John first learned to play the guitar from his stepfather in Clarksdale Mississippi on a little Stella guitar. At the age of around 15, Hooker left home and went on up to Memphis where he worked for a while in a little theatre on Beale Street. Then he moved to Cincinnati where he worked at a steel mill, before ending up at another mill in Detroit.

John was given his first electric guitar by T-Bone Walker, and he played this around clubs before getting discovered. He got a Les Paul guitar when they first came out, but regretted later selling it to a church. In later years he favoured the Gibson 335 model, one of his favourites was a present from Carlos Santana .

His style is best summed up by the man himself:

“I am sure nobody has a style like me. Mine is unique, a really unique style. So many guitar players sound like each other, but mine is real dirty and slick and funky. Mine doesn’t sound like nobody else but John Lee Hooker, so that makes mine outstanding. There’s not a lot of fancy playing. I don’t do a lot of finger picking. I just straight play the blues and boogie.”

Sources :

• Wired for Sound: a guitar Odyssey. Melhuish and Hall, 1999.
• Wikipedia.
• Guitar: Music, History Players, by Richard Chapman