BluesTrotter.com

Birmingham Sam, Texas Slim, Johnny Lee, Boogie Man, and John Lee Booker all had one thing in common, they were the same man. His real name is John Lee Hooker and he started recording in 1948 under numerous names, outwitting contractual obligations in the unbridled recording operations of the era. Making his biggest mark in Detroit, John Lee is probably the most recorded man alive.

Hooker recorded for more than two dozen labels.

Handy traveled the country at the turn of the last century in black minstral shows. He came off the road and became a music professor at Alabama A&M and then quit to go back on the road. He made more money as a minstral!

John Lee and Canned Heat recorded together in 1970.

John Lee learned guitar down home in Mississippi. He saw country Blues legends Charley Patton, Leadbelly, and Blind Lemon Jefferson pass though his hometown.

The Doors recorded “Crawlin’ King Snake”.

Hooker style is easy to recognize. Usually one chord with a pulsing rhythmic groove chugging along, random vocal phrasing that the less-than-hip would call mistakes, and open-tuned guitar with a choppy percussive sound. His lyrics sound spontaneous and unrelated, but they are all Blues statements that tie the music together.

John Lee Hooker is in the Blues Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

John Lee Hooker died in his sleep in San Fransisco in June of 2001.

B.B. King by Encyclopedia Britannica
(Born September 16, 1925, Itta Bena, near Indianola, Mississippi, U.S.)

American guitarist and singer who was a principal figure in the development of blues and from whose style leading popular musicians drew inspiration.

King was reared in the Mississippi delta, and gospel music in church was the earliest influence on his singing. To his own impassioned vocal calls, King played lyrical single-string guitar responses with a distinctive vibrato; his guitar style was influenced by T-Bone Walker, by delta blues players (including his cousin Bukka White), and by such jazz guitarists as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. He worked for a time as a disk jockey in Memphis, Tennessee, where he acquired the name B.B. (for Blues Boy) King. In 1951 he made a hit record of “Three O’Clock Blues,” which led to virtually continuous tours of clubs and theatres throughout the country. He often played 300 or more one-night stands a year with his 13-piece band. A long succession of hits, including “Every Day I Have the Blues,” “Sweet Sixteen,” and “The Thrill Is Gone,” enhanced his popularity. By the late 1960s rock guitarists acknowledged his influence and priority; they introduced King and his guitar, Lucille, to a broader white public, who until then had heard blues chiefly in derivative versions. King’s autobiography, Blues All Around Me, written with David Ritz, was published in 1996.