Event

John Lee Hooker, Jr.

John Lee Hooker Jr. was born in Detroit "Motor" City with Delta blues-filled blood running through his Motown veins. As the son of the great John Lee Hooker, he was exposed to the life of the blues from a young age. At only eight years old Jr. performed on Detroit's WJBK radio and knew from that moment that he wanted to follow the path of his father and become a world-class musician. Touring alongside Hooker, Sr. throughout his teens, Jr. had already performed in prestigious venues such as Detroit's Fox Theatre with acclaimed musicians like Jimmy Reed by the time he was 16. In 1972, an eighteen year-old John Jr. was singing vocals alongside his father for the recording of Hooker, Sr.'s album Live at Soledad Prison (ABC Records).
After struggling through years of extreme hardship and nearly losing himself to the streets, the remarkable John Lee Hooker Jr. overcame the adversity to begin a rapid emergence into the blues spotlight. His first album, Blues with a Vengeance (2004) certainly lived up to its name by wrapping up 2004 with a Grammy nomination in the Traditional Blues Album category and a nomination for a distinguished W.C. Handy Award as Best New Artist Debut. And "Live in Istanbul, Turkey", released March 2010 on Hooker, Jr.'s own Steppin' Stone Records and the European label Jazzhaus Records, proves to be yet another notch in the Grammy nominated artist's belt. Hooker explodes with fiery intensity as he sets the audience on fire at the Efes Pilsen Blues Festival, proving that the blues are indeed an international language understood around the world.
"John Lee Hooker Jr., the son of a 20th Century blues legend, stands at the crossroads of a new era for blues with a confidence and mastery that will only intensify an already superlative family tradition. Boogie on!"
San Francisco Blues Festival
Tom Mazzolini