Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1917 to a sharecropper family, John Lee Hooker was one of the last links to the blues of the deep South. He moved to Detroit in the early 1940's and by 1948 had scored his first number-one jukebox hit and million-seller, "Boogie Chillun." Other hits soon followed, "I'm In The Mood," "Crawling Kingsnake," and "Boom Boom" among the biggest. During the 1950s and '60s, Vee Jay Records released a remarkable string of more than 100 of John Lee's songs.

By 1970, John Lee had moved to California and begun working with rock musicians, notably Van Morrison and Canned Heat, with whom he collaborated on several albums and tours. Hooker continued to tour the U.S. and Europe throughout the '70s and '80s, but it was the release in 1989 of his album, The Healer, that catapulted him back to million-seller status and began what has been the most successful period of his extensive career.

He followed The Healer with Mr. Lucky, Boom Boom, Chill Out, Don't Look Back and Best of Friends. In 1991, John Lee was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. On September 11, 1997 he received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and on October 3rd, 1997 John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room opened in San Francisco. Don't Look Back, produced by Van Morrison and featuring a track by long time admirers, Los Lobos, was released in Spring of '97. He received two Grammy Awards for this album in 1998. In late October of '98, John Lee released his last album, Best Of Friends, which featured the best of his collaborations with legendary musicians and friends over the previous10 years and included a 50th anniversary version of his first hit, "Boogie Chillun."