Earl Hooker - Sweet Black Angel (1970)

Earl Hooker (January 15, 1929 – April 21, 1970)

was an American blues guitarist.
Born Earl Zebedee Hooker in Clarksdale, Mississippi, his impoverished family moved to Chicago, Illinois when he was still an infant. Influenced by parents and relatives who played music, he was a cousin of John Lee Hooker and began playing guitar as a teenager.

An instrumentalist, within a few years Hooker put together a band that toured the United States and made some of his first recordings for Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. He eventually became an important part of the Chicago blues scene. Hooker played in the American Folk Blues Festival in England in 1969. Although he never received the public recognition to the same extent as some of his contemporaries, Jimi Hendrix proclaimed Earl Hooker as the "master of the wah-wah" and his talent was greatly respected by other notable musicians such as B.B. King, Ike Turner, Junior Wells, and Buddy Guy. Hooker played slide guitar on the 1962 Muddy Waters recording, "You Shook Me." He was the only slide player on a Muddy Waters recording besides Muddy himself. Hooker also helped popularized the double-neck guitar.
Earl Hooker died at the age of 41 after a lifelong struggle against tuberculosis, which is alluded to in the title of a 1972 compilation album of his work, "There's a Fungus Among us." He was interred in the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. His story was told in a 2001 book by author Sebastian Danchin titled Earl Hooker, Blues Master.
Although, Earl Hooker died in 1970, his music still continues on in the rock band Daphne Blue, which includes Freddie Roulette , the original Lap Steel guitar player from Hooker's band, and his songwriting partner, Ray Bronner.

Biography

If there was a more immaculate slide guitarist residing in Chicago during the 1950s and '60s than Earl Hooker, his name has yet to surface. Boasting a fretboard touch so smooth and clean that every note rang as clear and precise as a bell, Hooker was an endlessly inventive axeman who would likely have been a star had his modest vocal abilities matched his instrumental prowess and had he not been dogged by tuberculosis (it killed him at age 41). Born in the Mississippi Delta, Hooker arrived in Chicago as a child. There he was influenced by another slide wizard, veteran Robert Nighthawk. But Hooker never remained still for long. He ran away from home at age 13, journeying to Mississippi. After another stint in Chicago, he rambled back to the Delta again, playing with Ike Turner and Sonny Boy Williamson. Hooker made his first recordings in 1952 and 1953 for Rockin', King, and Sun. At the latter, he recorded some terrific sides with pianist Pinetop Perkins (Sam Phillips inexplicably sat on Hooker's blazing rendition of "The Hucklebuck"). Back in Chicago again, Hooker's dazzling dexterity was intermittently showcased on singles for Argo, C.J., and Bea & Baby during the mid-to-late '50s before he joined forces with producer Mel London (owner of the Chief and Age logos) in 1959. For the next four years, he recorded both as sideman and leader for the producer, backing Junior Wells, Lillian Offitt, Ricky Allen, and A.C. Reed and cutting his own sizzling instrumentals ("Blue Guitar", "Blues in D-Natural"). He also contributed pungent slide work to Muddy Waters' Chess waxing "You Shook Me". Opportunities to record grew sparse after Age folded; Hooker made some tantalizing sides for Sauk City, Wisconsin's Cuca Records from 1964 to 1968 (several featuring steel guitar virtuoso Freddie Roulette). Hooker's amazing prowess (he even managed to make the dreaded wah-wah pedal a viable blues tool) finally drew increased attention during the late '60s. He cut LPs for Arhoolie, ABC-BluesWay, and Blue Thumb that didn't equal what he'd done at Age, but they did serve to introduce Hooker to an audience outside Chicago and wherever his frequent travels deposited him. But tuberculosis halted his wandering ways permanently in 1970. ~ Bill Dahl, All Music Guide

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