John Lee Hooker, whose deep growl and ragged guitar-picking style inspired fans and musicians for generations, died on June 21st aged 83.
The blues patriarch from the Mississippi Delta performed on more than 100 albums over a half-century recording career. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, he won four Grammy Awards over the years and a Lifetime Achievement Award at last year's Grammy's.
His music remained hypnotic and raw, electrifying fans over the beat of his constantly tapping foot. Using an open-tuned guitar allowed him to combine percussive sounds and soulful notes.
He was also a gifted songwriter, creating vital music well into his 70s and 80s while representing one of the last bridges to the pre-rock era of the blues.
His stylings inspired scores of artists such as Van Morrison. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1917, he was one of 11 children of a Baptist minister sharecropper. His musical experiences began in his father's church, where he sang spirituals.
His father, however, frowned on his artistic leanings, and when his parents divorced he went to live with his mother and stepfather, a Delta blues guitarist named Will Moore.
Moore taught him the guitar, and the two played together at local dances. At age 14, he ran away to Memphis, to perform. A few years later he moved to Cincinnati, where he sang with gospel quartets, and then to Detroit in 1943.
He began playing blues clubs and bars around Detroit's famed Hasting Street, honing a unique style that would later make him an international star.
He was finally given a chance to record in 1948.
Boogie Chillen, in which he was accompanied only by his electric guitar and his own stomping foot, became a surprise hit for the Modern Records label and his first commercial success.
His distinctive rhythm patterns came to define the style widely known as boogie music. And his songs expanded the limits of the blues' subject matter, while also tackling sex, violence, guilt, revenge and love.
Like some other post-war blues singers who became embroiled in disagreements with their record companies, he began recording for other labels under an array of pseudonyms, including Birmingham Sam and His Magic Guitar, Johnny Lee, Texas Slim and John Lee Cooker, among others.
In 1955, he began a lengthy association with Chicago's Vee Jay Records, where he released such R& hits as Boom Boom and Dimples. In the late 50s, amid a rising folk music boom, he hit the folk tour circuit and began winning over a new audience, primarily young white fans.
He lived in London for a time, touring Europe with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, featuring Clapton and Peter Green on guitars.
New albums began establishing his name overseas, and by the early 1960s he was being cited as a major influence on rock acts in the so-called British invasion, including the Rolling Stones.
Even as popular taste veered away from the blues in the 1970s and early 1980s, he toured relentlessly and continued writing songs. The 1989 release of The Healer album, which also featured guest acts such as Los Lobos and Raitt, marked yet another revival and became one of the best-selling blues albums in history.
While John Lee Hooker remained on the road constantly, he enjoyed a quiet suburban life when he could, maintaining a fleet of luxury cars. An avid baseball fan, he used to keep multiple radio receivers tuned to different stations to monitor as many games as possible.
"I never, ever imagined I'd have a career last this long...but here I am," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1998. "If I stopped playing the blues, I'd be miserable. I've been given a gift from the good Lord...I think doing what I do is just in my blood."
A decade earlier, before the release of The Healer, he said that he sometimes wore sunglasses when he played to prevent fans from seeing him cry during his sets.
"You know, I may not be too good at writing things down, but when it comes to creating a song from here," - "and here" - then to his head - "nobody can beat me."
John Lee Hooker: born 1917; died, June 2001