Boogie Man (72 page)

Clearly, there was more to the notion of ‘living the blues’ than simply using the phrase as an album title.

As Bill Mann indicates, Hooker had by this point found himself a Bay Area base of operations. ‘When I first come out [to California] in 1970, I lived on 13th Street about two years, maybe
longer, and then from there I bought a house in Oakland, on Buenaventura. Charlie Musselwhite stayed with me while I was there. He lived with me there for a while, and he would go backwards and
forwards. He had this wife and sometimes they didn’t get along too good, you know. And he being a really good friend of mine, he would come stay with me whenever they have a falling out. Then
he’d go back. I lived there for a few years, might’ve been five years, I don’t know.’

Hooker didn’t just ‘live’ in Oakland: he was an active member of the community. In 1973, Bobby Seale, co-founder with Huey P. Newton of the Black Panther Party For
Self-Defence, ran for Mayor of Oakland, and Hooker played a benefit concert for his campaign, which yielded a highly respectable showing of over 42,000 votes. Elaine Brown, also a former Chair of
the Panthers, was running for the city council on the same ticket: she remembers Hooker’s ‘tremendous sense of humour [and] his commitment to our struggle’.
¹⁴⁵

On and off, Robert and Junior stayed with their father in Oakland. It is a period which none of the principals are happy to discuss in any significant detail. ‘I don’t wanna talk
about it,’ Hooker says flatly. ‘It was concerning the drugs, annuhruh . . . no comment. Let’s talk about the good stuff.’

Charlie Musselwhite is a little more forthcoming, but not much more. ‘I know Junior pretty well . . . probably I shouldn’t get into that,’ he says. ‘He’s a good
guy, though. John used to drink a bit. I
don’t think he drinks much at all any more, maybe a little beer. But he
used
to drink’ – he laughs –
‘and I did too, but not any more. John remembers me when I was drinkin’. In fact, John used to put me up. I didn’t have no place to go, I could stay at his house in Oakland. First
he had an apartment in Oakland – and I remember that first place he moved to – and then I think the next move was to a home in Oakland, and Robert and Junior were living there too. And
I was living there . . . and we were just having a party.’ He laughs again. ‘I think he’d been cutting down [on booze] by that point, and I was not showin’ any inclination
to cut down. I never saw a bad side to John, but I can imagine that if somebody pushed him, he’d push back. He wouldn’t take anything from anybody. He always just wanted to enjoy
himself. He liked the ladies and . . . I’ve heard stories, but they’re only hearsay, so I won’t go into those. And John’s seen me in some predicaments he probably
wouldn’t tell you about.’

‘Old Charlie Musselwhite!’ chuckles Robert Hooker. ‘He still playin’ the blues?’ Answered in the affirmative and informed that Musselwhite had said the equivalent
of ‘A lotta stuff went down in that house, and I ain’t gonna tell you about it’, he laughs even harder. ‘Oh yeah, man. Yeah.
Whoo-oo. Mm-hm.
Yeah, it did, man. Yup. I
stayed with my daddy at the house on Buenaventura for maybe about three years. Then I went back to Detroit, Michigan. I wasn’t as bad out with my dad as I was later on back in Detroit.
Detroit was really, really my downfall. I was
bad
in California, but
Detroit
was . . . that wicked city, Detroit, Michigan.’

Like his brother, Robert had gotten strung out on drugs. Ultimately, Robert found his way out through the church. Junior’s been through the church, too; as well as the music business and
an entrepreneurial stint running Brother John’s Tree Service, but he’s still searching. ‘He’s in San Quentin. San Quentin jail, man. He still in that wild life, man. He used
to play with my daddy. He made an
album . . . life is just too much for him. Yeah. Man, I ain’t seen him . . . mm, boy, been a long time since I seen him. See, last time
I was out here [in California], about two-three years ago, he was suppose to come out and see me, but he never show up. He was probably ’shamed, you know what I mean? Too ’shamed to
come out and see me, you know? See, I tell you, he used to be in church, so it was a letdown. That’s probably what it was. But it still got a hold on him. He’s strong.

‘My brother, he let [John Lee Senior] down, man. He let him down. He was in a different religion to me, but he was in [the church] three-four years, and my daddy was
proud
of him,
man. He changed his life, he was workin’, got his own business, man, you know? And he just . . .
pssheew
. He let my daddy down, man. Lost his job, his business went under, went back
into that old raggedy life . . . and that’ll hurt a father, man. I’m glad I’m able to stand, and I’m still standin’. He got one son he can really look to and say
I’m proud of, and he can continue sayin’ that, because I’m gonna keep on livin’ for Jesus, brother, I’m gonna keep on standin’. Man, my brother, he started
messin’ up probably about the age of fourteen years old. Thirteen, fourteen, somethin’ like that. Temptations was there. He just couldn’t handle it.’

Maude Hooker is rather more indulgent towards her errant eldest son. ‘Both of the boys used to go out with him every once in a while,’ she says. ‘Robert’s a good piano
player, and he can play organ. He used to play in the basement. Bought him an organ, piano, and put it in the basement. He used to play it, and he learned hmself. Nobody taught him anything, he
just learned. John Junior was a minister also. He was out there in the world and then he came in and he joined church too. He was really good, too. He could play the guitar and the piano, drums,
and he could sing. He could do it all. Bless his heart . . .’

As if looking after two wild young sons whilst making a living on
the road wasn’t enough, John Lee Hooker had taken on an even more daunting task. Even after all that
had happened during his marriage and the rancorous divorce which terminated it, he reassembled his shattered Detroit family out on the West Coast, flying Maude out to join him and the boys in
California. ‘He sent for all of us to come out here, really, truly,’ says Maude. ‘He sent for me and the kids and so we came out here and we just packed up and left Detroit, first
myself and the three smaller kids, because Robert and Junior, they was already here. He called and asked did we want to come out here. We came out here and stayed for awhile, and then we went back
home, packed everything and moved on out here. Then Zakiya, then Diane, so we all moved except Robert. He’s still back East with his family.’

It was an act of emotional – as well as financial – generosity which staggered observers and participants alike. ‘That just boggled my mind,’ remembers Zakiya Hooker.
‘That’s how I realized that he is such a good person. I stayed [in Detroit] for a little while, but my marriage got into dire straits because my husband got strung out on drugs and just
couldn’t handle himself, so my father told me to come out here. Maude was already here. I’ve never understood why. I think it’s because my father just doesn’t hold
grudges.’

Robert Hooker agrees, big time. ‘Show you how good of a man he is, how many mens is you gonna find – all right? – that the wife and the husband get divorced, and the man still
look out for the divorced wife, like she still his wife? Huh? You see what I’m talkin’ about? Bought her a car, and he just looks out for her . . . you ain’t gonna find too many
men like that. I’m tellin’ you, man. That’s how good of a man he is. Down-to-earth. Good man. Mm-hm. Yeah.’

Not everybody thinks that this was ultimately a great idea. Sometimes Hooker himself regrets his decision, but – as with all the decisions he has taken in his life – he nevertheless
stands by it. Paul Mathis is, at best, ambivalent. ‘He’s got this firm belief that charity
begins at home,’ says Hooker’s former brother-in-law.
‘I would go so far as to say that he is a bit
too
generous. Like an old friend of mine told me one time, I was the type of guy go buy a case of wine and a couple bottles of whiskey:
‘Have a drink, have a drink, have a drink.’ This old fella told me, “One thing about you, Mathis . . .” I said, “What’s that, my man?” He said, “You
too generous to your friends.” And I thought about that. And then the friends come around: “Hey, you got anything?” “No, I ain’t got nothing, man. Ain’t got no
more liquor.” And then there were no more friends. No more affection. You cannot buy love. You cannot manufacture it. And that’s what bothers me now. Too much love is given out.
It’s paid for, but it never comes back. But then, you know, that’s John Lee for you, you see. Most people are taking John for granted. It happens, and it bothers me.’

Mathis freely acknowledges that not many people would split up with their wife, move 3,000 miles away, and then fly her out and get her a house. ‘Never, but that’s what he done. I
think he’s kinda seein’ that that was a mistake. I think he’s finally beginning to see that he shouldn’t’a done that. Should’a left ’em stay where they
were. He’s payin’ for love he’s not gettin’, and that is a
fact
.’

‘They send him on a lot of guilt trips,’ says Zakiya. ‘Horrific guilt trips. I always say to him, “You shouldn’t ever be guilty about anything. You’ve done
more than anybody else would have done.” The more he gives, the more they want, and it’s not like they’re doing some thing constructive with it. It’s just
I-want-I-want-I-want
. He’s bought my mom maybe three or four [cars], and Diane I don’t know how many. Her first house . . . she lost it; it caught fire and she took the insurance
money and didn’t do anything with it, and they foreclosed on the house, so he went and bought her another house. When I moved into this house [in Oakland], he had originally bought this house
for my mom, and so she decided that she was gonna go back to Detroit and get married. So she moved out of the
house and I moved in. At that time I was still looking for a job,
I had gotten on welfare. That’s when I got the job with the police department, and I was finally able to get off welfare, thank God. There was trouble keeping the house, be cause it was just
me. There was nobody else; but I’m the only one who’s managed to keep anything that he’s ever given them. My mom, he bought her this house. She didn’t want this one, so when
she came back he bought her another house.’

‘Soon she lost the house,’ says Hooker. ‘After a couple, two or three years, she lost the house. That be the partyin’ goin’ on with the money she had. When I left
her, you know, she was a partyin’ woman. Blew that right away, couldn’t keep up the payments. You know when you got money, everybody around you; they knowed she had a little money then.
All her so-called-to-be friends; they ain’t no friends.’ He laughs. ‘They cleaned her out –
voom
!’

It cannot be repeated too often that whilst these shenanigans were going on, Hooker was spending most of his time on the road, earning the money to finance all this mess the hard way: one piece
at a time. To be precise, he was spending most of his time on the blues circuit. In a 1974 interview with Neff and Connor, Howlin’ Wolf’s former saxophonist Eddie Shaw provided as crisp
and evocative a thumbnail sketch of the way things were blueswise at that time as anyone could possibly desire:

Which, essentially, meant that a blues star with a solid ‘name’ and a capacity for hard work could make some kind of a living without having to cater to fleeting
commercial whims or compete with rock superstars to court the mass-market dollar. The blues circuit was there whether or not there was any kind of ‘blues boom’ going on in the
mainstream, which was just as well, because in the mid-’70s there definitely wasn’t. By the time Muddy Waters left Chess in 1977 to sign with Columbia via its Blue Sky subsidiary
– an upheaval equivalent, in blues terms, to the Eiffel Tower deciding that it was bored with Paris and fancied a spell in Rome instead – you didn’t even have to be the
six-fingered Hound Dog Taylor to count the number of legit blues guys with major-label record deals on one hand. Muddy was with Columbia; B.B. King and Bobby Bland were still with ABC; Albert King
was still on Stax (technically an indie rather than a major label, but regarded as a major for its impressive chart performance and impeccable musical cred) and . . . that was it.

The blues circuit was like some kind of weird parallel universe; or one of those dimensions, a heartbeat away from our own, in which Captain Kirk would get trapped on
Star
Trek
,
¹⁴⁶
leaving him invisible, inaudible and intangible to his colleagues on the Enterprise. A whole community of musicians, many of whom were
well-known – at least by name and Greatest Hits – to a large number of rock
fans, existing just around a cultural corner which may as well have been a galaxy
away.

The
echt
blues-circuit club was and is Antone’s, in Austin, Texas. The joint is way better-known than its competitors elsewhere in the US, though, because in the late ’70s it
became the hub of a thriving regional blues scene which nurtured the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan and his elder brother Jimmie, lead guitarist of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and which enabled the
club to draw on a pool of extraordinarily talented local musicians for its house band. Its founder-proprietor, Cliff Antone, recalls, ‘In 1975, I was downstairs in my club, and someone told
me, “Hey, phone for you,” and I said, “Who is it?” and they said, “John Lee Hooker.” Went upstairs and he said, “Wuh-wuh-wuh-Antone, I heard you have a
nice club down there and man, I really want to come play.” I said, “Well look, John Lee, you’re welcome any time you want. You got a home long as I got one.” So he came
down. I had Luther Tucker, one of the few people who really know how to back him up. There’s only one person who knew how to better, and that was Eddie Taylor. That’s the missing link.
Eddie Taylor, man. Vee Jay Records, man. That was the stuff, man. And John Lee’ll tell you, Eddie Taylor was the greatest musician who ever lived. Those were the greatest records John Lee
ever made, with Eddie Taylor behind him. Anyhow, the first time I had him up we had Luther Tucker playing with him, and Jimmie Vaughan and all those guys . . . the second time I had Big Walter
Horton, the harmonica man who had played with John Lee many times before, Eddie Taylor, and Hubert Sumlin, the Howlin’ Wolf guitarist. I got ’em all, and I recorded it all on a mobile
unit and I still have the tapes. I’ve never released ’em yet, but John Lee gave me permission to release ’em. That was ’75, ’76, those years. Then he would call and
say, “I wanna come to Austin, just visit, take a vacation here”, because we were that good of friends, you know? He would come and just spend the week with us. He has lots of friends in
Austin, lots of
people that really like him. To hear him play the lead guitar with one finger like he does is one of the most awesome things I ever heard in my life,
man.’ For the next thirteen years, Hooker was a regular visitor to Antone’s.