Home › Forums › Our Blues Roots – The History of the Blues › Our Blues Roots: The great Earl Zebedee Hooker
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Don D..
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September 14, 2017 at 11:46 am #80280
This week, I’m going to praise the music of the great Earl Hooker, and also pay a separate mention to Andrew “Big Voice” Odom and Johnny “Big Moose” Walker, who regularly played with him in his later years.
The American Music discography, compiled by Stefan Wirz, gives you the personnel and dates to listen along in an informed way. I’ve been and I’ll continue to be refining the Earl Hooker YouTube playlist, so if you check back in a month, it will look slightly different—unless there’s a new release, the numbers here will still get you to the general area. In general, I allow a lot of redundancy in the playlist because videos and accounts get deleted all the time. I use it as a repository; when I want to find a song and I don’t remember right where it is, I open the playlist all the way down and search (“Command” + “F” on a Mac, “Control” + “F” on a PC).
Please use the links; they’ll tell you more of the story than I was able to. Earl Hooker is one of the most important musicians, he’s right at the top of my pantheon with only a handful of equals (his mentor and friend Robert Nighthawk is one), and this is definitely only the first draft of the first chapter of my tribute. I’ll follow up with something more fitting when I can. If you’re interested in Earl Hooker and you’d like me to send you the vital links unadorned by my narrative, send me a PM. And be sure to check out Sebastian Danchin’s book, Earl Hooker: Blues Master.
As always, it’s my pleasure putting this together, thanks for checking it out. The next Blues Roots will appear on Thursday, September 28, and I have a good one planned—lots of dirty, lowdown blues.
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Like most of us here, Earl Hooker was very young when he was born, and he played the guitar. The similarities end just about there, not that we don’t all have our quirks and our strong points, but Earl Hooker was really peculiar and played guitar better than most. Although he was 100% a blues guitarist, he could play jazz but didn’t because he couldn’t make any money doing it. There are a couple recordings documenting his extended improvisations, like “Improvisations on ‘Frosty’” and “Improvisations on ‘Dust My Broom’” (directly below this paragraph and numbers 284 and 285 on the playlist), recorded live at Pepper’s and released on His First And Last Recordings; they were also added as bonus cuts on some editions of The Moon Is Rising. I’m pretty sure, hearing what I’ve heard, if he’d wanted to play like Django Reinhardt, or anyone, he could have. Fortunately, he kept a down-to-earth aesthetic and played deep, sometimes playful, “accessible” blues and blues-based pop.
Here he is in his own words, in his own voice. This remarkable interview was conducted by Chris Strachwitz, whose devotion to the blues has left us with hundreds and hundreds of recordings on the Arhoolie label and the archives of the Arhoolie Foundation. His 1969 album, Two Bugs and a Roach was one of his Arhoolie releases. Chris Strachwitz said “Back in 1968, I told Buddy Guy, who was playing in a Berkeley club, that I was interested in recording his favorite neglected giants of Chicago Blues. I had met Buddy in Europe while touring with the American Folk Blues Festival and found him to be a tasteful and exciting player (and one of the nicest people I ever met). Buddy’s prompt response was: Earl Hooker and John Littlejohn!”
“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’,” from Earl Hooker: Blues Master, by Sebastian Danchin, (2001). The following video is the main Earl Hooker playlist. I recommend clicking through to YouTube to see all of it.
Although Earl Hooker was born in Mississippi, his family moved with him to Chicago the same year he was born. Earl Hooker was a city kid. One of his earliest and biggest influences was Robert Nighthawk, who took an interest in him and taught him slide guitar.
While still in his early teens Earl Hooker met Bo Diddley, Louis Myers (of The Aces) and Junior Wells, performing with them on the street (later on, Junior Wells became an important partner).
The first three songs on the playlist are from the 1969 American Folk Blues Festival: “Earl’s Boogie” (below, aka “Crosscut Saw” in A), [untitled] a variant of “Wipeout” in Ab, and a version of Ernest Tubb’s “Walking the Floor Over You” are the only known film footage of Earl Hooker (the fourth video is a repeat of the second and third combined, and there’s another video near the very end that repeats the “Walking the Floor Over You”/“Wipeout” content).
Four songs, “Ride Hooker Ride,” “Alley Corn,” “Jammin’,” “After Hours” (numbers 9 through 12 on the playlist) were recorded by the visionary producer Henry Stone, who was in the right place at the right time often enough to doubt that luck alone accounts for his being there. There’s a CD called The Legendary Henry Stone Presents: Blues from the 50s (link to Amazon.com and one copy for under $7 plus $4 shipping, but it has also been available on Discogs.com—though not at present) featuring many of the Little Sam Davis and Earl Hooker songs that were recorded in Florida in 1953 that also includes a killer cut by Ray Charles and a good one by Lightnin’ Hopkins.
Here’s Earl Hooker’s listing on Discogs.
The two takes of “Off the Wall” (aka “Talking Off the Wall”), numbers 39 and 40 on the playlist are credited to Walter Horton; the harmonica is actually played by either Joe Hill Louis or Little Sam Davis, with Earl Hooker (guitar), Pinetop Perkins (piano), Edward Irvon or Willie Nix (drums), Sun Studios, Memphis, TN, July 15, 1953.
Earl Hooker was the first blues musician to use (and master) the wah-wah pedal (note how the “Wah Wah Blues” [number 18] from 1969 used the same melody and structure as the earlier “Blues in D Natural” [number 17], recorded with Junior Wells on Monday, August 8, 1960) which is itself close to “Blue Guitar.” His use of the wah inspired Jimi Hendrix, who at least once named Earl Hooker as his favorite guitarist. “Funky Blues” and “Catfish Blues” are both from his swinging Ike Turner-produced Sweet Black Angel (1969).
Another small masterpiece on Sweet Black Angel (number 64 on the playlist) is the piano-driven “Boogie, Don’t Blot” (numbers 14 and 222). Ernest Lane is probably the uncredited pianist. So many of these including this one have been “my favorite song,” it isn’t even funny.
Earl Hooker partnered with Junior Wells for some great recordings in the late ’50s and again in the early ’60s with a couple-year gap between the two times; their “Calling All Blues” is just one of many small masterpieces (below and numbers 23, 120, 150 and 240 on the playlist). Their record label released it as Elmore James, but it was actually Junior Wells (harp), A.C. Reed (tenor), Earl Hooker (guitar), Johnny “Big Moose” Walker (piano), Earnest Johnson (bass), Harold Tidwell (drums), Chicago, IL, May 5, 1960.
The rest of the Earl Hooker/Junior Wells recordings are scattered throughout the list (a good many have both of their names in the titles so they’re easy to find—that’s one of the things I’m slowly but surely organizing).
Numbers 56 to 59 were instrumentals recorded by Earl Hooker’s band but they were sold as Muddy Waters records. The version of “Blue Guitar” (directly below and number 55) that served as the instrumental backing of “You Shook Me” (56) was recorded May 3, 1961 with A.C. Reed (tenor), Earl Hooker (guitar), Johnny “Big Moose” Walker (organ), Lafayette Leake (piano), Willie Dixon (bass), Bobby Little (drums); Muddy Waters dubbed his Willie Dixon-penned vocal on June 27, 1962.
The flip of “You Shook Me” was the unusual for Muddy Waters “Muddy Waters Twist” (number 57 on the playlist).
Based on the success of “You Shook Me,” both “You Need Love” and “Little Brown Bird” (58 and 59) were both commissioned by Chess expressly for Muddy Waters to overdub the vocals written for him by Willie Dixon. The band sounded similar, but there was an additional horn, no piano, and different bass and drums, with A.C. Reed (tenor), Jackie Brenston (baritone sax), Earl Hooker (guitar), Johnny “Big Moose” Walker (organ), Earnest Johnson (bass), Casey Jones (drums); Chicago, IL, July 1962. Muddy Waters added his voice on October 12, 1962.
Everyone knows that Led Zeppelin made hay with “You Shook Me” and “You Need Love.” I hope that Steve Marriott gets due credit for actually crafting the sound of “Whole Lotta Love” with the Small Faces on their version of “You Need Loving” in 1966. Jeff Beck performed “Little Brown Bird” live in concert in 2016.
Earl Hooker was also one of the first and one of the few to use double-neck guitars (used on “Blues in D Natural” for one); so far as I can see both were 6-string guitars but the second must have been in an open tuning for slide (he also played slide in standard tuning).
Earl Hooker toured a lot more than he recorded. There was only a steady trickle of singles between his early career and 1967, when a collection of 45s was released on his first LP as The Genius of Earl Hooker. Following this, his recording took off in 1968 with four albums in his own name and guest spots on others, including three ABC/BluesWay LPs by Charles Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry (these three were recorded out in California within weeks of each other; on the Charles Brown and Jimmy Witherspoon albums the other guitarist was definitely worth your time, Mel Brown).
On May 29, 1969, in Los Angeles, Earl Hooker recorded If You Miss ’im… I Got ’im on BluesWay with his semi-regular band and his paternal cousin John Lee Hooker (leader/songwriter, vocals, guitar), Earl Hooker, Paul Asbell (guitars; Paul Asbell plays on two tracks that Earl Hooker doesn’t play on, “Bang Bang Bang Bang” and “Have Mercy On My Soul!”), Jeffrey Carp (harmonica), Johnny “Big Moose” Walker (keys), Chester “Gino” Skaggs (bass), Roosevelt Shaw (drums, not Earl or John Lee Hooker’s regular drummer); grouped between number 74 and 85 on the playlist.
“End of the Blues” is a slow, moody instrumental blues in D using two of my favored clichés, the 5, b7, 1, b3, 1 phrase and the equivalent of the sighing whole-step descending “sliding 6/9s” on the organ (sounds like equivalent to the notes on the first, second and third strings, on the 7th and 5th frets). It appears at number 19 and again at 89, 103, 121 and a few other spots. It was recorded in 1964 in Sauk City, WI and released in 1967 on a 45 by Earl Hooker and the Soul Thrillers, with A.C. Reed (tenor), Bobby Little (drums), organ and bass unknown. It was one of the songs that made its way to The Genius of Earl Hooker (aka There’s a Fungus Amung Us; if you’re thinking of buying it, it’s called Theresa Fungus Amung Us on Amazon).
Complete albums start at around number 60 and continue to about number 70, with more YouTube-generated albums starting at number 240.
241–261: Blue Guitar: The Chief and Age Sessions 1959-1963
262–273: There’s a Fungus Amung Us (aka The Genius of Earl Hooker)
274–287: The Moon Is Rising (274-282 were originally released on Arhoolie as Hooker ’n’ Steve, this isn’t the famous Steve Miller, but another white keyboard player from the same generation)
288–301: Two Bugs and a Roach
302–313: The Genius of Earl Hooker (aka There’s a Fungus Amung Us)
315–333: Simply the Best (compilation)
334–358: Wild Moments, Essential Blues (compilation)………A…n…d…r…e…w………“..B…i…g………V…o…i…c…e..”………O…d…o…m………
Earl Hooker’s late-career collaborations with Andrew “Big Voice” Odom on his own records—including my all-time favorite of his, his late masterpiece, Don’t Have to Worry, recorded on a single day, Thursday, May 29, 1969—and on Andrew Odom’s fabulous 1973 album on BluesWay Farther On Down the Road, recorded six days later on Wednesday, June 4, 1969, at Vault Studios, Los Angles are really great records that are some of my favorites (they’re also within three months of the Jimmy Witherspoon and Charles Brown BluesWays that Earl Hooker collaborated on). Click through to YouTube to see the playlist directly below.
The ten songs from Don’t Have to Worry are grouped between numbers 130 and 135 on the main Earl Hooker playlist above, starting with “The Sky Is Crying” and ending with “Come to Me Right Away, Baby” like the album, but the order is skewed because some videos consist of two songs out of order. Fortunately, with Andrew Odom’s set opener and closer, it still comes across like the album.
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Another musician whose name comes up time and again in association with Earl Hooker is the ubiquitous Johnny “Big Moose” Walker (this Discogs entry barely mentions his numerous collaborations). His collaborations with Earl Hooker are great, but it’s hard to say they’re his best, he’s done so many great things—scan this list (click through to YouTube to see the playlist).
Johnny “Big Moose” Walker plays on Earl Hooker’s Don’t Have to Worry and Andrew “Big Voice” Odom’s Farther On Down the Road, as well as his own Ramblin’ Woman. These albums are kind of a trilogy, recorded between May 29 and June 9, 1969, they all have a similar mood that’s dire and goofy, with a hefty helping of lowdown blues and many other things. They’re really attuned to each other.
“The Sky Is Crying” is heard on both Don’t Have to Worry and Johnny “Big Moose” Walker’s Ramblin’ Woman, recorded on Monday, June 9, 1969, with many of the same people; Johnny “Big Moose” Walker (vocals, piano, organ), Otis Hale (tenor), Earl Hooker (guitar), Chester (Gino) Skaggs (bass), Paul Humphrey (drums).
Earl Hooker with Johnny “Big Moose” Walker from Don’t Have to Worry
Johnny “Big Moose” Walker with Earl Hooker from Ramblin’ Woman
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I copied the following word for word from a document by Jeff Harris I found on the Sunday Blues website, the home of Big Road Blues. Many, many thanks to them, it’s one of the best blues resource sites going. I left all of the quirks and “typewriter punctuation” intact, changing only one misspelling and removing the asterisk that preceded each name. My documentation of the singles cut for Muddy Waters is more complete and accurate.Hooker, Zebedee Earl (b. January 15, 1929, Quitman County, Mississippi, d. April 21, 1970, Chicago, Illinois)
Among his peers, Earl Hooker is widely considered the greatest guitarist of his generation. His wild performances attracted a loyal following wherever he went as he entertained the crowds by playing behind his back, picking the guitar with his feet or teeth or doing flips on stage without missing a note. Hooker always had a predilection for the latest electric guitar technology becoming famous for his double-neck guitars and even making the wah-wah pedal work in a blues context. In addition to blues he had incorporated Country and Western music in his repertoire early on. Hooker was the archetype of the rambling bluesman having spent most of his life on the road. Along the way he cut singles for a host of tiny labels that did little to get the word out. The result was that he remained little known outside the insular blues world until the late 60’s.
Born in the Mississippi, Hooker arrived in Chicago as a child. As a youngster he began playing music in the streets with future blues artists Bo Diddley and Louis Myers. He met Robert Nighthawk in Chicago in the early 40’s and it was Nighthawk who became his primary influence, teaching him the rudiments of his remarkable slide technique. Hooker would eventually surpass his mentor, developing an entirely new language for the slide guitar. Hooker frequently ran away from home, often heading down south to play music. During these trips he reunited with Nighthawk, played with Ike Turner, Sonny Boy Williamson and others. He formed the Roadmasters in the early 50’s and with constantly changing personnel played all over the country for the next twenty years.
Hooker’s initial recordings were in 1952 for King with Johnny O’Neal, cutting sides the following year for Rockin’ and Sun. By the early 50’s he was back in Chicago cutting singles for Argo, C.J., and Bea & Baby before joining with producer Mel London (owner of Chief and Age) in 1959. For the next four years, he recorded both as sideman and leader for the producer, backing Junior Wells, Bobby Saxton, Lillian Offitt, Ricky Allen, Big Moose Walker and A.C. Reed plus cutting notable instrumentals like “Blue Guitar” and “Blues in D-Natural.” He also contributed slide work to Muddy Waters’ 1962 Chess waxing “You Shook Me”. After Age folded Hooker recorded sporadically between 1964 and 1968 for tiny outfits like Cuca, Jim-Ko, Duplex and again for C.J.
He finally drew increased attention during the late ’60s starting with “Two Bugs & a Roach,” his first full-length album, for Arhoolie in 1968. In 1969 he hooked up with ABC-BluesWay churning out several albums for the label in addition to playing on records of BluesWay artists like Andrew Odom, Johnny “Big Moose” Walker, Charles Brown, his cousin John Lee Hooker and others. In late 1969, Hooker traveled to Europe to play in the American Folk Blues Festival. By this time, he was quite ill with advancing tuberculosis, a condition he battled his entire life, and after his return was admitted to a Chicago sanitarium where he passed away in April 21, 1970.
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Sleepy Boy Hawkins is the radio persona of Steve Franz, author of The Amazing Secret History of Elmore James (2002). His radio shows draw upon his extensive knowledge and collection of CDs, LPs, 45s, and 78s. Each episode usually has a different theme, presented in two one-hour segments. The current one is about animal themes in the blues, and features James Petway’s “Catfish,” among others.Don D.
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September 14, 2017 at 1:53 pm #80293
Nice going here Don thanks. I know he rates as one of your top blues men and here we hear why! Great stuff very dynamic for his era. All the best JohnStrat
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September 14, 2017 at 6:16 pm #80315
Thanks Don! Earl was a great guitarist. He died way too young from TB at 40. Thanks for sharing,
Mike
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September 14, 2017 at 7:14 pm #80322
Thanks guys—glad you’re digging in! The music is great all the way through.
My apologies if you stumble on the prose. I’ve noticed some clumsy writing that I wish I’d seen earlier.
Don D.
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