John Lee Hooker on Hastings Street, Detroit, 1959. © Jacques Demêtre / Soul Bag Archives
Chasing the Echoes: In Search of John Lee Hooker’s Detroit
In September 1948, John Lee Hooker strummed the chord that ignited the endless boogie. Like many Delta blues musicians of that time, Hooker had moved north to pursue his music, and he was paying the bills through factory work. For five years he had been toiling as a janitor in Detroit auto and steel plants. In the evenings, he would exchange his mop and broom for an Epiphone Zephyr to play rent parties and clubs throughout Black Bottom, Detroit’s thriving black community on the near east side.
Word had gotten out about Hooker’s performances – a distinct form of primitive Delta blues mixed with a driving electric rhythm. After recording a handful of crude demos, he finally got his break. Hooker was entering Detroit’s United Sound Systems to lay down his first professionally recorded tracks. One of them, an electrifying, infectious performance, contained references to various Black Bottom landmarks:
When I first come to town, people,
I was walking down Hastings Street,
I heard everybody talking about Henry’s Swing Club,
I decided I’d drop in there that night,
And when I got there I said,
‘Yes, people, yes’, they was really having a ball,
(Yes, I know)
Boogie, chillen!
With notes rolling like thick syrup, barking rhythmic chords and a heavy foot stomp, Boogie Chillen and its hypnotic drone resonated with the masses. It shot to the top of the national Rhythm and Blues chart in early 1949 and resounded in bars across Black Bottom and in urban centers across the country. Its message – a constant theme throughout Hooker’s long career – was to cut loose, shake and shimmy like the party would never end.
I set out to visit as many of Hooker’s Detroit haunts as possible, but discovered that, at least in Black Bottom, the party ended years ago. Henry’s Swing Club was razed around 1960 – as were most of the bars, restaurants, shoeshine parlors and other businesses that made up the neighborhood – to make way for the Chrysler Freeway. The spot where Hooker’s home once stood is now an empty, weed-choked lot. Sensation, Fortune and the other record companies that issued some of Hooker’s earliest 78s have long been out of business. Most of the musicians who were on the scene in Hooker’s heyday have died.
Hooker left Detroit for San Francisco in 1970, and he continued “doin’ the boogie” until he died in 2001 at age 83. An array of musicians – from Eric Clapton and Bonnie Raitt to the Cowboy Junkies and Laughing Hyenas – have covered his songs, yet, for all the artists who have walked in Hooker’s footsteps musically, it’s not easy to retrace his path physically in present-day Detroit. If you search hard enough, you can still find places echoing with the treasured chords and foot stomps from the bluesman’s past.
A Lasting Friendship
To begin my journey, I sought out Detroit-area blues musicians who knew Hooker personally.
“John Lee and I were pretty good friends,” says harmonica player Aaron “Little Sonny” Willis, one of the few remaining locals who performed with Hooker. “He was a nice guy – just a regular country boy.”
I met Little Sonny at his home in the Conant Gardens area of Detroit, about three miles north of the section where Hooker once performed. Sonny’s basement is a virtual blues museum, filled with photos, colorful posters, record contracts and other memorabilia spanning his 56-year career. Sonny led his own blues band and performed with Hooker and visiting artists like B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Howlin’ Wolf. He once covered a show for Little Walter, who was too drunk to get onstage. During the late 1960s, Sonny recorded three albums with Stax Records, including his most famous release, New King of the Blues Harmonica.
“I first heard Hooker’s music at the juke joints in Alabama when I was about 14 or 15,” Sonny says. “When I moved to Detroit in 1953, I worked at a used car lot. I made extra money by going to the blues clubs and taking Polaroid pictures of the people and musicians there and selling them.”
Sonny showed me some vintage shots from his collection of himself with Hooker on Hastings Street and inside Joe’s Record Shop, a Black Bottom fixture Sonny describes as “the headquarters for Detroit blues.”
Joe Von Battle, the store’s owner, also ran JVB Records at the same site with a hole-in-the-wall recording studio in the back room.
“I never recorded with John Lee, but we performed together a lot,” says Sonny. “I was playing a place called the Bank Bar; he was playing the Apex Bar. My name was getting popular and Hooker would come to see my band. He’d sit in with me and I’d go sit in with his band. It was never anything planned. He said he liked performing with me because I made him sound better.”
I asked Sonny if he found it difficult to play with Hooker, who wasn’t known for following a straight 12-bar format.
“John Lee had a certain feeling to his music – I could feel that, too,” Sonny says. “My ears were always on him. He was an original who did things his own way. He had a natural, God-given talent.”
Despite the camaraderie, Hooker also pulled an occasional fast one on his friends. Sonny recalled a trip he and Hooker once made to Vee-Jay Records in Chicago.
“John Lee didn’t have a car but he wanted to go to Vee-Jay to borrow some money,” Sonny says. “He told me they were interested in signing me to a record contract, so I drove him there. John Lee went inside but I never got to meet anybody from Vee-Jay. I’m still waiting for that call. In fact, I got a speeding ticket on the way to Chicago and John Lee didn’t even help pay for it.”
Sonny last performed with Hooker in 1992, and he continues to play occasionally with his current band, Little Sonny and the Detroit Rhythm Group, featuring sons Tony on bass and Aaron Jr. on guitar. He says Detroit doesn’t get the credit it deserves as a music capital compared to other cities like Chicago.
“Detroit has always been overlooked because we had a wider variety of music,” Sonny says. “Chicago was known for blues and had its Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. In Detroit, we took that Delta-blues sound and modified it into a more modern blues. We also had jazz, spirituals and pop; it was a whole different mix. Detroit’s musical heritage blows Chicago out of the water.”
Before I left, Sonny pulled a Hohner from one of his many custom-made harmonica cases and gave an impromptu performance with Aaron Jr. on acoustic guitar. Sonny says he doesn’t miss the days when he played clubs like the Apex, which he headlined for five years after Hooker had moved on.
“It was hard work – five shows per night, 45 minutes on, 15 minutes off. I’d be crazy to want to return to that.”
Birth of the Boom Boom
Technically, the Hastings Street Hooker referenced in Boogie Chillen still exists, but it’s mostly a service drive for the Chrysler Freeway. All the black-owned businesses that once lined this street, including Joe’s Record Shop, were torn down long ago. So were the clubs and gambling joints that made up Paradise Valley, the Black Bottom entertainment district that regularly attracted renowned performers like Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday and T-Bone Walker.
Just beyond this area is a section called the North End, which thrived with black-owned businesses and blues clubs in the late 1940s. Unlike Paradise Valley, the North End stands today, and while it’s hardly intact, it wasn’t carved out of the landscape entirely. Instead, it stands as a portrait of urban decay with plenty of empty lots, boarded-up storefronts and burned-out homes.
One North End business that survives is the Apex Bar, the same club that once featured blues from Hooker, Little Sonny and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Disco and disc jockeys pretty much killed off Detroit’s live blues scene by the 1980s, but the Apex withstood the surrounding blight and it continues to serve a regular clientele – an oasis of sorts for a neighborhood that has seen better days.
“The best thing about running this bar is the people,” says Apex owner Marvelous Persell. She and her husband, Charles, bought the bar in 1989. She took over the business after he died in 1995. “It’s a real friendly crowd. Everyone is welcome here, as long as they’re orderly and behave themselves.”
Persell is fond of saying she runs the “cleanest bar in Detroit,” and I don’t doubt it. The exterior looks as if it hasn’t changed a bit since the days when people lined around the block to see Hooker play for a $1.50 cover. The interior’s a different story. Newer red-and-black-tiled floors shine immaculately thanks to regular waxing; clean mirrors line the walls. The chairs are freshly upholstered and the tables sport bright red tablecloths.
A few older patrons are absorbed in their pool game across from what used to be a tiny bandstand. Persell expanded the stage about 15 years ago to create a larger dance floor. She even added a crystal ball. The room is filled with lively conversation and old Motown and R&B tunes from the jukebox.
“The Apex has a family atmosphere,” says Tequila Harris, Persell’s granddaughter. “Love always walks in the door. It’s secure, you get a nice drink for your buck and everyone knows everyone else. It’s like the African-American Cheers.”
Hooker also maintained a certain fondness for the Apex. On several occasions he recalled how a female bartender inspired him to write Boom Boom, a stop-time number with an irresistible hook that became another huge hit for Hooker and one of his most covered tunes.
“I played ‘bout a year in that bar,” Hooker told writer Charles Shaar Murray. “It was packed every night I was playing there. I would always come in late. I was drinkin’ then, I always had a bottle of Scotch by my seat or in the car. The band would be up on the bandstand by the time I’d get there. I run in there, put my coat up, and this young lady behind the bar, name of Willow, every night she would say, ‘Boom Boom, you late again.’ Every night, she say, ‘Boom Boom, y’all is late,’ and it came to me: that’s a song. I come in there one night an’ I got it together, the lyrics, rehearsed it, and I played it at the place, and people went wild.”
Persell isn’t familiar with Willow, but she sent me to talk with Lively Hewins, a regular patron for more than 50 years. Hewins, who prefers to go by his nickname “Junior from the Hardware Store,” doesn’t remember Willow, either. But he clearly recalls seeing Hooker, Little Sonny and others blow away the Apex crowd.
“I used to see other Detroit blues players here, too, like Washboard Willie and Mr. Bo,” says Hewins, 73. “It was always real crowded around the stage when Hooker played – standing room only. People would line up outside, knowing they couldn’t get in, just to hear the music. I came mostly for the women and the music. Today I come here when I’m not at home. I’ve been coming here so long, I don’t know where else to go.”
The House of Deitch Photo: Jeff Samoray
Royal Oak’s House of Blues
In 1949, a young animator named Gene Deitch moved his family from Hollywood to Detroit, where he began directing films for the auto industry. He purchased a modest two-story bungalow on South Campbell in Royal Oak, a suburb two miles north of Detroit. Along with his wife and two young children, Deitch brought his love of jazz and blues.
One of Deitch’s side projects was providing illustrations for The Record Changer, a magazine for collectors of jazz and blues records. Deitch himself was a rabid collector of 78s and frequently hosted record parties at his home. Friends came with a dish to pass and their favorite discs to spin long into the night. At one party, a friend suggested looking up a local blues singer named John Lee Hooker and asking him to perform at the next party.
“I was a 23-year-old freshman in town and really knew nothing about the Detroit jazz and blues culture,” says Deitch, who now lives in Prague and continues to work as an independent animation director at age 87. “My friend and I went down to a dim and creepy bar somewhere in the black section of Detroit to see Hooker perform. I remember feeling nervous about approaching him. We offered to put a few dollars together and lay on a great dinner if he’d come and play. To our delight, he agreed! None of us knew then that John Lee would develop into one of the giants of the blues.”
With remarkable foresight, Deitch borrowed an early “portable” DuKane reel-to-reel tape machine from his employer to record Hooker. Deitch dragged the bulky equipment to his walk-up attic, set up a makeshift recording space and, during the next party, recorded several hours of Hooker and his acoustic guitar on two quarter-inch reels of iron-oxide-covered paper tape.
“I persuaded him to sing the old Mississippi country blues songs he’d learned as a kid,” Deitch says. “A little wine, a little whiskey, and it all came flowing out. I was absolutely hypnotized listening to him and recording him. Those tapes became a personal treasure.”
Deitch left Detroit for New York in 1951 and mostly forgot about the Hooker tapes. (He went on to work on cartoons such as Mr. Magoo and even won an Academy Award for an animated short he created before relocating to Prague in 1961.) In 1999, a conversation with an American expatriate and blues enthusiast brought the informal recording session back to mind. Deitch had the tapes professionally remastered, and Eagle Records issued the recordings in 2004 on the CD Jack O’ Diamonds: 1949 Recordings, with all royalties going to Hooker.
“I was pulsing with excitement when I heard the tapes again after all those years,” Deitch says. “They’re unique, brilliant performances of Mississippi Delta blues, including some songs he never recorded again.”
The 20 tracks, moving and intimately recorded, are captured with amazing fidelity and rank among Hooker’s earliest recorded acoustic blues. Spiritual numbers, like Moses Smote the Water and Ezekiel Saw the Wheel” were uncharacteristic for Hooker, who was fulfilling his hosts’ request for “authentic” Mississippi blues. Among the more riveting numbers are a slow, untitled instrumental and the rollicking 33 Blues, in which Hooker suggests he might not make it past age 32.
Josh Lee, a Detroit-based contractor, currently owns the Deitch home, a nondescript gray house on South Campbell with a simple frame construction typical of the post-World War II suburban boom. He was stunned when I told him the story of the Oscar-winning animator and the blues legend.
“It’s pretty cool to know the history of the house,” Lee says. “It’s just a typical bungalow; there’s a million others just like it in Royal Oak. I’m not much of a music historian and can’t say I’m familiar with John Lee Hooker, but it’s neat to know a guy who won an Oscar lived there.”
As I drove to the home to talk with Brandon, who currently rents the place, I imagined what the scene must have been like 60 years ago – Hooker showing up at the party and standing at the front door, New Orleans jazz favorites blasting from the upstairs window. The 20-something Brandon seemed puzzled when I relayed the details of my journey. Like his landlord, Brandon had never heard of John Lee or any of his songs. I didn’t even bother mentioning Mr. Magoo.
United Studios Photo: Jeff Samoray
A Shuttered Studio
But what about United Sound Systems, the place where Hooker recorded Boogie Chillen in 1948? The large, old building still stands as a recording studio at the corner of Second Avenue and Antoinette in midtown Detroit; getting within its historic walls, however, proved to be a difficult task.
United Sound probably deserves to have a commemorative plaque on its front door. The list of famous artists who recorded there since it opened in 1933 is staggering: Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Dizzie Gillespie, Jackie Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Albert King, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, the Rolling Stones, the MC5, Funkadelic and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to name a few. Berry Gordy bought studio time there in 1959 to record his first Motown Record.
The independent studio was originally conceived as a venue for producing radio jingles and commercials. It expanded its services later to film, TV and industrial-film production. But the recording talents of owner Jimmy Siracuse and his son Joe attracted the musicians. Detroit blues guitarist and harmonica player Eddie Burns says United Sound was the place to record during the 1940s and 1950s.
“I came to Detroit because I wanted to cut a deal to make records,” says Burns 83, who grew up in Mississippi and made his first recording at United in early 1949 – playing harmonica with Hooker on the track “Burnin’ Hell.” “I first met John Lee at a house party. He heard me play and said he wanted to use me on harmonica at a session he had coming up. I said OK – that was part of my plan for being here in the first place. United Sound was just a small studio at that time, but it was a nice place to record.”
One man intimately familiar with the studio is Ed Wolfrum, who worked alongside Joe Siracuse as a studio engineer from 1966 to 1974. Wolfrum had previously worked at Motown and engineered hits such as “Baby Love” by the Supremes; “Heat Wave,” by Martha and the Vandellas; “My Cherie Amore,” by Stevie Wonder; and many others.
“United was always the Detroit recording studio,” says Wolfrum, who now runs his own audio-engineering and graphics-services firm. “It had a technical sophistication that was way ahead of its time. It’s a granddaddy studio with an extraordinary history.”
Wolfrum told me he once asked Joe Siracuse what it was like to record Hooker.
“What Hooker did was art, not pop music for the masses,” Wolfrum says, “so I was really excited when Joe pulled out the first generation master tapes from those early Hooker sessions. I got to hear cuts like ‘I’m in the Mood’ and others directly from the source tape. It was gorgeous. You could hear all the detail that’s missing in the 78s. When properly recorded, the great players exhibit complete control over their instrument – it becomes part of them. That’s the sense I got from those great recordings.”
Jimmy Siracuse sold the studio in the early 1970s to former Motown session guitarist and Stax producer Don Davis, who continued using the facilities to produce soul records. But the studio fell into decline throughout the 1980s and 1990s; Jimmy and Joe Siracuse have since passed away.
Roger Hood, a Detroit attorney, purchased United Sound in 2002, reportedly for the cost of back taxes and existing liens. I finally reached him by phone after leaving several messages. He was vague about his business and canceled several appointments with me before finally consenting to meet one morning at United Sound. I looked forward to seeing the famous “Studio B” where Hooker had recorded.
Upon arriving, I noticed that the snow had not been cleared from the front sidewalk or parking lot. The building’s windows were covered with plywood and the front door was locked tight. I peered through the bars on the door and saw mail piled on the front steps. It looked like no one had been there for weeks.
Hood never arrived – seems he’s just about as elusive as Hooker’s ghost.
