Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: John Lee Hooker
Hooker’s first instrument was an inner tube nailed to a barn door.
Better still:
The septuagenarian Hooker, suave in a homburg, three-piece suit and sunglasses, became a familiar figure in advertisements, employed to endorse everything from jeans to heart pills. The commercial success of The Healer allowed him to record a series of albums in the 1990s, among them Mr Lucky and Boom, Boom, all of which sold well. In 1991, at 74, he became the oldest person to have a top five album in the British charts.
His new wealth allowed him to retire to San Francisco, where he would spend his afternoons crooning down the telephone to the young waitresses whose numbers he had picked up at breakfast.
An inspiration to us all.
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Like anyone who has really lived, he displayed a contepmt for convention to the last. Excellent choice.
Puss
Comment by Glamourpuss — 11th June, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
and so soon after Dear Bo Diddley too.
He was also an Elegantly Dressed Wednesday’s Child is full of woe …
“I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie … … now tell me
Who Do You Love?”
Comment by dysthymiac — 12th June, 2008 @ 6:27 am
If I ever get old, I’d like to be a bluesman. I don’t think you can pull off ‘eccentric’ properly at that age without a firm understanding of your soul.
Comment by Dominic Harvey — 12th June, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
Great.
Comment by Ms Baroque — 15th June, 2008 @ 3:47 pm