It was a Friday in February, 1967. I had just got home from school, and my friend, Jerome knocked at the door. He said, “My mom told me to invite you over to our house, right now, and bring your guitar.” I grabbed my cream-colored Supro guitar, and Jerome and I walked to his house on Clayton Street. When we walked in to the house, I could hear someone playing a guitar. Jerome’s mother led me in to the living room and said, “I want you to meet a friend of ours. Joel, this is John Lee.” As I shook his hand, I could see that this man was the personification of style and class. And he was playing the most beautiful Gibson I’d ever seen. I sat in a chair facing this guy, and we jammed on some blues progressions. They weren’t 12-bar blues. I didn’t know what they were, but they rolled and chugged in an amazing way. The guy tapped and shuffled his feet like a percussion section, and man, those shoes must have cost a thousand bucks. He’d play a riff and then say, “Give it back to me, son.” I could hit the notes, but the way I hit them was so “young,” and so “white.” This went on for about an hour. When I got up to leave, I said, “Thank you. It was very nice to meet you Mr. Lee.” He smiled and nodded. Jerome’s mother said, “It’s not Mr. Lee. It’s Mr. Hooker. John Lee’s last name is Hooker.” Oh my God, I thought. I just jammed with John Lee Hooker!

- Joel Timothy