Quote Of The Day By John Lee Hooker: 'When I'm Home ...'

Guitar legend John Lee Hooker was one of the most idiosyncratic performers in the whole of the blues canon. Both his voice and his playing style are instantly recognizable, while his distinctive rhythms became a template for generations of later blues and rock musicians.

Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on August 22, 1917, Hooker was a prominent figure on the blues scene from the 1940s onward, becoming an electric blues pioneer after making his name as a live performer in Detroit. His most famous recordings, including "Boogie Chillen," "Dimples," "Boom Boom," and "Crawling King Snake," have influenced major bands from the Rolling Stones to the Doors, as well as other bluesmen; Bo Diddley's distinctive "Bo Diddley Beat" takes some cues from Hooker's rhythmic approach. Hooker himself experienced several waves of popularity until late in life — especially when blues was having a revival — and won a new audience with his bestselling album "The Healer" in 1989. Artists he inspired, such as Bonnie Raitt, jumped at the chance to collaborate with the blues master. But Hooker himself, who died in 2001, was in fact a down-to-earth artist, as revealed in our quote of the day.

"When I'm home, I go to small bars, people think I wouldn't go in, they surprised to see me in there. But I'm human, just like you."

Today's quote of the day from John Lee Hooker comes from an interview he gave to the culture publication Please Kill Me in 1989, just as he was enjoying a new wave of commercial and critical success. 

Like other influential bluesmen of his generation, such as Albert King and Muddy Waters, Hooker was almost a mythic figure for younger artists, who saw him as a link to the rootsy, authentic music of America before it became commercialized. But it is evident that despite the acclaim, Hooker didn't see himself as anything special. As he reiterates in the same interview: "I think of myself as being just like you, just like a normal human being. I don't feel like no legend."

By the time of John Lee Hooker's 1989 Please Kill Me interview, the bluesman had seen appreciation of the blues and personal adulation come and go several times, along with waves of new generations of listeners who sought to venerate him as one of the old guard — almost a god. But there are several reasons why Hooker wouldn't have felt that way about himself.

Hooker came from a hardworking, sharecropping background. This may have played into his attitude toward his acclaim later in life, but arguably of more importance is that he came from a family where playing music was the norm. His stepfather was also a talented guitarist, and the young Hooker was put through his musical paces playing homemade instruments on the family farm and singing at the local church.

More than anything, though, his raw approach to the music he made is likely what kept him grounded. As an artist, he wasn't ambitious or showy in his playing — instead, he knew what he liked, and he stuck with his style. As he said himself: "I don't play a lot of fancy guitar ... The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean, mean licks." With an attitude like that, it's no wonder he remained well-grounded.

• "The blues come from way back. When the world was born, the blues was born. As the world progressed the blues got more fancy and more modern. They dressed it up much more. They got lyrics now that they didn't have then. But they're still saying the same thing. The greatest music of all comes from the blues — spirituals, rock, country & western. Everything comes from that root."
• "It's not devil music. It's music that's good for the soul, that's good for the people, it makes people happy all over the world. Just like spirituals."
• If you look at me, you think this guy don't know nothin'. But I can look right through a person and tell what they're thinkin'. I can tell if it's a kind-hearted person. I never got much schoolin' cause I didn't care. But I'm fine, I'm blessed, and I love people. That's what keeps me goin', I think."
• "If I wake up in the middle of the night with a good idea I'll start talking into the tape recorder. I have one right by my bed. Sometimes I'll take it with me in my car. Before tape recorders I just had to keep it all in my head."
• "A lot of people think blues singers write when they're sad and lonely. They think you gotta be down and out to write the blues — hungry, broke. It's not true. I write when I've got a good feeling, when I'm happy. When things are going well for you, you write. You have to be in the groove to write. You can't be upset and worried and write the blues. You've got to have a clear mind."