Boogie Man (59 page)

It wasn’t so much that Junior personally turned Robert onto heroin, but it was his example which stuck. It was a while before John Lee himself learned of his younger son’s chemical
dalliances, but Junior was considerably more blatant. ‘Man, Junior . . . whoo,
boy
. Junior might have kept it from him a little while, but if I’m not mistaken he didn’t
keep it from my daddy too long before he knew he was doin’. But me, man. . . ooh, man, my daddy probably didn’t know I was into it until I was about twenty, twenty-one. Gettin’
ready to get into church. You know, he probably thought all I was doin’ was just smokin’ marijuana and drinkin’ liquor.’

And if that wasn’t enough of a load for any hard-working man to carry, his marriage was finally beginning to come apart at the seams. And everybody has a different account of what pulled
it apart.

‘To be honest with you,’ says Maude Hooker, over twenty years later, ‘I don’t know. He was out of town and I was home with the kids. So one morning, myself, Zakiya and
Robert, we was sittin’ there in the living room watchin’ TV, and the District Attorney walked in, asked for me and gave me the papers. I said, “What is this?” He said,
“Divorce papers.” I said, “Di-
vorce
papers?” He actually got the divorce from me. He told me why, what he wanted to do, but I won’t say, because it’s so
silly.’

She stops talking for a moment, clears her throat. ‘Well anyway,
that’s what happened. He said he wanted to get married to someone else,
period
. Bottom
line
. He figured that I would not go through with it, but I mean if he ask, he gon’ get it. That’s the way I see it. It took about a year. I would never have got one myself. It
weren’t even on my mind. Whatever we was goin’ through, we just go through it and try to patch it up, but . . . when he really left, we was happy. I didn’t have no idea that that
was what was comin’ back, when he came back home that was what he was gonna do. He was on the road, and we was livin’ in Detroit on a street called Jameson. They [the kids] didn’t
like it. They was wondering why, but I couldn’t explain it. How can you explain a divorce? They was very young at the time,
mm-hm
. This was ’69, yeah. It had been twenty-three
years.’

‘Frankly speakin’,’ says Eddie Burns, ‘I don’t know too much about that divorce. I don’t know who did what. I know what he said when he left, but I do not
know what went down behind the closed doors.’

Others are more forthcoming. According to Eddie Kirkland, ‘[Maude] should’ve been a person to help him fight, because she got more education than him. She could’a been helpful
to him by takin’ care’a his business, gettin’ lawyers and things to help him get his due. That’s the same thing what I teach the wife I got now, go back to school, take a
course in business administration, help me get what I’m supposed to get. That’s what a wife for. ’Stead’a sittin’ around the house bitchin’ about the
money’s not comin’ in, you get out help get that money in. The money’s already made, get out there and help bring it in. The Lord’s very good to John. Things workin’
out for him now he’s an old man. He ain’t got to worry ’bout nothin’. He got just about everything he needs. He got homes, a new car an’ shit, money in the bank . . .
so after all things still workin’ out for him. But it could’a been better back then, for her benefit too, if she would’a helped him. You can’t just sit down on your butt and
look for somethin’ to come in if you ain’t gonna do nothin’ for it. That’s wrong. At that time, Hooker didn’t know what
to tell his wife to do,
whether she’d’a been interested or not. He didn’t know no nothin’ either.

‘I was John’s closest friend, so he would tell me things that he wouldn’t tell no-one else. It was something done that offended John, don’t get me wrong. Quite natural, a
person’s not gonna offend themselves. What I feel about it is this: if she was so much into the Lord, she would say, “Hey, I did somethin’ wrong, I made a mistake.” But you
deny your wrongness, you cannot be too close to God, right? Because if you is, you clean your conscience, say, “I did some things wrong and I’m sorry that I did. I was young and I made
a mistake.” But the average person’s not gonna do that. But most of that come from other people talking to your wife, putting wrong ideas in your wife’s head. See, when you an
entertainer you gotta lotta different things comin’ against you, mostly people’s jealous. If they find out they can talk to your wife, and your wife’ll listen to ’em,
that’s all they need. Every time you turn around . . . blah blah blah, the wrong thing to ’em. See, that’s what happened to my wife. John had a lot to be offended about back then,
towards his wife. But, as far as I’m concerned, I never got in it. I would always be a friend to her and him both. That’s what a friend’s supposed to be. Last time I saw Maude was
years ago.’

For Zakiya, at least, the divorce came as no surprise. ‘No. I knew that it was coming, because circumstances had just gotten too great for [John] to handle. He just didn’t want to
deal any more. That was it. But no, I was not surprised. I think he divorced her . . . no, she divorced him, because – see, I was . . . was I still at home when it happened? I was married in
. . . [Zakiya’s son] Glenn was born in ’69, and I was married in ’69, married and out on my own. I lived in Detroit, driving distance, but I can’t remember who divorced who.
All I remember were the reasons for the divorce, that’s why in my mind that he divorced her. But she started the divorce. He ended up having to get an attorney and pay for her attorney, the
whole ball of wax. He was just tired. He was tired. I love my mom and my dad
both, and as an adult looking back, I understand . . . I don’t understand, but I can deal
with her: what happened with her. And I sympathise with my dad. I see both sides, and I can understand why he left.’

And then there’s John Lee Hooker’s own account. ‘When I drove from Detroit out here [to California], I was young then, much younger than I was now. When my old lady was
divorcing me, she took the house, one of the cars, and she would’a taken all the money in the bank but I beat her to the punch. My booking agent booked me in Vancouver, and that’s a
long
way from Detroit. That’s a three-day ride. He told her to tell me that the gig was cancelled, and she didn’t tell me. She taken me to the train station to get me out of
town, sit there with me and have a cup of coffee and some breakfast, make sure she see’d me on the train. I got almost to Vancouver, call my agent to let him know where I were. I say,
“I’m almost to Vancouver.” He say, “What?” I say, “I’m almost to Vancouver. You surprised at me?” He say, “Yes, I am. Didn’t Mrs Hooker
tell you, your wife, that the gig was cancelled and for you not to go?” I say, “No.” “Did she know when you left?” I say, “Yes, she brought me to the train
station, put me on the train.” He say, “Well, Mr Hooker, there’s something wrong. You better check up. I told her to be sure to tell you not to go to Vancouver.” I was
wa-a-a-a-yy
almost there, and I had to turn around, come back.

‘I stayed all night in that town, couple of nights, I think I did. I was so angry and disgusted with her, I just wanted to be away for awhile. I come back in a couple of days and she was
shocked. I got me a cab, come to the house, and she wasn’t there. The kids were there. They say, “Daddy, you back already?” “Yeah, your mama didn’t tell me not to
go.” “She said you was going to Vancouver to work.” “She told you all that?” Diane and Zakiya, they was kids then. When she came back to the house, it was like she
seen a
ghost
sittin’ there. I said, “I don’t want no trouble.” You know the expression on peoples’ face when they afraid?’ He shifts into soft, placatory
tones. ‘“Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine.” I said, “I didn’t play.” She know why, I didn’t have
to tell her. She had
some lady with her. Both of them had been drinkin’, loaded. I guessed that she wanted to get me out of town so that they
really
could party, so that really took a lot out of me at the
time. Everything run into my mind, wondering why, why did she do it? Why did she send me three thousand miles away knowing there wasn’t no gig, knowing I had to get there? At that time I
didn’t have a
whole
lotta money, but I happened to have money in my pocket, so when I called my agent and he said, “You got money to get back? I can wire you some money to get
your ticket.” I had about four, five hundred dollars in my pocket, and I gave him the number where I was at.

‘He said, “If you need me, call me.” If I hadn’t had called him, I would’ve gone all the way to Vancouver. [Maude] used to be
wild
, man. I don’t like
to say it, but she’s a hypocrite, a big hypocrite. She use the church for a shield, but her children know how she is: Zakiya, Diane. They know what she were. Mm-
hm
. You can’t
hide in the church for what you done did. And I was telling Karen, my youngest daughter – she was over here the other day – I said, “Honey, you wasn’t here, but you was on
the way.” Diane had told her, “Mama was a rollin’ stone, used to run around.” I said “Yeah, she did, drink . . .” They know she in the church as a shield. They
know what she did to me. She wanted the divorce, she told you a lie and said I wanted it. She a
liar!
I never sent her no papers!
She
applied for the divorce, she got the divorce.
After she got the divorce, she kicked me out of the house. I
give
her the house. She said, “It’s my house now. You give me the house, so you can’t stay here.” I was
staying in some little place, a motel or something, while we got the divorce. I got my clothes, put ’em in the motel, got the car and hit the road, all the way along that 61 high way. I drove
all the way [to California] by myself. She told me, “I got the house, and you don’t live here no more.” She lyin’ through her teeth. If she be a church-woman, why she a
liar?

‘She the one got the divorce, she the one kicked me out. She was gonna take all the money, but . . . did I tell you about the girl called
me to the bank? [Maude] had
put in for the stop on the money, but I had a good friend at the bank, she worked there as a teller. Me and her were really good friends; she was a big fan of mine. When she got the stop note, she
called me before they processed it, about one o’clock. “Mr Hooker? Come down and get your money, because tomorrow it’s gonna be tied up.” I said, “Why?”
“Because there’s a note commanding that tomorrow your money be tied up.” I said, “What about now?” She said, “No, not now. Get down here.” I got down
there, took most of half the money. I left her a little. She got mad, told her lawyer I got the money hid in some other bank. The lawyer said, “Well, he can’t do that.” But I was
gone . . . She did some terrible things, things that I wouldn’t even
attempt
to tell you. I wouldn’t put in the book some of the things she did to me, I wouldn’t even
tell
you. She raked me over the coals, but right now she got a lotta regrets. She never knew I’m’a get this big.’

And, in all fairness, neither did anybody else. After all, there was John Lee Hooker, past fifty years of age, heading west into the unknown with nothing to his name but that name itself. He had
a car, a few clothes, two guitars, an amplifier and a little over $12,000 in cash. He was leaving behind thirty years of personal history in Detroit, twenty-three years of marriage, five children,
and a sixth on the way.

If we were doing this as a movie, we could show Hooker, fuelled only by coffee, adrenalin and a few ‘bennies’, driving wearily west into the blood-red sunset with all that was left
of his life piled into his car. Right then, it would have seemed like the starry-eyed height of optimistic romanticism for anybody to have suggested just how high that California sun might one day
rise for him.

Let alone that it could take twenty years.

12

INTERLUDE – DARK ROOM

The principal difference between artists and everybody else is that civilians believe that a viable distinction can be made between ‘art’ and
‘life’.
¹¹¹
By the same token, the essence of the art of John Lee Hooker is the art of
being
John Lee Hooker, which in turn means that
John Lee Hooker is not simply, as Pete Welding called him in the liner notes to a recent reissue compilation,
¹¹²
‘everyone’s favourite blues
singer’, but the sole practitioner of a one-man art form. This book has, thus far, dealt primarily with the ‘who’, the ‘when’ and the ‘where’ of the career
of John Lee Hooker, and now seems like as good a time as any to take a long look at the ‘what’, the ‘how’ and maybe even the ‘why’ of ‘the art of John Lee
Hooker’, and why it is so much more than the circumstances of that career, and the astonishing late-blooming success that climaxed it, which renders the man and the music unique.

As an
hors d’oeuvre
: an anecdote which regrettably requires the author to shift himself out of the protective third person. Once upon a time (to be a little more precise, sometime
in very early 1980), I ejected a jazz fan from my flat. The guy was then a few-doors-down near-neighbour of mine and, once a few casual conversational encounters on the stairs had established that
we both loved music, I invited him round one evening for a few drinks and a few records. During the course of the evening it became apparent that while, in my capacity as an admirer of Miles,
Trane, Duke, Mingus and Monk, I was prepared to follow him some considerable distance into his preferred musical territory, he was unwilling to travel even a fraction of a millimetre into mine.
Serious ructions commenced when I played him a couple of Clash tunes: he be gan to foam at the mouth and assert that the only rock musicians whom he considered to be musicians at all were Blood
Sweat & Tears (because ‘they could really play their instruments’). Finally, I kicked something by John Lee Hooker onto the stereo and awaited his reaction.