(Earl Zebedee Hooker)
DISCOGRAPHY 1961-2020 (24CD)
Earl Hooker (Jan. 15, 1930–Apr. 21, 1970) was a Chicago blues guitarist
known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician",
he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior
Wells, and John Lee Hooker and fronted 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. He recorded several singles and albums as a bandleader and with other well-known artists. His "Blue Guitar", a slide guitar instrumental single, was popular in the Chicago area and was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters as "You Shook Me".
BIOGRAPHY
An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker and Robert Nighthawk. He recorded several singles and albums as a bandleader and with other well-known artists. His "Blue Guitar", a slide guitar instrumental single, was popular in the Chicago area and was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters as "You Shook Me".
Earl Zebedee Hooker was born in rural Quitman County, Mississippi,
outside of Clarksdale. In 1930, his parents moved the family to Chicago as
part of the Great Migration of blacks out of the rural South in the early
20th century.
His family was musically inclined (John Lee Hooker was a cousin), and
Earl heard music played at home at an early age. About age ten, he started
playing the guitar. He was self-taught and picked up what he could from
those around him. He developed proficiency on the guitar but showed no
interest in singing. He had pronounced stuttering, which afflicted him all
his life. Hooker contracted tuberculosis when he was young. The disease
did not become critical until the mid-1950s, but it required periodic
hospital visits beginning at an early age.
By 1942, when he was 13, Hooker was performing on Chicago street corners
with childhood friends, including Bo Diddley. From the beginning, the
blues was Hooker's favorite music. In this period, country-influenced
blues was giving way to swing-influenced and jump blues styles, which
often featured the electric guitar. In 1942, the popular guitarist T-Bone
Walker began a three-month stint at the Rhumboogie Club in Chicago.
He had considerable impact on Hooker, with both his playing and his
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..... (Wikipedia)