Classic of Blues Recording - Single or Album Track

Boogie Chillen -- John Lee Hooker (Modern, 1948)

Boogie Chillen set the nation rocking and put John Lee Hooker's name on the map with his very first release in 1949. Although recorded up north in Detroit, it was a guitar boogie of the same kind that his father used to play down south, according to Hooker. It was also the first down-home electric blues record to achieve No. 1 chart status and its success, together with that of the Hooker hits that followed, inspired record companies to search out the new electric generation of country bluesmen. The resulting musical legacy was magnificent, but none of Hooker's down-home blues contemporaries ever achieved the same level of record sales as the Boogie Man did.

Boogie Chillen Modern 20-627
John Lee Hooker, vocal and guitar. Detroit, c. September 1948.

Discographical details from The Blues Discography 1943-1970.

-- Jim O'Neal

1985