• August 22, 1917 John Lee Hooker, hall of fame singer, songwriter, and blues guitarist, was born in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi. At the age of 15, Hooker ran away from home and in 1948 landed in Detroit, Michigan working at the Ford Motor Company and playing in the blues venues and saloons on Hasting Street. Hooker began recording that year and over his career recorded over 100 albums, including “John Lee Hooker Sings the Blues” (1961), “The Healer” (1989), and “The Best of Friends” (1998). In 1983, Hooker received the National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts, from the National Endowment for the Arts. Hooker was a charter inductee to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in 1991 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1996 received the Blues Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. Two of his songs, “Boogie Chillen” (1948) and “Boom Boom” (1962), are included on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Hooker won four Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. His biography, “Boogie Man: Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the 20th Century,” was published in 2000. Hooker died June 21, 2001.

>via: http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-8222013

JOHN LEE HOOKER