40 Facts About Earl Hooker

Earl Zebedee Hooker was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing.

An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker and Robert Nighthawk.

Earl Hooker recorded several singles and albums as a bandleader and with other well-known artists.

Earl Hooker was born in rural Quitman County, Mississippi, outside of Clarksdale.

Earl Hooker's family was musically inclined, and Earl heard music played at home at an early age.

Earl Hooker was self-taught and picked up what he could from those around him.

Earl Hooker developed proficiency on the guitar but showed no interest in singing.

Earl Hooker had pronounced stuttering, which afflicted him all his life.

Earl Hooker had considerable impact on Hooker, with both his playing and his showmanship.

Around this time, Earl Hooker became friends with Robert Nighthawk, one of the first guitarists in Chicago to play the electric guitar.

Nighthawk taught Earl Hooker slide guitar techniques, including various tunings and his highly articulated approach, and was a lasting influence on Earl Hooker's playing.

Also around this time, Earl Hooker met Junior Wells, another important figure in his career.

Around 1946, Earl Hooker traveled to Helena, Arkansas, where he performed with Robert Nighthawk.

Earl Hooker toured the South as a member of Nighthawk's band for the next couple of years.

In 1949, Earl Hooker tried to establish himself in the music scene in Memphis, Tennessee, but was back on the road, fronting his own band.

In 1952, Earl Hooker began recording for several independent record companies.

Earl Hooker's vocals were more than adequate but lacked the power usually associated with blues singers.

Reed, Ricky Allen, Reggie "Guitar" Boyd, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker, and Jackie Brenston, as well as singles on which Earl Hooker was the featured artist.

Earl Hooker regularly performed with Wells for the latter part of 1960 and most of 1961.

Earl Hooker released several instrumentals for the Chief labels, including the slow blues "Calling All Blues" in 1960, which featured his slide guitar playing, and "Blues in D Natural", in 1960, in which he switched between fretted and slide guitar.

The tune was played once, and Earl Hooker was apparently not aware that it was being recorded.

When Earl Hooker was released from the hospital in 1968, he assembled a new band and began performing in Chicago clubs and touring, against his doctor's advice.

The band, with the pianist Pinetop Perkins, the harmonica player Carey Bell, the bassist Geno Skaggs, the vocalist Andrew Odom, and the steel guitar player Freddie Roulette, was "widely acclaimed" and "considered one of the best Earl Hooker had ever carried with him".

For one of his vocals, Earl Hooker chose "Anna Lee", a song based on Robert Nighthawk's "Annie Lee Blues".

Earl Hooker again teamed with Junior Wells, performing at higher-paying college dates and concerts, including Chicago's Kinetic Playground.

Earl Hooker recorded six more albums for Bluesway in 1969: his own Don't Have to Worry and albums by Andrew Odom, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker, Charles Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry.

Earl Hooker's Don't Have to Worry included vocal performances by him and by Walker and Odom, along with instrumental selections.

Earl Hooker appeared at the first Chicago Blues Festival on August 30,1969, which attracted about 10,000 people.

In October 1969, Earl Hooker toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival, playing twenty concerts in twenty-three days in nine countries.

Earl Hooker's sets were well received and garnered favorable reviews.

Earl Hooker died on April 21,1970, at age 40, of complications due to tuberculosis.

Earl Hooker is interred in Restvale Cemetery, in the Chicago suburb of Alsip.

Unlike his contemporaries Elmore James and Muddy Waters, Earl Hooker used standard tuning on his guitar for slide playing.

Earl Hooker used a short steel slide, which allowed him to switch between slide and fretted playing during a song with greater ease.

Earl Hooker was a flamboyant showman in the style of T-Bone Walker and predated others with a similar approach, such as Guitar Slim and Johnny "Guitar" Watson.

Earl Hooker wore flashy clothes and picked the guitar with his teeth or his feet or played it behind his neck or between his legs.

Earl Hooker played a double-neck guitar, at first a six-string guitar and four-string bass combination and later a twelve- and six-string combination.

Earl Hooker experimented with amplification and used echo and tape delay, including "double-tracking his playing during a song, [so] he could pick simultaneously two solos in harmony".

Earl Hooker began using a wah-wah pedal in 1968 to add a vocal-like quality to some of his solos.

Earl Hooker did not receive as much public recognition as some of his contemporaries, but he was highly regarded by musicians.