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If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)
Artist: John Lee Hooker
Author: John Lee Hooker/Bernard Besman
Label: Modern
Year: 1948
N°1 R&B; oldest electric Delta blues hit. Pure solo but he sounds like a whole band. Learned this way of playing (no boogie!) from his stepfather William Moore. See also: Feelin' Good and Shake Your Hips.
Covers:
John Lee Hooker [new version as New Boogie Chillen, re-edited by Sam Phillips in Memphis]
Little Junior's Blue Flames [as Feelin' Good (see there); inspired at least as many covers as Boogie Chillun]
Canned Heat [as Gotta Boogie (The World Boogie) and in '68 as Fried Hookey Boogie; Al Wilson's solo as in Hooker's Hoogie Boogie ('48 - Modern)]
John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat [as Fried Hockey Boogie]
ZZ Top [in La Grange; sued for this]
George Thorogood [as New Boogie Chillun]
Hank Williams Jr. [as La Grange]
Otha Turner [as Boogie; also earns its own entree]
The Hastings Street in the song is the street in Detroit where John Lee played and where he was discovered by Bernie Besman from Pan American Records, at the time the only professional record company in the Motor City. Three lame blues tunes made no impression, but this (nameless) boogie that wasn't even a boogie, got recorded, boomed and had to be leased to the more powerfull westcoast label Modern.
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)