John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American
blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He was born in
Mississippi, the son of a
sharecropper, and rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of
Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including
talking blues and early North Mississippi
Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived
boogie-woogie style. Some of his best known songs include "
Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "
Crawling King Snake" (1949), "
Dimples" (1956), "
Boom Boom" (1962), and "
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (1966) – the first being the most popular
race record of 1949.