A biography for John Lee Hookerhasn’t been written yet.
“I want to play music when I want, write a song if I want or watch a baseball game if I want.”
“I do benefits. I do them all the time. There's so many people out there that needs help that I can't say I won't help them.”
“In my career, people in the record business have been rockin' in the same ol' boat. They all crooks - I'll say it clear and loud - especially the big ones.”
“My style is all to myself.”
“I have heartaches, I have blues. No matter what you got, the blues is there. 'Cause that's all I know - the blues. And I can sing the blues so deep until you can have this room full of money and I can give you the blues.”
“I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks.”
“I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.”
“The way Will Moore taught me, and the way I play it, the blues is just something different.”
“Since you knew they was goin' to cheat you anyway, I recorded under any name with all of 'em.”
“The one thing the blues don't get is the backing and pushing of TV and radio like a lot of this garbage you hears. They choke stuff down people's throat so they got no choice but to listen to it.”
“I hitchhiked, took trucks 'n' trains - anything that would pick me up. I stopped in Memphis for about six months and they found me and come got me. Stayed about a month an' split again.”
“All my life I been doin' what people tell me to do. Now, I'm telling them.”
“I like dropping into a small club and playing with some people, trying to help them get a start.”
“I've got enough money to live me two lifetimes so I don't have to do nothing I don't want to.”
“It don't take me no three days to record no album.”
“They wasn't gonna give you nothin'. I didn't care as long as they let me play my music. Cash on the spot... You cheat me and I'm gonna get me some money, too.”
“Oh, I still like to play and I still play when I want to.”
“I went on to Cincinnati. I had got a taste of the big cities and them bright lights. I stayed there until I was about 18 or 19 and then I went on to Detroit.”
“You can go to Europe, and there's no turnin' back - any parts of Europe. Wherever you are, there is no stop and go for the blues. The blues go but it don't stop.”
“If they played more blues, people would just get it - they try to hold it back but just about can't hold it back now because the blues is really going.”