In Detroit Hooker perfected a brand of music that's uniquely his own. "I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean, mean licks."
His spare, poignant guitar style helped spur the birth of rock 'n' roll. Earlier this year in honor of his contributions, Hooker was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. With little modesty, he recognizes his role in the development of rock, but feigns surprise at his impact on the world of music.
"You don't hear nobody else playing the licks that I'm playing. A lot of them try, you hear it in a lot of music," says Hooker. "I'm kind of surprised that every rock 'n' roll singer, you hear some of my licks in their music. They latch on to it."
Hooker's boogie, he admits, is a part of mainstream blues, but yet it stands apart. "It's something different, it's kind of part of it, but it's something different."
He describes the boogie in terms only a father can understand. "I'm the originator of the boogie. It's a driving thing when you hear it. You got to move." What sets the younger musicians apart from Hooker? "A lot of guitar players, like ZZ Top and a lot of other people... they're a part of the blues. It's part of my blues, what I do, but it's just stepped-up and funky, good, fast medium tempo boogie blues."
Throughout his long career, Hooker has seen the music he learned in a Mississippi sharecropper's shack change. "Oh boy, the music has turned completely around. It's so different. But mine ain't. Mine carries on through all of the changes in the music. The blues was just played like country blues or whatever. Now it's turned completely around," he notes.
David S. Rotenstein Interview
Photo: Paul Natkin
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