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Earl Hooker (January 15, 1929 – April 21, 1970) was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", Hooker performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and John Lee Hooker as well as fronting his own bands. An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker and Robert Nighthawk. As a band leader, he recorded several singles and albums, in addition to recording with well-known artists. His "Blue Guitar", a popular Chicago area slide-guitar instrumental single, was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters on "You Shook Me". In the late 1960s, Hooker began performing on the college and concert circuit and had several recording contracts. Just as his career was on an upswing, Earl Hooker died in 1970 at age 41 after a lifelong struggle with tuberculosis. His guitar playing has been acknowledged by many of his peers, including B.B. King, who commented: "to me he is the best of modern guitarists. Period. With the slide he was the best. It was nobody else like him, he was just one of a kind". ==Early life== Earl Zebedee Hooker was born in 1929 in rural Quitman County, Mississippi, outside of Clarksdale. In 1930, when he was one year old, his parents moved the family to Chicago as part of the Great Migration of the early 20th century of blacks out of the rural South. His family was musically inclined (John Lee Hooker was a cousin), and Earl heard music played at home at a very early age. About age ten, he started playing guitar. Hooker was self-taught and picked up what he could from those around him. Although Hooker was gaining proficiency on guitar, he did not show an interest in singing. He had a speech impediment, i.e., pronounced stuttering, which afflicted him all his life. Hooker contracted tuberculosis when he was young. Although his condition did not become critical until the mid-1950s, it required periodic hospital visits beginning at an early age. By 1942, when he was 13, Hooker was performing on Chicago street corners with childhood friends including Bo Diddley. From the beginning, the blues were Hooker's favorites. In this period, the more country-influenced blues were giving way to swing-influenced and jump-blues styles, which often featured the electric guitar. T-Bone Walker was popular and in 1942 began a three-month club stint at the Rhumboogie Club in Chicago. He had a considerable impact on Hooker, with both his playing and showmanship. Walker's swing-influenced blues guitar, including "the jazzy way he would sometimes run the blues scales" and intricate chord work, appealed to Hooker. Walker's stage dynamics, which included playing the guitar behind his neck and with his teeth, influenced Hooker's own later stage act. Also around this time, he developed a friendship with Robert Nighthawk, one of the first guitarists in Chicago to switch to electric guitar. Nighthawk taught Hooker slide-guitar techniques, including various tunings and his highly articulated approach; Nighthawk had a lasting influence on Hooker's playing. Junior Wells, another important figure in Hooker's career, entered his life at this time. The two were frequent street performers and sometimes to avoid foul weather (or truancy officers), they played in streetcars, riding one line to another across Chicago. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Earl Hooker」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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