BOOM BOOM by JOHN LEE HOOKER. Story by David Oke.

Geelong, 1980s. Cleveland, 2023.

I retired from teaching at the end of 2022 and celebrated by having an overseas holiday in early 2023. One definite destination on the itinerary was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

It was a sensational way to spend four hours. There were many items on display that stopped me in my tracks. I saw the Epiphone guitar that John Lennon was playing on the Apple rooftop and played during the Get Back sessions.

I saw the mellotron keyboard that Paul used to play the introduction to the Beatles song Strawberry Field. I saw the Selmer tenor saxophone that Clarence Clemons  played on Springsteen’s Born To Run.

There were costumes and memorabilia and I also saw guitars played by Bill Haley, Elvis, Phil Everly, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Hendrix, Prince, Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker.

In viewing the John Lee Hooker guitar I was taken straight back to the many years of joy the Blues Brothers movie had brought me.

First viewed on a student union film night, in the early 1980s while at Deakin Uni, I was taken by the dark humour, the whacky storyline, the massive car chase and the fantastic musical soundtrack. The movie went for hours!

Most songs in the Blues Brothers movie were heavily choreographed – Shake A Tailfeather, Think, Minnie The Moocher, Jailhouse Rock – but there was one that stood out as being truly representative of the Blues.

John Lee Hooker playing Boom Boom outside the Maxwell Street Market was gritty, raspy and not as refined as all the other songs on the soundtrack. Boom Boom featured in the movie, was only a slither of the entire piece – probably censored due to its sexual content! There are various listings of lyrics and some are overtly raunchy but the lyrics in the movie went:

The Epiphone Les Paul in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the Blues Brothers movie John Lee Hooker used a 1965 Gibson 335.

Once you walk that walk

And talk that talk

And whisper in my ear

Tell me that you love me

I love that talk

That baby talk

You knock me dead

Right off my feet

A haw haw haw haw

Yeah yeah!

Boom Boom and the Blues Brothers were a big part of my house parties and dress ups in the 1980s. Pete, one of our uni mates, was even more impacted by the movie and virtually changed his name to ‘Elwood’. He was an usher at our wedding in the mid-1980s and was in full uniform of black suit, Ray-Bans and Pork Pie hat.

Some of my elderly aunties were so frightened of him that they went in via another door. We lost touch with Pete over the years but he did a couple of tours of duty in Antarctica. I remember seeing some pictures of ‘Elwood Blues’ out in the snow among the penguins. One Friday night we went with Pete down to the spectacle of the Blues Brothers movie at the Valhalla theatre where the audience participation was as entertaining as the movie. We got in for free as we were fully dressed including the wearing of white socks. Pete sometimes went dressed as a nun.

I’m glad that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recognised the importance of Blues, Gospel, Country, Soul and other genres in the development of the style, allegedly coined ‘Rock and Roll’ by a Cleveland radio disk jockey, Alan Freed in the early 1950s.

John Lee Hooker, inducted into the Hall Of Fame in 1991, heavily influenced many other musicians and created heaps of musical memories for people like myself through the Blues Brothers movie, and he spread the awareness and sense of Blues music through his song Boom Boom.

Stereo Story #733