Earl Hooker, Blues Master

Epilogue

^pllo^uë Around the time of Earl Hooker's death, the blues went through some hard times. In the ghettos, young African Americans were drawn to the catchy social consciousness of soul music, while youngWhites adhered to the pseudo-protest message of rock; in both cases, the public failed to see the debt these styles owed to the blues, and they discarded the blues. But for a handful of black ghetto club patrons and hard-core white fans, the blues might not have survived. Yet, thanks to a small number of publications and dedicated record companies, blues amateurs were able to cling together. With time, as the blues slowly comforted its international audience, a handful of reissue labels put out rare recordings on compilation LPs—including Earl Hooker's Chief/Age sides. The eighties brought about more changes, at various levels. After the political awareness of the sixties and the heedlessness of the following decade, the relative sense of collectiveness that prevailed so far gave way to the individualism so characteristic of the Reagan years. One of the consequences of this social interioriza323 tion was that the first-person language of the blues sounded relevant again: after years of hearing, "We're proud and strong," people could relate to someone who sang, "I feel down and out." Along with the advent of the compact disc, this phenomenon warranted the salvation of the blues, eventually leading to a boom in this market. Possibly because he had been dead for over a decade, and certainly because he came short of becoming a star during his lifetime, Earl Hooker somehow missed the train of blues resurrection—possibly with the exception of the Japanese market, where he consistently had a faithful following, in spite of obvious linguistic and cultural problems (as a reader once said with much humor in a letter to Blues Unlimited magazine, "any language that transforms Earl Hooker into Earu Fooka has obviouslygot problems"1 )- In Hooker's own country , Chris Strachwitz didn't see fit to reissue two of the guitarist's three Arhoolie LPs in CD form until 1990, waitingeight more years before re-releasing Earl's third Arhoolie album, Hooker and Steve, along with four unissued sides. As for the Universal conglomerate, it took them until 1999 to dedicate a compilation tribute to Hooker (Simply the Best), with a mere sprinkling of Chess, Bluesway, and Blue Thumb sides. In the specialized press, Hooker hasn't been deemed worthy of a serious portrait in years, even though hardly an issueof any of the leadingmagazines goes to print without Earl Hooker's name being mentioned by one or the other of his peers. His fellow musicians have been the only ones to keep the flame alive, actually, paying him the most fitting tribute by honoring his memory in their words and, most of all, through their music. Over the years, in spite of the indifference of the general public, Hooker's distinctive style has managed to survive in the playing of others. These include a limited number of students, namely the late Willie Kizart and Ike Turner, who were taught directly by Hooker in the late forties; this is also true of former associates like Son Seals, Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, Jimmy Johnson, and Jimmy Dawkins, who have pursued the tradition in Chicago. As for Hooker's strongest themes, including "Blue Guitar," "Will My Man Be Home Tonight," or "Universal Rock," they have now become part of the standard Chicago blues repertoire, inspiring spirited versions by the likes of Lacy Gibson , Eddy Clearwater, and Otis Rush—one the most thorough assimilatorsof Hooker's playing, along with Billy Flynn. In 1992 Little Smokey Smothers probably paid the most moving homage to his late mentor when he recorded Epilogue 324 a "Tribute to Earl Hooker" in which both he and Flynn made eerie recreations of EarPs style. Many more players have been marked by Hooker's genius through his records, as was the case at the end of his life with representatives of the British blues boom, in bands like the Bluesbreakersor Led Zeppelin. To this day,EarPs influence will show in the constant borrowings from his music made by guitarists everywhere on the blues circuit—with the notable exception of New Orleans, where the Windy City tradition has never been much exposed, partly because the guitar has always been second in New Orleans to piano and horns. Regardless of...