Song Review 135 – Boom Boom

SONG: Boom Boom 

ARTIST: John Lee Hooker

YEAR: 1962

Listen to it here: 

THE SONG:

Boom Boom was written and recorded by John Lee Hooker in 1961. Before this point, Hooker was known mostly as a solo performer but for this recording, he used a small backing band including the Funk Brothers, who were considered the cream of the crop for Motown label’s season players. The original song was a very uptempo blues that was written during a long night at the Apex Bar in Detroit. Hooker explained that he was always late coming to his regular gig there, and every night the bartender Willa would say “Boom Boom – you late again”. Hooker realized he had lyrics, and wrote the song around it. This song would turn out to be John Lee Hooker’s most well known song. 

THE ARTIST:

John Lee Hooker was born in either 1912, 1915, 1917, 1920, or 1923. Official sources list his birth year as 1917, but Hooker has indicated once or twice that he was born in 1920. Either way, in the Federal Census, Hooker was the youngest of 11 children born of William and Minnie Hooker of Tutweiler, Mississippi. All of the Hooker children were homeschooled and were only permitted to listen to religious songs. When Hooker’s parents got divorced, Minnie remarried William Moore a year later, who was a blues singer. It was William Moore who introduced John Lee to the guitar and gave him his first lessons. Hooker’s sister Alice also dated a blues guitarist who gave Hooker his first guitar and taught him what would become the grounds for Hooker’s style of playing. 

At the age of 14, Hooker ran away from home and never saw his mother or stepfather again. He lived in Memphis, Tennessee and performed at a few venues while also working in factories. During the WWII years Hooker got several different jobs, eventually landing a job in Detroit with the Ford Motor Company. At the time, Detroit was known for having a ton of pianists, but good guitar players were scarce. Hooker’s popularity grew quickly.

Hooker’s recording career started in 1948 when Modern Records released a demo he had recorded. The single “Boogie Chillen” became a hit and the best-selling race record of 1949. 

Throughout the 1950s, like many black musicians, John Lee Hooker made very little money from record sales, so he often recorded variations of his songs for different studios for an up front fee. He also used various pseudonyms to evade his recording contract, like John Lee Booker, Johnny Lee, John Lee, Texas Slim, Delta John, etc etc etc. 

Hooker’s vision of tempo was very fluid so studios had a hard time finding backing musicians who could adjust to Hooker’s tempo vagaries. As a result, he was often recorded playing guitar, singing, and stomping on a wooden pallet in time with the music. 

When John Lee Hooker started recording in Chicago, Vee-Jay Records were able to find studio musicians who could handle his musical idiosyncrasies. This is where Hooker recorded today’s reviewed song, Boom Boom. 

Hooker was able to gain greater exposure in the 1960s when touring Europe, and through the 1970s Hoooker’s fame continued to grow. Famously, he appeared in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, performing Boom Boom in the role of a street musician. 

Hooker died in 2001 of natural causes at home in Los Altos, California.

FACTOID CORNER:

ZZ Top later used similar lines (“how-how-how-how”) for their popular song La Grange. 

Hooker was illiterate, but was well known as a lyricist. 

KELLY’S REVIEW:

So I know John Lee Hooker.  Like I know who he is, I know that he’s a blues musician, but had you asked me to describe what he sounds like, I would be struck dumb.  So it was nice to actually listen to him so that I can tell you that he has a nice voice!  I know this song because it was covered by the British group the Animals and probably should have guessed it was lifted from an American blues artist.  Anyway, I’m surprised by how much I like his voice!  I usually find blues vocalists a little gravely for my taste but John’s is nice and strong.  His guitar playing is good too, a nice hollow-body warm sound.  I also like that he has a pretty big sounding band behind him.  They’re a little mashed together in the mix, but I think that adds to the charm of the song.  As for the song itself, it’s kind of an aggressive pick up song, but I’m here for it!  And it’s also not your typical, plaintiff slow 12 bar blues, it’s upbeat and more fun than the regular “oh woe is me” blues song.  What I really really like about this song is you can hear how wildly influential it is to the rock music that came after it.  His guitar solo, his vocal delivery and the songwriting all predicts the future of rock music to come.  I probably won’t purposely seek the song out, but if I come across a 45, maybe I’ll pick it up.

HOLLY’S REVIEW:

John Lee Hooker is a really big deal. He’s a pillar of American Blues music. But I really only know this one song. Yeesh. I’m glad to actually spend some real time listening to this song though, as he definitely is an artist I should know more. It’s funny, I don’t really gravitate to blues because the form can be quite predictable, but this song sounds fresh, exciting, and musically inviting. It feels like any musician would be welcome to sit down and join in the fun. There is a lot to like in this song, and it’s given me a great appreciation for John Lee Hooker. First off, is Hooker. His voice is so malleable – he goes from a warm, buttery sound, to a gravelly, more aggressive sound, and he sounds totally in control and conversational in his phrasing. Second, I really love the use of the saxophones in this one, baritone saxophone particularly. They’re never in the forefront, but they are always contributing a big depth of sound to the piano, guitar, drums, and bass line. The piano is super subtly changing things up every verse, and the guitar sound is great. I really really like the tone and sound that Hooker gets on his guitar. I am not at all a gearhead when it comes to guitars – see my sister’s review for that, but I’m just making little notes on the guitar sounds I like and those I don’t. This is one point on my scoresheet for the Gibson Les Paul! I was all ready to give a meh review, but this song is tons of fun, high energy, and just a bunch of good musicians making good music. I really like it!

Average mark out of 10:

Holly: 9/10

Kelly: 7.5/10

Other notable versions of this song:

John Lee Hooker’s Blues Brothers appearance:

I think this is the first version of the song I ever heard – The Animals:

Listen with us!

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