By John Orr

Ladies and gentlemens, in the whole wide world, there's only one man that can look through muddy water and spot dry land. I'm talkin' about the king of the boogie, the godfather of the blues, ``The Healer'' of all
the world, Grammy award winner JOHN ... LEE ... HOOKER!

-- Deacon Jones, introducing Hooker at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland

John Lee Hooker's connection with his audience happens so deep below the skin
that we'd have to call in a bone-marrow doctor to look at it, and even then we
couldn't get the words right.

You either know what it feels like when the Coast-to-Coast Blues Band kicks into a boogie and John Lee raises his arms and yells ``Wah!'' or we'd just look silly trying to explain it.

Deacon Jones, who plays Hammond organ in Hooker's band, and has introduced him with those same words untold thousands of times, is more or less right on every count

.
King of the boogie? You bet. Just ask ZZ Top, George Thorogood or anyone else
who's made a buck on the boogie over the last 40 years. They know who they're
grateful to: a preacher's son from Mississippi.

But mostly, ask anybody who's spent 20 minutes dancing in a hot dance hall or nightclub, sweating out their blues in a non-stop rhythmic frenzy while John Lee passes the lead to Michael Osborn or Kenny Baker or Carlos Santana or Bonnie Raitt or Nancy Wright or Ry Cooder or Albert Collins or Keith Richards or Roy Rogers or Joe Louis Walker or any of hundreds of other musicians who've been proud to be up there performing with him.

Godfather of the blues? Couldn't be more true, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he keeps the highest profile of the aging blues legends who live here,
and can dispense favors and even make offers people can't refuse. Sure, he'll be the big-name draw for your benefit, but make sure that you put his daughter Zakiya's band on the bill. And if you're part of his famiglia
-- his blood relations, close friends or band members -- he might even perform a song or two on your album, help you sell it.

``The Healer'' of the world? Yeah. Sure, Jones was talking about Hooker's fabulous, Grammy-winning album, but it's still right, for the people who tune into Hooker, and find that he heals through empowerment.
He says it's OK to dance, scream, yell, party, make love.

``I don't care what she allowed, went on boogeying anyhow,'' he sang in 1949, in his
first million-seller, ``Boogie Chillun.''

He says it's OK for a man in his 70s to still be sexy, and if you've seen him perform, or listened to his records, or met him backstage, you know it's true.

``I remember hearing `I'm in the Mood' when I was in my teens,'' Bonnie Raitt said on ``Herbie Hancock, Coast to Coast'' several years ago, after she recorded the song with him for ``The Healer'' album. ``And I knew it had been a million-selling record back in 1951, and to think that that kind of record,
that sounded that nasty, was a hit on the radio back then, really makes me rethink the '50s. ``As far as I'm concerned, doing a duet with him on it has to be the sexiest song I've ever been involved with. 'Cause it's real. I get really, disturbed when I'm singing with him, because the song is a classic, probably one of the most erotic pieces of blues ever written.''

Well, yes, my daddy told me, to leave that man alone

But my daddy didn't tell me, Lord, what the man was puttin' down

Got me in the mood, baby. John Lee, I'm in the mood for love.

- Bonnie Raitt, singing Hooker's song

Hooker is usually glad to entertain beautiful young women fans backstage.
``Yeah. We ain't always gonna be here,'' he says. ``Has to do what we can while
we're here. Don't know what's on the other side of the fence, you know.'' At
the Santa Clara County Fair, from left, Mariah White of Los Altos, John Lee's
nephew and driver, Archie Hooker, and Jane Panter of England visit with John Lee Hooker.

John Lee poses backstage at the San Francisco Blues Festival, 1991.

You was born for good luck, bad luck can't do you no harm.

John Lee, you was born for good luck, bad luck can't do you no harm.

Keep your black cat bones and a mojo hand,

I guarantee you'll never go wrong.

I believe, I believe what you said.

-- Robert Cray and John Lee Hooker singing Hooker's ``Mr. Lucky''

Read another profile of John Lee Hooker written by John Orr

Play the boogie

To play the boogie in A, keep your forefinger on the D and G strings at the second fret, start the bass thump on the A string and use your second and fourth fingers to add the riff on the third and fifth frets.

Your picking hand can do whatever it wants, and it still won't pick it like Hooker. No one picks it like Hooker. I remember standing next to Robert Cray, who knows how to pick, at a birthday party for Hooker when the man himself was playing. Cray shook his own picking hand in disbelief, laughing in amazement. You watch Hooker's right-hand thumb and fingers fly over the strings and just can't see how he connects with the right strings at the right time.

``The Cosmic Flubber-Dubber'' is what I've heard Carlos Santana call it, and he also knows how to pick. But he doesn't pick like John Lee.