No matter how exhausted I am, John Lee Hooker never fails to cheer me up. His music is primal and saturated in the blues, and comes from every side of every social situation. It's good to see him in action, too, though the actual man has been gone for nearly six years now (8/22/1917-6/21/2001). Just before Johnny Lee died, German filmmaker Jörg Bundschuh made John Lee Hooker: That's My Story a tidy 90-minute documentary that provides glimpses into his roller coaster life and times.
Fellow artists spill out their celebratory thoughts, especially how much they admire him and his independent style (Peter Wolf notes his predilection for Ballantine's Scotch and Kool cigarettes). Family members touch on his warmth and endearments. Given that Johnny Lee was married and divorced three times, their sustained attachment is remarkable. Third wife Maudie, nephew Archie Lee Hooker, Jr. (cook, driver, assistant -- sweet job), Zakiya Hooker, and John Lee Hooker, Jr., and the man himself not long before his death -- collectively provide the strongest portraits. The film interweaves contemporary footage with shots of the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, Cincinnati and Detroit, where he first made it big.
Archie Lee Hooker, Jr., shows off some of his uncle's "toys," guitars and Cadillacs. "It's not really for him," he notes of the cars. "It's for the ladies. . . in his own way, he's a lady's man." Robert Cray makes a number of insightful remarks. Perhaps the most succinct is, "He was hip." Bonnie Raitt: "He's as scary and as sexy and as dark as his music is . . . He just makes me smile every time I see him."
Eddie Kirkland was working at the Ford Motor Company when he started playing with Hooker at bars and house parties in the 1940s. He loved Hastings Street: "It was like Baker's, you know," referring to one of the few places still showcasing music from that era -- Baker's Keyboard Lounge up on Eight Mile. The only thing left of Hastings Street is a small stretch by abandoned factories that ends in the middle of nowhere. There's something about the name Henry's Swing Club that gets me every time. It, and the whole scene, thrive in Johnny Lee's first breakout hit, "Boogie Chillen.'"
All in all, John Lee Hooker: That's My Story is a little gem. Can't ever get too much Hooker living in Detroit.
Today's Rune: Growth.
Birthdays (now here’s quite the Taurus crew): John Wilkes Booth, Ariel Durant, (b. Chaya Kaufman), Donovan (Donovan P. Leitch), Mark David Chapman, Sid Vicious (John Simon Ritchie/Beverley), Bono (b. Paul David Hewson), Lisa Nowak (b. Lisa Marie Caputo).
And the war drags on.
8 comments:
It's lucky they got that material filmed in time. Too many blues and Jazz musicians disappeared before that happened, and often before even any good oral records were taken.
I agree with that Charles, even the WPA workers who were out during the depression taking oral histories were concentrating mostly on slave stories, you can access these oral records through the internet at the library of congress.
OK Erik a little more of Detroit history, that area of the city used to be called "the black bottom"; and it was the area of the city where the black population concentrated. Every famous musician of color came and played gigs there and from everything I ever heard the juke joint's wailed from dusk till dawn, Ellington, Robeson, Billy Holiday and so many others I have heard played there regularly and more than one musician broke out from there into the ears of the nationwide Black audience.
The interesting part to me is the name, most people think it got it's name from the color of the population but the truth of it is it got it's name from the post French settlers because it was the most fertile bottom land, full of rich black earth and that was where the farming in this area started in the 18th century.
As a side note the 1943 race riot in Detroit, although it did not start there, but at Belle isle when three young black kids took some food from a picnic table. By the time the rumor got back to the Bottom it had spread that the whites were killing and lynching black folks uptown. So the clubs emptied out and 10,000 people got involved with the same number of dead after five days as in '67--43.
The three kids were shaken and yelled at by the white father whose food they stole but I don't think they were actually beat up on.
Of course most of the dead were black because I do believe the force only had one black officer whose name was Hart.
He later went on to become chief of Police and his career ended in disgrace when he was convicted of embezzlement to the tune of 3,000,000 bucks.
The two white cops who were initially convicted in the death of Malice Green went to the same penitentiary as Hart did and they spent their time helping "the Chief" who by then was old and needed help getting around and getting taking meds, getting dressed and stuff.
I may be mistaken but I believe he died a free man when they let him out due to his poor health. But of course the city took his pension away so he was pretty broke when he did die not much later.
Thanks, guys, for the comments, much appreciated. Charles, I also found a great documentary about Lightning Hopkins in rural Texas. There are at least a few others that may or may not be available in DVD.
Walking Man (Mark), thank you tons for filling in some spaces and connecting dots. When/why was Black Bottom destroyed by highway construction? A real shame.
The second riot is covered in a recent novel, Middlesex, that won the Pulitzer Prize, by Jeff Eugenides. From the perspective of Greek Americans.
Not sure if you've read that one.
Anywhere else you recommend exploring in Detroit? I found the Bluebird Inn, a home of jazz for a long time, but it is closed now. I'll post on that soon.
Again, thanks very much for the insights.
The bottom had, like I said the oldest housing stock in the city and there was a need for production plant space and slaughter houses and such this was the early 40's when the Arsenal of Democracy was ramping up then after the war, because Detroit was the fifth largest city and the Eisenhower administration thought it would always be a center of manufacturing put it on top of the list for construction of the federal highway system especially because even then it was a major border crossing with Canada. This is really when the "Bottom" started to be sectioned off and people tied to move out but it was still another ten years before the concentrated population of Black folks began to try to move to nicer neighborhoods, which in turn caused many problems for the bold enough individuals who were te first to buy property outside the immediate area.
There were instances of where hundreds of white residents would gather at a black mans house throwing rocks and doing the "No Niggers Wanted Here" thing. The police of course spent their time protecting the houses on either side of the one under siege.
There was one instance of a Black M.D who actually fearlessly defended his house with a gun shooting three whites (don't hold me to the number) and was found not guilty, self defense and this didn't quite kick the door open for blacks to move to different places but at the verdict the door to white flight began and the suburbs started to be built.
Have you seen the Heidelberg project by Tyree Guyton? It's off Gratiot and Van Dyke or the first plant which is closed an inaccessible where Henry Ford started his run to becoming the worlds richest man in Highland park
on Woodward near McNichols. The building is empty but there is a historical marker there.
By the way the Davison Freeway, small as it is in length was the first ever driving ditch ever built. It was to facilitate the ingress and egress of Chrysler employees which used to have a place to work near the east bound end of it. after that plant shut down Chrysler still had their world headquarters there until they decide about 10 years ago that Highland Park didn't need it's last big taxpayer and Auburn Hills needed them more. That is where (not Auburn Hills) my old man did all of his work at. He was able to make another man's extrusion machine work so in a way he was the one who made it possible for car companies to have padded dashboards there and what we call refrigerator magnets he was the one who found the way to incorporate iron into the plastic so it remained flexible and magnetic. I remember him bringing 1/2 inch wide samples home for us to play with.
I guess we were his testers, Chrysler ultimately rejected the idea for using them as trim pieces because they would be too easy to steal, but they held the original patent anyway because it had been developed in their labs. Chrysler during the late forties through the Iaccoca years really was the worlds leader in design technology in automotive function. But all of that part of Detroit is in books now everything else has been torn down and or left vacant as brown fields. By the by don't forget to tour Hamtramck, i won't go there because 30 some years ago it became the only town in North America I was ever arrested in (disorderly conduct and a handcuffed alley ass kicking by the po po on the way to the station;not guilty verdict)
But you can still see the last vestiges of what was the Polish community of the great manufacturing age there, go to the Hamtramck market and try to order something in english, that will kill an hour hahahaahaha.
peace eric
TWM
Walking Man (Mark) -- thanks for the continued historical tour. I check out the Heidelberg about once a month, but haven't looked at those factories sites yet. I'll keep poking around.
I remember the Malice Green incident, him getting beaten with heavy club-like flashlights.
personally Eric I am still torn in my thoughts about the Malice Green death
so i don't think I am going to comment on it because at the time I was working on police cars and knew a lot of PO's but still was surrounded by Black culture. So I understand both sides of it, yet even after all these years i am still fence sitting when it comes to that particular event on that particular day.
Although I will say this much about it, I think it was highly inflammatory for the mayor (Coleman Young)to say the day afterwards that it was "flat out murder." That was wrong especially since technically the Mayor of any city as apart of their duties is to be an officer of the court.
Peace
OH yeah there is open mic poetry at the java exchange tonight at 8 pm be there earlier though on Cass and Burroughs in the TechTown building.
This is where you will see soe of the best spoken word artists of Detroit. There is a featured poet tonight Carmelita Reyes, and she is a pretty decent acquaintance of mine and her words are worth the 45 cover alone.
I will be there tonight to read for the first time in six weeks or so.
again peace
TWM
five dollar cover not forty five
good editing skills eh?
Walking Man (Mark), thanks for the additional comments. Hope the slam went well. I'll aim to check it out one of these days. Work was a killer this week -- I could barely move by the end of it.
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