"Boogie Chillen": Uncovering Detroit's African-American Cultural History

Abstract

In 1948 John Lee Hooker recorded his first and arguably greatest song, Chillen. The single, pressed on Detroit's Modern label, stands as watershed in blues history. The recording was phenomenal success in the urban blues market, selling approximately one million copies. As point of comparison, Muddy Waters had hit only one year earlier with his song, I Can't Be Satisfied, which sold approximately seventy thousand to eighty thousand copies. Hooker's million seller proved that the appeal of the urban blues could reach farther than anyone previously had imagined. The amazing popularity of the song begs for an explanation. As many blues scholars and music writers have noted, Chillen is perhaps most striking in its simplicity. In his classic work, Deep Blues, Robert Palmer writes that the song was essentially, backcountry, pre blues sort of music?a droning, open-ended stomp without fixed verse form that lent itself to building up cumulative, trancelike effect.1 In his recent biography of Hooker, Boogie Man, Charles Shaar Murray describes the song as a one-man show with zero chord changes, repetitive lyrics and litde melody (p. 18). Yet most analysts of the song also agree that Chillen's stark musical style, which combines Delta blues traditions with distinctive urban edginess, is essential to understanding the song's wide appeal. Musically and lyrically, the recording captures the tension and excitement many African Americans experienced during the Great Migration when their southern cultural traditions confronted and merged with the industrial world of the urban North. For historians, particularly historians of Detroit's African-American cultural life, Chillen is not only legendary blues recording but also rich and evocative primary source. In the song John Lee Hooker sings in the persona of young man whose desire to boogie woogie defies his parents' wishes. The young man, who recendy migrated from