John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was a serious bluesman. Yet almost despite his rumbling vocals, crackling guitar, and brooding one-chord boogies and stomps, The Hook managed to become the most popular deep-blues performer of all time. When he died in 2001 at the age of 84, landmark cuts like these had become a vital part of the pop culture landscape.

John Lee Hooker became one of the enduring forces in the blues without compromising a signature sound that was proudly primitive and menacing. For Bob Dylan in the early '60s through Canned Heat in the Woodstock era, tracks like the lowdown "Crawlin' King Snake" and driving "Peavine" represented the blues at its most feral and enthralling.

John Lee Hooker tended to revisit his trademark tunes, renaming them and giving them fresh treatments to suit the times. Witness a cult classic like "Bang Bang Bang Bang," a supercharged reworking of his earlier hit "Boom Boom" that's very much a product of the time (1966) and place (Greenwich Village's hip Café au Go-Go).

From the time of his first solo recordings in the late '40s through his star-studded comeback albums of the '90s, John Lee Hooker was recognized as one of the most distinctive bluesman to ever strap on a guitar. Embraced by succeeding generations of fans and performers, he became an unlikely star by making music that was proudly primitive — music embraced by succeeding generations of disciples, from Bob Dylan and Van Morrison to PJ Harvey and Jack White. Folks, this is serious blues.