JOHN LEE HOOKER - BAD LIKE JESSE JAMES

Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi on August 22, 1917 to a sharecropping family, John Lee Hooker’s earliest musical influence came from his stepfather, Will Moore. By the early 1940’s Hooker had moved north to Detroit by way of Memphis and Cincinnati. Hooker found work as a janitor in the auto factories, and at night, like many other transplants from the rural Delta, he entertained friends and neighbors by playing at “house parties“. He was “discovered“ by record storeowner Elmer Barbee who took him to Berna