John Lee Hooker

Blues musician John Lee Hooker helped to define the electric blues with his one-chord boogie compositions and his rhythmic electric guitar work. He is also known for his inimitable deep voice. Hooker was one of the links between the blues and rock and roll. One of eleven children, Hooker sang in church, and his first musical instrument was an inner tube stretched across a barn door. He moved to Detroit, where his career eventually took root. He toured Europe and England widely in the sixties and recorded and toured extensively with Britain's Groundhogs in the mid-sixties. In 1991 Hooker was inducted into the rock and Roll Hall of Fame; he died on June 22, 2001, at the age of 80.