Archie Lee Hooker, the blues in perpetuity!
Archie Lee Hooker happy to be at RFI.
© Joe Farmer / RFI
By: Joe Farmer Follow
4 min
Being the nephew of famous and late bluesman John Lee Hooker comes with a healthy dose of self-sacrifice.
However, Archie Lee Hooker does not consider this illustrious and inescapable relationship too cumbersome.
He made his own this ultimately natural relationship between two musicians driven by the same passion, and whose respective paths meet and add up.
Born in the heart of Mississippi, 71 years ago, Archie Lee Hooker has resisted social constraints, racist intimidation, the miserable daily life that the African-American community endured in silence.
Like his uncle, he struggled to move forward.
It is time for him to tell his story.
Living in a memory
, his latest album, is a vibrant and authentic testimony.
Publicity
Archie Lee Hooker grew up in the rural south at a time when segregation was sadly the norm. However, his memories of youth remained carefree for a long time. He did not perceive racism when he waited for the school bus with his little friends. As long as their parents did not instill in their virgin minds the notions of "distrust" and "difference", the children had fun together regardless of the color of their skin. It was when he arrived in Memphis that his destiny accelerated. The great city of Tennessee, the crossroads of all cultures, fascinates the young man he has become. He immediately notices the bustle of "Beale Street", the central, very musical artery of this cosmopolitan city. He perceives there the Gospel, the Blues and the nascent Soul-Music.It was the start of an artistic adventure that would take him to Paris, decades later.
Archie Lee Hooker and The Coast to Coast Blues Band. © Lugdivine Unfer
Now living in France, Archie Lee Hooker readily admits having evolved profoundly while crossing the Atlantic. It was his uncle, the legendary John Lee Hooker, who convinced him to try his luck in Europe. The reception of bluesmen on the old continent is much more fervent than in the United States. After a few concerts in the 90s in Luxembourg, Switzerland and Belgium, Archie Lee Hooker took the plunge and decided in 2011 to leave his native land. He creates the "Coast to Coast Blues Band", a group made up of international musicians who shape his generous and altruistic musicality. Archie Lee Hooker is sincerely attached to it because he felt, in France, this open-mindedness which instantly identifies a way of life and a culture.Tolerance and listening to his new admirers fascinates him and encourages him to remain attentive and positive.
His broad smile may not hide the wounds of the past, the mistakes made in the past, but he shows a fierce determination not to be overwhelmed by fate.
Admittedly, his last album
Living in a memory
is a bit nostalgic, but he looks directly at the stages of an abused epic.
Facing your own history is living in the present.
Archie Lee Hooker knows what his faults were, his failures, his shortcomings but confronting them gives him the strength to resist and to progress.
Our dashing septuagenarian still has a lot to say and we should listen!
→
Archie Lee Hooker's website
→ The
Dixie Frog website
Archie Lee Hooker, the gentleman.
© Lugdivine Unfer
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