Earl Hooker

If a slide guitarist of greater refinement than Earl Hooker called Chicago home during the 1950s and ’60s, that player’s identity has never come to light. Hooker possessed an exceptionally fluid and articulate touch on the fretboard that allowed each note to ring with bell-like clarity and exactitude. An endlessly resourceful player, he might well have achieved stardom had his singing matched his instrumental command and had tuberculosis not ended his life at 41.

Born in the Mississippi Delta, he reached Chicago while still a child and absorbed the style of Robert Nighthawk, another master of the slide. Restlessness soon took hold, however. At 13 he left home for Mississippi, returned briefly to Chicago, then headed south again, where he worked alongside Ike Turner and Sonny Boy Williamson. His earliest sessions appeared in 1952 and 1953 on the Rockin’, King, and Sun labels; at Sun he cut outstanding tracks with pianist Pinetop Perkins, although Sam Phillips left Hooker’s fiery version of “The Hucklebuck” unreleased.

Resettled once more in Chicago, Hooker’s remarkable facility surfaced on scattered singles for Argo, C.J., and Bea & Baby in the mid- to late ’50s. In 1959 he began an extended association with producer Mel London, owner of the Chief and Age imprints. Over the next four years he served as both sideman and featured artist for London, accompanying Junior Wells, Lillian Offitt, Ricky Allen, and A.C. Reed while releasing his own incisive instrumentals such as “Blue Guitar” and “Blues in D-Natural.” He also supplied incisive slide lines to Muddy Waters’ Chess recording “You Shook Me.”

When Age ceased operations, recording chances diminished, yet Hooker still managed to produce striking material for Sauk City, Wisconsin’s Cuca label between 1964 and 1968, several tracks spotlighting steel guitarist Freddie Roulette. His command—evident even when he employed the often-maligned wah-wah pedal—finally attracted wider notice in the late ’60s. Although the albums he made for Arhoolie, ABC-BluesWay, and Blue Thumb fell short of his Age work, they brought his music to listeners beyond Chicago and the many locales his travels reached. Tuberculosis ultimately ended those travels in 1970.