June 21st, 2001, we lose John Lee Hooker. Now when I say John Lee Hooker is a Blues Icon, I don’t use that term lightly at all. And you can really see his influence in Rock in many ways. First off his whole boogie feeling and his “How, how, how” was kind of appropriated by some bands. Of course for ZZ Top you notice his boogie feeling in some of their songs like “La Grange.” And you can also hear it in the way Billy Gibbons on that song went “How, how, how.” That was definitely a nod to John Lee Hooker. You also get to hear John Lee Hooker’s influence with an artist like George Thorogood. George very honest about the fact that he’s been influenced by many Bkues artists and with John Lee Hooker in particular. George’s song “One Bourbon, One Scotch And One Beer” actually began as John Lee Hooker’s song “House Rent Blues.” You can hear George on the track mention “Gonna talk about the house rent blues.” And in certain live versions when George talks about taking his whole record collection he says “I went and grabbed my John Lee Hooker record collection.” And that shows you the influence that John Lee had on the Blues and Rock.
We find a few Rock birthdays on the calendar today. Born in 1951 Nils Lofgren of The E Street Band. Born on this date in 1950 Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer. Born today in 1944 Ray Davies of The Kinks.
