The decision wasn’t taken a moment too soon. In 1955, in order to commence work on what was to become the Chrysler Freeway, the city’s bulldozers moved in and began tearing down Hastings Street. The symbolism was inescapable: change was utterly inevitable, and he who was incapable of moving with the times would be lost.
Everybody consider John Lee Hooker come from Detroit. He put his ties together here and started his family here. I guess he feels that Detroit is his home because he probably had his first gig here, you know. Even though though he’s not livin’ in Detroit, people here still consider him a Detroit artist. A Detroit artist away from home. A Detroit artist out on a gig!
Famous Coachman, interview with the author, 1992
John Lee Hooker’s Detroit is gone. The Lee Sensation Bar on Oak in the north end of Detroit, not to mention postwar Black Bottom landmarks like the Rainbow Bar and Henry’s Swing Club, are ancient history. Only one block of what was once Hastings Street remains, and the Horseshoe Lounge on St Antoine is the last of the old-style black bars, though the Apex Bar still exists, on Oakland Avenue and Clay, as does the New Olympia Bar on Grand River and Grand Boulevard. The site of Elmer Barbee’s store at 609 Lafayette, on the intersection of San Antoine and Lafayette, where Hooker rehearsed for his first recordings, is now a parking lot outside a large, ornate church. The old Black Bottom has been thoroughly yupped out: it’s now one of the few enclaves of downtown Detroit where white-flight suburbanites feel safe. Much of the rest of the inner city is now straight-up ghetto: Detroit is an 85 per cent black (and his panic) city. As the businesses on which Detroit’s boom years were founded fail, the inner city has been ‘surrendered’ to blacks: in 1992, Detroit had a black mayor (Coleman Young), a black police chief and a black administration thirty years after such changes could have done the city and its people some good. Downtown is one of America’s Gotham Cities: a rusted-out hulk of a city where ostentatiously modern buildings and futurist set-pieces like the People Mover elevated train rub shoulders with grandiose, decaying ’40s structures that would’ve made Tim Burton drool. In fact, there was absolutely no need for Warner Bros to construct new Gotham City sets for Batman Returns, which was opening the same Independence Day weekend on which Hooker was due to return to the city for a homecoming concert: they could just have taken over downtown Detroit for a few weeks, taken full advantage of the crumbling splendour of its existing architecture and pumped some much-needed dough into the local economy. Detroit shares an eerie indicator of decay with Mississippi: everything from a hotel room to a packet of cigarettes is seriously cheap; a half or even a third of the prices charged in more prosperous burgs. Unemployment is several points higher than the national average.
Too many of John Lee Hooker’s people are gone, too. In July 1992, just two days before he returned to his old stomping grounds for a weekend showcase, his old friend and former pianist Vernon ‘Boogie Woogie Red’ Harrison died of kidney failure, at the age of 66. Red had played with Hooker for eleven years, and had been expected to show up at the concert to meet and greet his old Hastings Street buddy, though the chronic arthritis which had plagued him for the last few years would almost undoubtedly have prevented him from participating in the grand all-star reunion jam planned for the climax of Hooker’s set. But Eddie Burns is still around, and on sunny afternoons you can sometimes find him sitting comfortably on the front porch of his roomy, wood-panelled house on Chalmers, off East Jefferson, sipping a beer and contemplating the scenery. Famous Coachman is still here, too, tirelessly promoting the Detroit blues scene – ‘Hey! Hey! The Blues Is All Right’ bumper stickers and all – from his cramped record store on Gratiot, stuffed with gospel and Southern-soul records for the older folk (not to mention a small, disconsolate rack of downhome blues) plus a small selection of rap and swingbeat to cater for the local youth, and complete with a chaotic electrical-repair workshop in back. Tom Whitehead, now converted to Judaism and retired from his job driving a truck for the city, still pays his respects to his first love by playing jazz and blues in clubs and bars, in cabarets and at weddings.
Motown, which was founded on the hitherto-untapped talent lurking in the city’s housing projects, had packed up and moved to California in 1971, soon after Hooker himself had made the same trek. All they left behind was a tourist-trap museum based in the original offices and studios; they couldn’t even be bothered to maintain a regional branch-office, where the successors to the hungry and ambitious young Detroiters upon whose talents the empire was built could audition and train. And admirers of the great country bluesman Son House, at whose feet the likes of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters had knelt to learn their trade, are still saving up to buy a memorial headstone to mark his grave in the city where he had moved to spend his last years, and where he died.
But nevertheless, John Lee Hooker is coming back to town to grace the Meadow Brook Music Festival – headlined on this particular 5 July by the Robert Cray Band – with his presence. And, for a few spectacular minutes, the glory days of Hastings Street will be revisited, as the Detroit lions of the ’50s assemble to roar once more, to sit in with Hooker on the final encore of his set. Boogie Woogie Red has, tragically, been called away to a more pressing engagement, and Eddie Burns is stranded somewhere out on the road, unable to arrange his return to the city in time for the show. Still, Tom Whitehead, Eddie Kirkland, Mr Bo and Little Sonny are all confirmed, to boogie together with the Hook for what could possibly be the last time. Ever.
The afternoon before the show, Hooker and his party arrive in Auburn Hills on the outskirts of Detroit to check into a suburban hostelry which, though claiming to be a Hilton, more closely resembles a dizzyingly pretentious motel with severe delusions of grandeur. It can’t even boast all-day room service, which deficit causes no end of annoyance to the elderly gentleman in the trilby and shades who’s registered, under an old Staff and Gotham pseudonym, as ‘Johnny Williams’. Mr Williams is tired. Mr Williams is hungry. Mr Williams has just flown all the way from San Francisco, and Mr Williams wants some food. Now.
This particular Hilton’s policy vis-à-vis guest nourishment outside designated restaurant hours is to sell microwavable cold snacks from the gift shop. This is not good enough. A manager is summoned. He is instructed, not least vehemently by Vala Cupp and Lizz Fischer, whose rooms adjoin that of Mr Williams and who, in addition to their musical duties, take special responsibility for Mr Williams’s comfort and welfare, that something is going to have to be done. Something is done. A chef is pressed into emergency service, and soon a reasonably appetizing buffet of cold cuts, dips, corn chips and crudités materialises in Mr Williams’ suite. Mr Williams rumbles his grudging approval, and picks haphazardly at an item or two, leaving the bulk of the buffet untouched. Nevertheless, the point has been made. If John Lee Hooker wants food, he gets food, and nobody – most especially not some perspiring hotel flunky – is going to tell him he can’t have it. The days when John Lee Hooker wanted something and couldn’t get it are over. That’s all there is to it.
The Coast To Coast Blues Band also check in, but in their own inimitable manner. Lizz Fischer checks out the gym and most of her colleagues investigate the bar. Rich Kirch and Deacon Jones are sharing a nominally non-smoking room but – hey, fuck that! – cigarettes are fired up anyway. Jones is, as ever, on the hunt for a card game and, disdaining the house cuisine even once the restaurant has come online, phones out for pizza and ends up in a spirited cussing contest with the sister who eventually delivers it.
Meadow Brook is an open-air auditorium with a capacity of 7,500: the eventual audience ends up numbering a little over 5,000. Members of the Hooker and Cray bands, plus assorted crew members, are soon swarming over and behind the stage, which resounds to the assorted clangs, honks and tweets which inevitably constitute what’s generally known in rockbiz parlance as a ‘sound check’. Eddie Kirkland arrives in a black leather waistcoat sans shirt and an impressive selection of bandanas, medallions and chains. The Road War
rior wheels in an Acoustic combo amplifier wired up to a battered little practice amp and parts of some ancient hi-fi. He sets up a couple of effects pedals, and then carefully arrays three examples of his awesome collection of junkshop guitars – two Peaveys (including a jagged thing resprayed in an eyeball-torturing gold metal-flake) and a weird no-brand Strat copy – against his jury-rigged amp stack. Standing in the wings, Hooker’s manager Mike Kappus watches all this activity in disbelief. Finally, he ambles across the stage and hoists a quizzical eyebrow at Kirkland, still fussing with his gear. ‘Excuse me,’ he says eventually, ‘but you’re only playing on one song, Ed die.’ ‘Looks good, though, don’t it,’ Kirkland replies. It’s not a question.
His fellow veterans are also in evidence: Little Sonny, clutching his satchel of harps, turns out in a white safari suit and hat. The towering Mr Bo, brandishing a cherry-red Gibson 345, is a symphony in pearl grey but, stealing the sartorial show beyond any shadow of a doubt, is Tom Whitehead, immaculate in matching white suit, hat and shoes, and carrying his sticks in a monogrammed leather case. ‘My daughter say, “You goin’ with John Lee Hooker? Go sharp!”’ he laughs. ‘“There’s gonna be a who-o-o-o-ole lotta people there. Go ’head, dress up, look good, man.”’ And he does. The Hastings Street alumni barely have time for a sound-check of their own. Kirkland can do little more than test his ramshackle pile of amps and pedals to make sure that everything’s wired-up and working, while Little Sonny takes a quick honk’n wail on his harp. Whitehead has to content himself with a desultory whomp around the tom-toms and a quick pah-tish tish-dup on the hi-hats. Some of the Coast-to-Coasters enjoy a few discreet jokes at the expense of the senior citizens and their ‘old-time’ sound.
Shortly before 8 p.m., the lanky, bedenimed, baseball-capped Famous Coachman strides to centre-stage, commandeers the microphone and brings on the Coast To Coast Blues Band. Vala Cupp, looking like a Sindy doll and sounding like Etta James, kicks off the proceedings with a scorching take on T-Bone Walker’s ‘Cold Cold Feeling’: Mike Osborn’s impassioned B.B. King-style solo rates two separate rounds of applause. Deacon Jones – part-preacher, part-rapper – launches into his patented intro from behind the rented Hammond: ‘In the whole wide world, there’s only one man/who can look into muddy water and spot dry land!’ he hollers. On cue, John Lee Hooker enters from the wings, resplendent in a pearl-grey suit at least the equal in elegance of Mr Bo’s. Stumping to centre-stage, he proclaims, ‘This is my town: Detroit, Michigan! I love you; I love the whole world.’ Then he goes to work. Planting himself in his chair, he settles his guitar on his lap and unleashes a torrential blizzard of razor-edged notes. ‘I’m back home again!’ he crows. ‘Boom Boom’ careers along like a runaway express train. ‘I’m gonna get real funky now with “Crawlin’ King Snake”.’ he announces, and he is as good as his word.
Garnished with a bravura tenor sax solo by Kenny Baker, ‘Crawlin’ King Snake’ positively smoulders: an erotic set-piece guaranteed to disturb the nocturnal thoughts of anybody who won’t have anybody to sleep with that night. ‘Well, well, well . . .’ croons Hooker, as Cupp darts around his chair, leaning so close to him that she’s practically inside his guitar. ‘Crawl up in your bed, your bed, your bed, wrap around your pretty body, feel good this mornin’’ Hooker incants, their duelling ‘mm-hmm’s raising the temperature almost beyond endurance until Hooker cuts the proceedings short with a crisp thank-you. On ‘Baby Lee,’ Rich Kirch, who’s spent most of the night playing rhythm while Hooker and Osborn take care of the soloing, steps out to plays the spiky Strat parts blueprinted by Robert Cray on the Mr Lucky version. Just out of sight of the audience, Little Sonny, Tom Whitehead, Mr Bo and Eddie Kirkland watch carefully from the wings. The band kick into a slow blues featuring a killer solo by Lizz Fischer. ‘Play the blues!’ commands Hooker. She does. ‘Just a lonely man tryin’ to find love, in New York City,’ he sings. ‘Do you dig it?!’
‘Serve Me Right To Suffer’ is next up, complete with a deep neon-blue solo by Deacon Jones. The Hammond organ is the essential sound of the after-hours ghetto bars of the ’50s and ’60s, and the oceanic build Jones pumps into his solo makes the Hammond roar like an entire brass section. His ovation is more than earned.
Suddenly it’s 8.45. The best part of an hour has passed, though it seems like little more than five or ten minutes. Hooker switches to his open-A-tuned guitar, which means that it’s time for the boogie. In MC mode, Deacon Jones launches into one of his signature jivey intros to bring on Tom Whitehead, Mr Bo, Eddie Kirkland and Little Sonny, who defy expectations by remaining right where they are: in the wings. Hooker dumps his Epiphone, pulls the microphone from its stand, and begins to work the front row. No matter how many times you may have seen him do it, it remains an astonishing coup de théâtre, a symbolic magical resurrection, all frailness forgotten, all fatigue transcended, all limitations cast aside under the healing spell of the boogie. Suddenly, a thought occurs: Hooker must have been some kind of a sight to see, way back in the day, as a young man dancing the nights away in the Hastings Street clubs. He and Vala are striking real sparks off each other tonight, rocking and raving, microphone to microphone. Rich Kirch takes his turn for a solo: he’s cookin’ too, Mike Osborn and Jim Guyett doing soul-revue steps behind him as they play. Lizz Fischer and Kenny Baker turn up the heat still further as they solo over the remorseless, churning groove. ‘I thought I had enough,’ roars Hooker, ‘but I ain’t had enough!’ Deacon Jones rolls a sardonic quote from ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’ into his climactic organ break. He’s a JAMF of the first water, but he delivers every time.
‘The Godfather of Detroit, Michigan, misses his home town!’ Deacon declaims as Hooker carefully removes his shades to inspect the front rows before, smiling and waving with grandfatherly benevolence, he ambles off the stage. ‘Peace, love and blues power!’ Jones howls into the utter pandemonium which now ensues. At 9.05 the old guard finally take the stage: first Kirkland, then Mr Bo, then Little Sonny (‘on Mississipi saxophone’) and Tom Whitehead. Jim Guyett, Mike Osborn and Deacon Jones return to their stations as Starship Boogie takes off once more, this time with a loose-limbed swingbeat very different from Coast To Coast’s smooth, power-driven crank: Little Sonny wailing on his harp, the towering Mr Bo rippling away on his red 345, Eddie Kirkland grunging like a champ, low and dirty, and Tom Whitehead, his hat set well back on his head, putting a subtly vicious kick behind that time-honoured beat. This is Hastings Street’s last stand. Chrysler Freeway or no Chrysler Freeway, this night Hastings Street lives again.
After allowing a decent interval to elapse, the Cray band take the stage to close out the night. They’re fine, as they always are, but what has preceded them was something more than simply fine. It was unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable.
Back at the hotel, after the leaders repair to their respective suites for what is no doubt a tranquil and well-earned rest, various members of the Cray and Hooker bands assemble in the bar for the traditional post-gig pursuits of drinking beer and talking shit. One notable absentee is the teetotal, vegetarian Lizz Fischer: while her male colleagues chill out in the bar, inflating their waistlines by lifting bottles, she winds down in the hotel gym, inflating her already-impressive biceps by lifting weights. One acquaintance of the musicians comes this close to getting himself punched off a barstool by Memphis Horns trumpeter Wayne Jackson, the Stax graduate whose blasting, brassy tone contributes so much soulful authenticity to the Cray Band, for the nigh-capital crime of comparing Hooker’s Mr Lucky album to Ice-T’s O.G. Original Gangster, claiming them both as primo contemporary examples of the African-American genius for story-telling. Like most of the musicians in the Cray and Hooker ensembles, Jackson has zero tolerance for rap, and any notions of a ‘cultural continuum’ are deemed to be little more than trendy, pretentious Brit-crit crap. Fortunately, all is resolved in beery camaraderie by the time the bar finally closes.
Eddie Kirkland isn’t around to contribute his thoughts to this
informal symposium, however. He’s back at the wheel of the Dodge, cigar clamped between his teeth and heading Lord knows where, en route to his next job. And who can honestly say whether, at this particular time, on this particular night, there might just be a few ghostses on the highway after all.
8
TIME IS MARCHIN’ ON
Sometimes you feel like a club fighter who gets off a bus in the middle of nowhere, no cheers, no admiration, punches his way through ten rounds or whatever, always making someone else look good, vomits up the pain in the back room, picks up his check and gets back on the bus heading out for another nowhere. Sometimes like a troubadour out of the dark ages, singing for your supper and rambling the land . . .
Bob Dylan, quoted by Cameron Crowe,
liner notes to Biograph, 1985
Backbiters mean backstabbers, people double-crossin’ you.
‘Syndicators’ mean they always signifyin’.
John Lee Hooker, explaining ‘Backbiters
And Syndicators’ to the author, 1992
In 1990s usage, the expression ‘Vee Jay’ generally designates a person gainfully employed to spout banalities on cable or satellite TV to link bursts of rock or rap videos. In the world of mid-1950s R&B, by contrast, ‘Vee Jay’ meant the sparky independent record label which was the only significant rival to Chess Records’ historical domination of Chicago’s black music scene.
Boogie Man Page 26