "musician's musician", Hooker performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II
, Junior Wells
, and John Lee Hooker
(a cousin) as well as fronting his own bands. An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker
and Robert Nighthawk. As a band leader, he recorded several singles and albums, in addition to recording with well-known artists. His "Blue Guitar", a popular Chicago area slide-guitar instrumental single, was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters
and became the popular "You Shook Me
".
In the late 1960s, Hooker began performing on the college and concert circuit and had several recording contracts. Just as his career was on an upswing, Earl Hooker died in 1970 at age 41 after a life-long struggle with tuberculosis. His guitar playing has been acknowledged by many of his peers, including B.B. King, who commented: "to me he is the best of modern guitarists. Period. With the slide he was the best. It was nobody else like him, he was just one of a kind".
, outside of Clarksdale. In 1930, when he was one-year old, his parents moved to Chicago. His family was musically inclined (John Lee Hooker
was a cousin) and Earl was exposed to music at home at a very early age. About age ten, he started playing guitar. Hooker was self-taught and picked up what he could from those around him. Although Hooker was gaining proficiency on guitar, he did not show an interest in singing. This has been explained by a speech impediment, i.e., pronounced stuttering, which afflicted him all his life. Hooker also contracted tuberculosis
when he was young. Although his condition did not become critical until the mid-1950s, it required periodic hospital visits beginning at an early age.
By 1942, Hooker was performing on Chicago street corners with childhood friends including Bo Diddley
. From the beginning, the blues were Hooker's favorites, but this when the more country
-influenced blues was giving way to swing-influenced and jump-blues
styles, which often featured the electric guitar
. T-Bone Walker
was popular and in 1942 began a three-month club stint at the Rhumboogie Club
in Chicago. He had a considerable impact on Hooker, with both his playing and showmanship. Walker's swing-influenced blues guitar, including "the jazzy way he would sometimes run the blues scales" and intricate chord work, appealed to Hooker. Walker's stage dynamics, which included playing the guitar behind his neck and with his teeth, influenced Hooker's own later stage act.
Also around this time, he developed a friendship with Robert Nighthawk, one of the first guitarists in Chicago to switch to electric guitar. Nighthawk taught Hooker slide-guitar techniques, including various tunings and his highly articulated approach; Nighthawk had a lasting influence on Hooker's playing. Junior Wells
, another important figure in Hooker's career, entered his life at this time. The two were frequent street performers and sometimes to avoid foul weather (or truancy officers), they played in streetcars, riding one line to another across Chicago.
, including on his popular Helena KFFA
radio program King Biscuit Time
. Hooker then toured the South
as a member of Nighthawk's band for the next couple of years. This was his introduction to life as an itinerant blues musician (although he had earlier run away from home and spent time in the Mississippi Delta
). In 1949, Hooker tried to establish himself in the Memphis, Tennessee music scene, but was soon back on the road fronting his own band. By the early 1950s he returned to Chicago and performed regularly in the local clubs. This set the pattern that he repeated for most of his life: extensive touring with various musicians interspersed with establishing himself in various cities before returning to the Chicago club scene.
In 1952, Earl Hooker began recording for several independent record companies. His early singles were often credited to the vocalist he recorded with, although some instrumental
s (and his occasional vocal) were issued in Hooker's name. Songs by Hooker and with blues and R&B
artists, including Johnny O'Neal, Little Sam Davis, Boyd Gilmore, Pinetop Perkins
, The Dells
, Arbee Stidham
, Lorenzo Smith, and Harold Tidwell were recorded by such labels as King
, Rockin', Sun
, Argo
, Veejay, States
, United
, and C.J. (several of these recordings, including all of the Sun material, were unissued at the time).
Among these early singles was Hooker's first recorded vocal performance on an interpretation of the blues classic "Black Angel Blues
". Although his vocals were more than adequate, they lacked the power usually associated with blues singers
. Hooker's "Sweet Angel" (1953 Rockin' 513) was based on Robert Nighthawk's 1949 "Black Angel Blues" and showed that "Hooker had by now transcended his teacher". (B.B. King later had a hit in 1956 with his interpretation, "Sweet Little Angel".) One of Hooker's most successful singles during this period was "Frog Hop", recorded in 1956 (Argo 5265). The song, an upbeat instrumental, showed some of his T-Bone Walker swing-blues and chording influences, as well as his own style.
group of labels, where he began one of the most fruitful periods of his recording career. Their first recording together, "Little by Little" (Profile 4011), was a hit the following year when it reached number 23 in the Billboard
Hot R&B Sides
chart. With this success and his rapport with Chief owner and producer Mel London
, Hooker became Chief's house guitarist. From 1959 to 1963, he appeared on about forty Chief recordings, including singles for Wells, Lillian Offitt, Magic Sam
, A.C. Reed
, Ricky Allen
, Reggie "Guitar" Boyd, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker, and Jackie Brenston
, as well as Hooker being the featured artist. He appeared on nearly all of Wells' releases, including "Come on in This House", "Messin' with the Kid
", and "It Hurts Me Too
", which remained in Wells' repertoire throughout his career. Hooker regularly performed with Wells for the rest of 1960 and most of 1961.
For the Chief labels, Hooker released several instrumentals, including the slow blues "Calling All Blues" (1960 Chief 7020) which featured Hooker's slide guitar and "Blues in D Natural" (1960 Chief 7016), where he switched between fretted and slide guitar. However, it was a chance taping before a recording session that captured perhaps Hooker's best known song (although by a different title). During the warm-up that preceded a May 1961 scheduled session, Hooker and his band played an impromptu slow blues which featured Hooker's slide guitar. The song was played once and Hooker was apparently not aware that it was being recorded. Producer Mel London saved the tape and when looking for material to release the following spring, issued it as "Blue Guitar" (Age 29106). "Earl's song sold unusually well for an instrumental blues side" and Chicago-area bluesmen were including it in their sets.
Sensing greater commercial potential for Hooker's "Blue Guitar", Leonard Chess
approached Mel London about using it for Muddy Waters
' next record. An agreement was reached and in July 1962, Waters overdubbed
a vocal (with lyrics by Willie Dixon
) on Hooker's single and it was renamed "You Shook Me
". The song was successful and Chess hired Hooker to record three more instrumentals for Muddy Waters to overdub. One of the songs, again with Dixon-supplied lyrics, titled "You Need Love", was also a success and "sold better than Muddy's early sixties recordings". Later, rock bands such as Led Zeppelin
would achieve greater success with their adaptations of Earl Hooker's and Muddy Waters' "You Shook Me" and "You Need Love".
During his time with Chief, Hooker also recorded singles as a sideman for Bobby Saxton and Betty Everett
as well as in his own name for the Bea & Baby, C.J., and Checker
record labels. By 1964, the last of the Chief labels went out of business and ended his longest association with a record label; for some, his recordings for Chief/Profile/Age represent Hooker's best work.
, Jim-Ko, C.J., Duplex, and Globe. Several songs recorded for Cuca between 1964 and 1967 were released on his first album The Genius of Earl Hooker. The album was composed of instrumentals, including the slow blues "The End of the Blues" and some songs which incorporated recent popular music trends, such as the early funk
-influenced "Two Bugs in a Rug" (an allusion to his tuberculosis or "TB"). Hooker experienced a major tuberculosis attack in late summer 1967 and was hospitalized for nearly a year.
When Hooker was released from the hospital in 1968, he assembled a new band and began performing in the Chicago clubs and touring, against his doctor's advice. The band, with pianist Pinetop Perkins
, harmonica player Carey Bell
, vocalist Andrew Odom, and steel-guitar player Freddie Roulette
, was "widely acclaimed" and "considered [as] one of the best Earl had ever carried with him". Based on a recommendation by Buddy Guy
, Arhoolie Records
recorded an album by Hooker and his new band. Two Bugs and a Roach was released in spring 1969 and included a mix of instrumentals and vocals by Odom, Bell, and Hooker. For one of his vocals, Hooker chose "Anna Lee", a song based on Robert Nighthawk's 1949 "Annie Lee Blues". As he had done earlier with "Sweet Angel", Hooker acknowledged his mentor's influence, but extended beyond Nighthawk's version to create his own interpretation. The "brilliant bebop
[-influenced]" instrumental "Off the Hook" showed his jazzier leanings. Two Bugs and a Roach was "extremely well-received by critics and the public" and "stands today as [part of] Hooker's finest musical legacy."
. This pairing did not last long and in May 1969, and after assembling new players, Hooker recorded material that was later released as Funk. Last of the Late Great Earl Hooker. Also in May, after being recommended by Ike Turner
(with whom he first toured in 1952), he went to Los Angeles to record the album Sweet Black Angel for Blue Thumb Records
with arrangements and piano by Turner. It included Hooker's interpretations of several blues standards, such as "Sweet Home Chicago
" (with Hooker on vocal), "Drivin' Wheel
", "Cross Cut Saw
", "Catfish Blues", and the title track. While in Los Angeles, Hooker visited the clubs and sat in with Albert Collins
at the Ash Grove
several times and jammed with others, including Jimi Hendrix
.
After the Blue Thumb recording session, Earl Hooker and his band backed his cousin John Lee Hooker on a series of club dates in California; afterwards John Lee used them for his Bluesway Records
recording session. The resulting album, John Lee Hooker Featuring Earl Hooker – If You Miss 'Im ... I Got 'Im, was Earl Hooker's introduction to the Bluesway label, an ABC
subsidiary and home to B.B. King. This led to recording six more Earl Hooker-involved albums for Bluesway in 1969: Earl Hooker's Don't Have to Worry and albums by Andrew Odom, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker, Charles Brown
, Jimmy Witherspoon
, and Brownie McGhee
and Sonny Terry
.
Hooker's Don't Have to Worry included vocal performances by Walker, Odom, and Hooker as well as instrumental selections. The session had a "coherence and consistency" that help make the album another part of Hooker's "finest musical legacy". Touring with his band in California took Hooker to the San Francisco Bay area in July 1969, where he played club and college dates as well as rock venues, such as The Matrix
and the Fillmore West
. In Berkeley, he and his band, billed as "Earl Hooker and His Chicago Blues Band", performed at Mandrake's, a local club, for two weeks as he recorded a second album for Arhoolie. Titled Hooker and Steve, the album was recorded with Louis Myers on harmonica, blues keyboard player Steve Miller, Geno Skaggs on bass, and Bobby Robinson on drums. Hooker shared the vocals with Miller and Skaggs.
on August 30, 1969, which attracted about 10,000 people. In October 1969, Hooker toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival
, where he played twenty concerts in twenty-three days in nine countries. There his sets were well received and garnered favorable reviews. "The journey overseas was a sort of apotheosis for Hooker, who regarded it, along with his recording trips to California, as the climax of his career." The tour exhausted him and "his friends noticed a severe deterioration of his health upon his return." Hooker played a few dates around Chicago (including some with Junior Wells) from November to early December 1969, whereafter he was hospitalized. On April 21, 1970 at age 41, he died from complications due to tuberculosis. He is interred in the Restvale Cemetery
in the Chicago suburb of Alsip.
and Muddy Waters, Earl Hooker used standard tuning on his guitar for slide playing. He also used a short steel slide. This allowed him to switch between slide and fretted playing during a song with greater ease. Part of his slide sound has been attributed to his light touch, a technique he learned from Robert Nighthawk. "Instead of using full-chord glissando
effects, he preferred the more subtle single-note runs inherited from others who played slide in standard tuning, [such as] Tampa Red
, Houston Stackhouse
, and his mentor Robert Nighthawk."
In addition to his mastery of slide guitar, Hooker was also a highly developed standard-guitar soloist and rhythm player. At a time when many blues guitarists were emulating B.B. King, Hooker maintained his own course. Although he was a bluesman at heart, Hooker was adept at several musical styles, which he incorporated into his playing as it suited him. Depending on his mood and audience reaction, a Hooker performance could include blues, boogie-woogie, R&B/soul, be-bop, pop, and even a country & western favorite.
Earl Hooker was a flamboyant showman in the style of T-Bone Walker and predated Guitar Slim
and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. He wore flashy clothes and would pick the guitar with his teeth or his feet or play it behind his neck or between his legs. He also played a double neck guitar
, at first a six-string guitar and four-string bass combination and later a twelve- and six-string guitar combination. After his 1967 tuberculosis attack left him weakened, he sometimes played while seated and using a lighter single-neck guitar.
In a genre that typically shunned gadgetry
, Earl Hooker was an exception. He experimented with amplification and used echo and tape delay
, including "double-tracking his playing during a song, [so] he could pick simultaneously two solos in harmony". In 1968, he began using a wah-wah pedal
to add a vocal-like quality to some of his solos.
Although Hooker did not receive the public recognition to the extent as some of his contemporaries, he was highly regarded by his fellow musicians. Many consider Earl Hooker to be one of the greatest modern blues guitarists, including: Wayne Bennett
, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Albert Collins
, Willie Dixon
, Ronnie Earl
, Tinsley Ellis
, Guitar Shorty
, Buddy Guy
, John Lee Hooker
, Albert King
, B.B. King, Little Milton
, Louis Myers
, Lucky Peterson
, Otis Rush
, Joe Louis Walker
, and Junior Wells
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Chicago blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
guitarist, perhaps best known for his slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
playing. Considered a "musician's musician", Hooker performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II
Sonny Boy Williamson II
Willie "Sonny Boy" Williamson was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, from Mississippi. He is acknowledged as one of the most charismatic and influential blues musicians, with considerable prowess on the harmonica and highly creative songwriting skills...
, Junior Wells
Junior Wells
Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...
, and John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
(a cousin) as well as fronting his own bands. An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker
T-Bone Walker
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was a critically acclaimed American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was one of the most influential pioneers and innovators of the jump blues and electric blues sound. He is the first musician recorded playing blues with the...
and Robert Nighthawk. As a band leader, he recorded several singles and albums, in addition to recording with well-known artists. His "Blue Guitar", a popular Chicago area slide-guitar instrumental single, was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
and became the popular "You Shook Me
You Shook Me
"You Shook Me" is a blues song written by Willie Dixon and J. B. Lenoir. Earl Hooker first recorded it as an instrumental which was then overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters in 1962....
".
In the late 1960s, Hooker began performing on the college and concert circuit and had several recording contracts. Just as his career was on an upswing, Earl Hooker died in 1970 at age 41 after a life-long struggle with tuberculosis. His guitar playing has been acknowledged by many of his peers, including B.B. King, who commented: "to me he is the best of modern guitarists. Period. With the slide he was the best. It was nobody else like him, he was just one of a kind".
Early life
Earl Zebedee Hooker was born in 1929 in rural Quitman County, MississippiQuitman County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 10,117 people, 3,565 households, and 2,506 families residing in the county. The population density was 25 people per square mile . There were 3,923 housing units at an average density of 10 per square mile...
, outside of Clarksdale. In 1930, when he was one-year old, his parents moved to Chicago. His family was musically inclined (John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
was a cousin) and Earl was exposed to music at home at a very early age. About age ten, he started playing guitar. Hooker was self-taught and picked up what he could from those around him. Although Hooker was gaining proficiency on guitar, he did not show an interest in singing. This has been explained by a speech impediment, i.e., pronounced stuttering, which afflicted him all his life. Hooker also contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
when he was young. Although his condition did not become critical until the mid-1950s, it required periodic hospital visits beginning at an early age.
By 1942, Hooker was performing on Chicago street corners with childhood friends including Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
. From the beginning, the blues were Hooker's favorites, but this when the more country
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
-influenced blues was giving way to swing-influenced and jump-blues
Jump blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...
styles, which often featured the electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
. T-Bone Walker
T-Bone Walker
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was a critically acclaimed American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was one of the most influential pioneers and innovators of the jump blues and electric blues sound. He is the first musician recorded playing blues with the...
was popular and in 1942 began a three-month club stint at the Rhumboogie Club
Rhumboogie Café
The Rhumboogie Café, also referred to as the Rhumboogie Club, was an important, but short-lived nightclub at 343 East 55th Street, Chicago....
in Chicago. He had a considerable impact on Hooker, with both his playing and showmanship. Walker's swing-influenced blues guitar, including "the jazzy way he would sometimes run the blues scales" and intricate chord work, appealed to Hooker. Walker's stage dynamics, which included playing the guitar behind his neck and with his teeth, influenced Hooker's own later stage act.
Also around this time, he developed a friendship with Robert Nighthawk, one of the first guitarists in Chicago to switch to electric guitar. Nighthawk taught Hooker slide-guitar techniques, including various tunings and his highly articulated approach; Nighthawk had a lasting influence on Hooker's playing. Junior Wells
Junior Wells
Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...
, another important figure in Hooker's career, entered his life at this time. The two were frequent street performers and sometimes to avoid foul weather (or truancy officers), they played in streetcars, riding one line to another across Chicago.
Early career and recordings
Around 1946, Earl Hooker traveled to Helena, Arkansas where he performed with Robert Nighthawk. While not booked with Nighthawk, Hooker performed with Sonny Boy Williamson IISonny Boy Williamson II
Willie "Sonny Boy" Williamson was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, from Mississippi. He is acknowledged as one of the most charismatic and influential blues musicians, with considerable prowess on the harmonica and highly creative songwriting skills...
, including on his popular Helena KFFA
KFFA (AM)
KFFA is an American radio station licensed by the FCC to serve the community of Helena, Arkansas. The station is owned by Delta Broadcasting, which is owned by Jamie and Nancy Howe, and Otis Howe, all of whom live in Helena.-Historical role:...
radio program King Biscuit Time
King Biscuit Time
King Biscuit Time is the longest-running daily American radio broadcasts in history. The program is broadcast each weekday from KFFA in Helena, Arkansas, United States and has won the George Foster Peabody Award for broadcasting excellence and is currently broadcast from the KFFA studio located in...
. Hooker then toured the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
as a member of Nighthawk's band for the next couple of years. This was his introduction to life as an itinerant blues musician (although he had earlier run away from home and spent time in the Mississippi Delta
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
). In 1949, Hooker tried to establish himself in the Memphis, Tennessee music scene, but was soon back on the road fronting his own band. By the early 1950s he returned to Chicago and performed regularly in the local clubs. This set the pattern that he repeated for most of his life: extensive touring with various musicians interspersed with establishing himself in various cities before returning to the Chicago club scene.
In 1952, Earl Hooker began recording for several independent record companies. His early singles were often credited to the vocalist he recorded with, although some instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
s (and his occasional vocal) were issued in Hooker's name. Songs by Hooker and with blues and R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
artists, including Johnny O'Neal, Little Sam Davis, Boyd Gilmore, Pinetop Perkins
Pinetop Perkins
Joseph William Perkins , known by the stage name Pinetop Perkins, was an American blues musician, specializing in piano music...
, The Dells
The Dells
The Dells are an R&B and crossover musical group. Their successful recordings spanned more than four decades. Formed in 1952 after attending high school together, the Dells' repertoire has included doo-wop, jazz, soul, disco and contemporary rhythm and blues...
, Arbee Stidham
Arbee Stidham
Arbee Stidham was an American blues singer and multi-instrumentalist, most successful in the late 1940s and 1950s....
, Lorenzo Smith, and Harold Tidwell were recorded by such labels as King
King Records (USA)
King Records is an American record label, started in 1943 by Syd Nathan and originally headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.-History:At first it specialized in country music, at the time still known as "hillbilly music." King advertised, "If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly -- If it's a Hillbilly, it's a...
, Rockin', Sun
Sun Records
Sun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27, 1952.Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash...
, Argo
Argo Records
Argo Records was started in December of 1955 to accommodate some of the rapidly growing recording activity at Chess Records. Originally the label was called Marterry, but bandleader Ralph Marterie objected, and within a couple of months the imprint was renamed Argo.Initially, Argo offered a...
, Veejay, States
States Records
States Record Company was a Chicago-based record label. A subsidiary of United Records, it was in business from May 1952 to December 1957. States focused on rhythm and blues, jazz, and gospel....
, United
United Records
For "United Records", see United Records United Records was in business from July 1951 to December 1957. It was operated by Chicago businessman Leonard Allen, initially in collaboration with Lew Simpkins...
, and C.J. (several of these recordings, including all of the Sun material, were unissued at the time).
Among these early singles was Hooker's first recorded vocal performance on an interpretation of the blues classic "Black Angel Blues
Black Angel Blues
"Black Angel Blues", also known as "Sweet Black Angel" or "Sweet Little Angel", is a blues standard that has been recorded by numerous blues and other artists. The song was first recorded in 1930 by Lucille Bogan, one of the classic female blues singers...
". Although his vocals were more than adequate, they lacked the power usually associated with blues singers
Blues shouter
A blues shouter is a blues singer, often male, capable of singing with a band. The singer must project, or "shout", to be heard over the drums and musical instruments of the band. Blues shouting was a major pathway by which jazz music edged over into rock and roll...
. Hooker's "Sweet Angel" (1953 Rockin' 513) was based on Robert Nighthawk's 1949 "Black Angel Blues" and showed that "Hooker had by now transcended his teacher". (B.B. King later had a hit in 1956 with his interpretation, "Sweet Little Angel".) One of Hooker's most successful singles during this period was "Frog Hop", recorded in 1956 (Argo 5265). The song, an upbeat instrumental, showed some of his T-Bone Walker swing-blues and chording influences, as well as his own style.
Chief/Profile/Age recordings
Despite a major tuberculosis attack in 1956 that required hospitalization, Earl Hooker returned to performing in Chicago clubs and touring the South. By late 1959, Junior Wells brought Hooker to the Chief/Profile/AgeChief Records
Chief Records was an independent record label that operated from 1957 to 1964. Best known for its recordings of Chicago blues artists Elmore James, Junior Wells, Magic Sam, and Earl Hooker, the label had a diverse roster and included R&B artists Lillian Offitt and Ricky Allen.Chief Records was...
group of labels, where he began one of the most fruitful periods of his recording career. Their first recording together, "Little by Little" (Profile 4011), was a hit the following year when it reached number 23 in the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot R&B Sides
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...
chart. With this success and his rapport with Chief owner and producer Mel London
Mel London
Mel London was a songwriter, record producer, and record label owner. He was active in the Chicago blues and R&B scenes in the 1950s and 1960s...
, Hooker became Chief's house guitarist. From 1959 to 1963, he appeared on about forty Chief recordings, including singles for Wells, Lillian Offitt, Magic Sam
Magic Sam
Samuel "Magic Sam" Gene Maghett was an American Chicago blues musician. Maghett was born in Grenada, Mississippi, United States, and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Little Walter...
, A.C. Reed
A.C. Reed
Aaron Corthen, better known as A.C. Reed was an American blues saxophonist, closely associated with the Chicago blues scene from the 1940s into the 2000s.- Biography :...
, Ricky Allen
Ricky Allen
Richard A. "Ricky" Allen was an American blues singer from Chicago.He was born in Nashville, Tennessee and began his singing career as member of a church choir in his home town. He relocated to Chicago in 1960, and received a recording contract one year later at Age Records...
, Reggie "Guitar" Boyd, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker, and Jackie Brenston
Jackie Brenston
Jackie Brenston was an African American R&B singer and saxophonist, who recorded, with Ike Turner's band, the first version of the proto-rock and roll song "Rocket 88".-Biography:...
, as well as Hooker being the featured artist. He appeared on nearly all of Wells' releases, including "Come on in This House", "Messin' with the Kid
Messin' With The Kid
"Messin' with the Kid" is a rhythm and blues-style blues song originally recorded by Junior Wells in 1960. It is credited to Chief Records owner/songwriter/producer Mel London. Considered a blues standard, it "remains Junior Well's best-known song"...
", and "It Hurts Me Too
It Hurts Me Too
"It Hurts Me Too" is a blues standard that is "one of the most interpreted blues [songs]". First recorded in 1940 by Tampa Red, the song is a mid-tempo eight-bar blues that features slide guitar...
", which remained in Wells' repertoire throughout his career. Hooker regularly performed with Wells for the rest of 1960 and most of 1961.
For the Chief labels, Hooker released several instrumentals, including the slow blues "Calling All Blues" (1960 Chief 7020) which featured Hooker's slide guitar and "Blues in D Natural" (1960 Chief 7016), where he switched between fretted and slide guitar. However, it was a chance taping before a recording session that captured perhaps Hooker's best known song (although by a different title). During the warm-up that preceded a May 1961 scheduled session, Hooker and his band played an impromptu slow blues which featured Hooker's slide guitar. The song was played once and Hooker was apparently not aware that it was being recorded. Producer Mel London saved the tape and when looking for material to release the following spring, issued it as "Blue Guitar" (Age 29106). "Earl's song sold unusually well for an instrumental blues side" and Chicago-area bluesmen were including it in their sets.
Sensing greater commercial potential for Hooker's "Blue Guitar", Leonard Chess
Leonard Chess
Leonard Chess was a record company executive and the founder of Chess Records. He was influential in the development of electric blues.- Early life :...
approached Mel London about using it for Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
' next record. An agreement was reached and in July 1962, Waters overdubbed
Overdubbing
Overdubbing is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance....
a vocal (with lyrics by Willie Dixon
Willie Dixon
William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...
) on Hooker's single and it was renamed "You Shook Me
You Shook Me
"You Shook Me" is a blues song written by Willie Dixon and J. B. Lenoir. Earl Hooker first recorded it as an instrumental which was then overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters in 1962....
". The song was successful and Chess hired Hooker to record three more instrumentals for Muddy Waters to overdub. One of the songs, again with Dixon-supplied lyrics, titled "You Need Love", was also a success and "sold better than Muddy's early sixties recordings". Later, rock bands such as Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
would achieve greater success with their adaptations of Earl Hooker's and Muddy Waters' "You Shook Me" and "You Need Love".
During his time with Chief, Hooker also recorded singles as a sideman for Bobby Saxton and Betty Everett
Betty Everett
Betty Everett was an African-American soul singer and pianist, best known for her biggest hit single, the million-selling "The Shoop Shoop Song ".-Early career:...
as well as in his own name for the Bea & Baby, C.J., and Checker
Checker Records
Checker Records is an inactive record label that was started in 1952 as a subsidiary to Chess Records in Chicago, Illinois. The label was founded by the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, who ran the label until they sold it to General Recorded Tape in 1969, shortly before Leonard's death.The label...
record labels. By 1964, the last of the Chief labels went out of business and ended his longest association with a record label; for some, his recordings for Chief/Profile/Age represent Hooker's best work.
Cuca and Arhoolie recordings
Hooker continued touring and began recording for Cuca RecordsCuca Records
Cuca Records of Sauk City, Wisconsin was founded by James Kirchstein in 1959 and actively produced LP and 45 rpm recordings until the early 1970s. During this period, Cuca recorded and released primarily polka and ethnic music on LP but also issued other musical styles, including pop, rhythm and...
, Jim-Ko, C.J., Duplex, and Globe. Several songs recorded for Cuca between 1964 and 1967 were released on his first album The Genius of Earl Hooker. The album was composed of instrumentals, including the slow blues "The End of the Blues" and some songs which incorporated recent popular music trends, such as the early funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
-influenced "Two Bugs in a Rug" (an allusion to his tuberculosis or "TB"). Hooker experienced a major tuberculosis attack in late summer 1967 and was hospitalized for nearly a year.
When Hooker was released from the hospital in 1968, he assembled a new band and began performing in the Chicago clubs and touring, against his doctor's advice. The band, with pianist Pinetop Perkins
Pinetop Perkins
Joseph William Perkins , known by the stage name Pinetop Perkins, was an American blues musician, specializing in piano music...
, harmonica player Carey Bell
Carey Bell
Carey Bell was an American blues musician, who played the harmonica in the Chicago blues style. Bell played harmonica and bass for other blues musicians during the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s before embarking on a solo career...
, vocalist Andrew Odom, and steel-guitar player Freddie Roulette
Freddie Roulette
Frederick Martin "Freddie" Roulette is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer. He is best known as an exponent of the lap steel guitar. In a lengthy career, he has collaborated with Earl Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, Henry Kaiser, and Harvey Mandel, and released several...
, was "widely acclaimed" and "considered [as] one of the best Earl had ever carried with him". Based on a recommendation by Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...
, Arhoolie Records
Arhoolie Records
Arhoolie Records is a small record label run by Chris Strachwitz. The label was founded by Strachwitz in 1960 as a way for him to record and publish previously obscure "down home blues" artists such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Snooks Eaglin and Bill Gaither...
recorded an album by Hooker and his new band. Two Bugs and a Roach was released in spring 1969 and included a mix of instrumentals and vocals by Odom, Bell, and Hooker. For one of his vocals, Hooker chose "Anna Lee", a song based on Robert Nighthawk's 1949 "Annie Lee Blues". As he had done earlier with "Sweet Angel", Hooker acknowledged his mentor's influence, but extended beyond Nighthawk's version to create his own interpretation. The "brilliant bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
[-influenced]" instrumental "Off the Hook" showed his jazzier leanings. Two Bugs and a Roach was "extremely well-received by critics and the public" and "stands today as [part of] Hooker's finest musical legacy."
Blue Thumb and Bluesway recordings
The year 1969 was an important one in Earl Hooker's career. He again teamed up with Junior Wells and they performed at higher-paying college dates and concerts, including Chicago's Kinetic PlaygroundKinetic Playground
The Kinetic Playground was a short-lived nightclub located in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.The club was opened on April 3, 1968 as the Electric Theater by Aaron Russo and was located at 4812 North Clark Street...
. This pairing did not last long and in May 1969, and after assembling new players, Hooker recorded material that was later released as Funk. Last of the Late Great Earl Hooker. Also in May, after being recommended by Ike Turner
Ike Turner
Isaac Wister Turner was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk...
(with whom he first toured in 1952), he went to Los Angeles to record the album Sweet Black Angel for Blue Thumb Records
Blue Thumb Records
Blue Thumb Records was an American record label founded in 1968 by Bob Krasnow, along with former A&M Records executives Tommy LiPuma and Don Graham. Krasnow had been in the record business for a number of years, working as a promotion man for King Records and also working for Buddah/Kama Sutra...
with arrangements and piano by Turner. It included Hooker's interpretations of several blues standards, such as "Sweet Home Chicago
Sweet Home Chicago
"Sweet Home Chicago" is a popular blues standard in the twelve bar form. It was first recorded and is credited to have been written by Robert Johnson...
" (with Hooker on vocal), "Drivin' Wheel
Driving Wheel (song)
"Driving Wheel", also called "Drivin' Wheel" or "Driving Wheel Blues", is blues song recorded by Roosevelt Sykes in 1936...
", "Cross Cut Saw
Crosscut Saw (song)
"Crosscut Saw", or "Cross Cut Saw Blues" as it was first called, is a bawdy blues song "that must have belonged to the general repertoire of the Delta blues". The song was first released in 1941 by Mississippi bluesman Tommy McClennan and has since been interpreted by many blues artists...
", "Catfish Blues", and the title track. While in Los Angeles, Hooker visited the clubs and sat in with Albert Collins
Albert Collins
Albert Collins was an American electric blues guitarist and singer whose recording career began in the 1960s in Houston and whose fame eventually took him to stages across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia...
at the Ash Grove
Ash Grove (music club)
The Ash Grove was a folk music club located at 8162 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, founded in 1958 by Ed Pearl and named after the Welsh folk song, "The Ash Grove."...
several times and jammed with others, including Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
.
After the Blue Thumb recording session, Earl Hooker and his band backed his cousin John Lee Hooker on a series of club dates in California; afterwards John Lee used them for his Bluesway Records
Bluesway Records
Bluesway Records was a subsidiary label of ABC-Paramount Records, begun by Bob Thiele in 1966. Artists such as John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Jimmy Rushing, Otis Spann, and T-Bone Walker were among those who signed for the label. Bluesway released B. B. King's 1969 Live and Well and Completely Well...
recording session. The resulting album, John Lee Hooker Featuring Earl Hooker – If You Miss 'Im ... I Got 'Im, was Earl Hooker's introduction to the Bluesway label, an ABC
ABC Records
ABC Records was an American record label, founded in New York City in 1955 as ABC-Paramount Records. It originated as the main popular music label operated the Am-Par Record Corporation, the music subsidiary of the American Broadcasting Company . ABC-Paramount Records' first president was Samuel H....
subsidiary and home to B.B. King. This led to recording six more Earl Hooker-involved albums for Bluesway in 1969: Earl Hooker's Don't Have to Worry and albums by Andrew Odom, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker, Charles Brown
Charles Brown (musician)
Charles Brown , born in Texas City, Texas was an American blues singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced blues-club style influenced the development of blues performance during the 1940s and 1950s...
, Jimmy Witherspoon
Jimmy Witherspoon
Jimmy Witherspoon was an American jump blues singer.-Early life and career:James Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. He first attracted attention singing with Teddy Weatherford's band in Calcutta, India, which made regular radio broadcasts over the U. S. Armed Forces Radio Service during...
, and Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...
and Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
.
Hooker's Don't Have to Worry included vocal performances by Walker, Odom, and Hooker as well as instrumental selections. The session had a "coherence and consistency" that help make the album another part of Hooker's "finest musical legacy". Touring with his band in California took Hooker to the San Francisco Bay area in July 1969, where he played club and college dates as well as rock venues, such as The Matrix
The Matrix (club)
The Matrix, a renovated former pizza shop, was a nightclub in San Francisco from 1965 to 1972 and was one of the keys to what eventually became known as the "San Francisco Sound" in rock music...
and the Fillmore West
Fillmore West
The Fillmore West was an historic music venue in San Francisco, California made famous by concert promoter Bill Graham. Named after Graham's original "Fillmore" location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard, it stood at Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue and was formerly...
. In Berkeley, he and his band, billed as "Earl Hooker and His Chicago Blues Band", performed at Mandrake's, a local club, for two weeks as he recorded a second album for Arhoolie. Titled Hooker and Steve, the album was recorded with Louis Myers on harmonica, blues keyboard player Steve Miller, Geno Skaggs on bass, and Bobby Robinson on drums. Hooker shared the vocals with Miller and Skaggs.
Last performances
After his California sojourn, Hooker returned to Chicago and performed regularly around the city, including the first Chicago Blues FestivalChicago Blues Festival
The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, and always occurs in early June...
on August 30, 1969, which attracted about 10,000 people. In October 1969, Hooker toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival
American Folk Blues Festival
The American Folk Blues Festival was a music festival that toured Europe beginning in 1962.German jazz publicist Joachim-Ernst Berendt first had the idea of bringing original African-American blues performers to Europe. Jazz had become very popular, and rock and roll was just gaining a foothold,...
, where he played twenty concerts in twenty-three days in nine countries. There his sets were well received and garnered favorable reviews. "The journey overseas was a sort of apotheosis for Hooker, who regarded it, along with his recording trips to California, as the climax of his career." The tour exhausted him and "his friends noticed a severe deterioration of his health upon his return." Hooker played a few dates around Chicago (including some with Junior Wells) from November to early December 1969, whereafter he was hospitalized. On April 21, 1970 at age 41, he died from complications due to tuberculosis. He is interred in the Restvale Cemetery
Restvale Cemetery
Restvale Cemetery is located at 11700 S. Laramie Street in Alsip, Illinois, United States, a suburb southwest of the city of Chicago. Many musicians from the Chicago blues era are buried here.-Notable interments:...
in the Chicago suburb of Alsip.
Playing style and recognition
Unlike his contemporaries Elmore JamesElmore James
Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was known as "the King of the Slide Guitar" and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice.-Biography:James was born Elmore Brooks in the old Richland community in...
and Muddy Waters, Earl Hooker used standard tuning on his guitar for slide playing. He also used a short steel slide. This allowed him to switch between slide and fretted playing during a song with greater ease. Part of his slide sound has been attributed to his light touch, a technique he learned from Robert Nighthawk. "Instead of using full-chord glissando
Glissando
In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
effects, he preferred the more subtle single-note runs inherited from others who played slide in standard tuning, [such as] Tampa Red
Tampa Red
Tampa Red , born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an American Chicago blues musician....
, Houston Stackhouse
Houston Stackhouse
Houston Stackhouse was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. He is best known for his association and work with Robert Nighthawk. Although Stackhouse was not especially noted as a guitarist nor singer, Nighthawk showed gratitude for being taught to play by Stackhouse, by backing him on a...
, and his mentor Robert Nighthawk."
In addition to his mastery of slide guitar, Hooker was also a highly developed standard-guitar soloist and rhythm player. At a time when many blues guitarists were emulating B.B. King, Hooker maintained his own course. Although he was a bluesman at heart, Hooker was adept at several musical styles, which he incorporated into his playing as it suited him. Depending on his mood and audience reaction, a Hooker performance could include blues, boogie-woogie, R&B/soul, be-bop, pop, and even a country & western favorite.
Earl Hooker was a flamboyant showman in the style of T-Bone Walker and predated Guitar Slim
Guitar Slim
Eddie Jones , better known as Guitar Slim, was a New Orleans blues guitarist, from the 1940s and 1950s, best known for the million-selling song, produced by Johnny Vincent at Specialty Records, "The Things That I Used to Do"...
and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. He wore flashy clothes and would pick the guitar with his teeth or his feet or play it behind his neck or between his legs. He also played a double neck guitar
Double neck guitar
A multi-neck guitar is a guitar that has multiple fingerboard necks. They exist in both electric and acoustic versions. Although multi-neck guitars are quite common today, they are not by any means a modern invention...
, at first a six-string guitar and four-string bass combination and later a twelve- and six-string guitar combination. After his 1967 tuberculosis attack left him weakened, he sometimes played while seated and using a lighter single-neck guitar.
In a genre that typically shunned gadgetry
Effects unit
Effects units are electronic devices that alter how a musical instrument or other audio source sounds. Some effects subtly "color" a sound, while others transform it dramatically. Effects are used during live performances or in the studio, typically with electric guitar, keyboard and bass...
, Earl Hooker was an exception. He experimented with amplification and used echo and tape delay
Delay (audio effect)
Delay is an audio effect which records an input signal to an audio storage medium, and then plays it back after a period of time. The delayed signal may either be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.-Early delay...
, including "double-tracking his playing during a song, [so] he could pick simultaneously two solos in harmony". In 1968, he began using a wah-wah pedal
Wah-wah pedal
A wah-wah pedal is a type of guitar effects pedal that alters the tone of the signal to create a distinctive effect, mimicking the human voice...
to add a vocal-like quality to some of his solos.
Although Hooker did not receive the public recognition to the extent as some of his contemporaries, he was highly regarded by his fellow musicians. Many consider Earl Hooker to be one of the greatest modern blues guitarists, including: Wayne Bennett
Wayne Bennett (blues guitarist)
Wayne Bennett was an American blues guitarist.-Biography:He was born in Sulphur, Oklahoma, and died in New Orleans Louisiana. He worked with blues musicians such as Bobby Bland, Boxcar Willie, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and Elmore James, as well as with jazz musicians, including Cannonball...
, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Albert Collins
Albert Collins
Albert Collins was an American electric blues guitarist and singer whose recording career began in the 1960s in Houston and whose fame eventually took him to stages across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia...
, Willie Dixon
Willie Dixon
William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...
, Ronnie Earl
Ronnie Earl
Ronnie Earl is an American blues guitarist and music instructor.-Career:Earl collected blues, jazz, rock and soul records while growing up. He studied American History at C.W...
, Tinsley Ellis
Tinsley Ellis
Tinsley Ellis is an American blues and rock musician, who grew up in southern Florida.-Biography:...
, Guitar Shorty
Guitar Shorty
Guitar Shorty is an American blues guitarist. He is well known for his explosive guitar style and wild stage antics. Billboard magazine said, “his galvanizing guitar work defines modern, top-of-the-line blues-rock. His vocals remain as forceful as ever...
, Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...
, John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, Albert King
Albert King
Albert King was an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing.-Career:...
, B.B. King, Little Milton
Little Milton
James Milton Campbell, Jr. , better known as Little Milton, was an American electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul singer and guitarist, best known for his hit records "Grits Ain't Groceries" and "We're Gonna Make It."-Biography:Milton was born James Milton Campbell, Jr., in the Mississippi...
, Louis Myers
The Aces (blues band)
The Aces was one of the earliest and most influential of the electric Chicago blues band in the 1950s. Led by the guitarist brothers Louis and Dave Myers, natives of Byhalia, Mississippi, the brothers originally performed under the name The Little Boys; with the subsequent addition of harmonica...
, Lucky Peterson
Lucky Peterson
Lucky Peterson is an American musician who plays contemporary blues, fusing soul, R&B, gospel and rock and roll. He plays guitar and keyboards...
, Otis Rush
Otis Rush
Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...
, Joe Louis Walker
Joe Louis Walker
Joe Louis Walker, also known as JLW is an American musician, best known as a electric blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. A feature of his work is his recourse to older material or playing styles, which revealed his knowledge of blues history.-Career:Joe Louis Walker was born in San...
, and Junior Wells
Junior Wells
Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...
.
Partial album discography
The following lists the albums Earl Hooker released during his career, as well as currently available compilations.| Year | Title | Label | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | The Genius of Earl Hooker | Cuca | recorded Sauk City, WI 1964–67 |
| 1969 | Two Bugs & A Roach | Arhoolie | recorded Chicago 1968 |
| 1969 | Don't Have to Worry | Bluesway | recorded Los Angeles 1969 |
| 1969 | Sweet Black Angel | Blue Thumb | recorded Los Angeles 1969 |
| 1970 | Hooker and Steve | Arhoolie | recorded Berkeley 1969 |
| 1972 | Funk. The Last of the Great Earl Hooker | Blues on Blues | recorded Chicago 1969 |
| 1972 | His First and Last Recordings | Arhoolie | Sun, Arhoolie recordings 1953, 1968–69 |
| 1993 | Play Your Guitar, Mr. Hooker! | Black Top | Cuca recordings 1964–67 |
| 1998 | The Moon Is Rising | Arhoolie | Arhoolie, live recordings 1968–69 |
| 1999 | Simply the Best: Earl Hooker Collection | MCA | Chess, Blue Thumb, Bluesway recordings 1956–69 |
| 2003 | Blue Guitar: The Chief and Age Sessions 1959–63 | P-Vine | Chief/Profile/Age recordings 1959–63 |
| 2006 | An Introduction to Earl Hooker | Fuel | Chief/Age recordings 1959–62 |