John Lee Hooker to get a concert celebration as Detroit Music Weekend embraces the blues
John Lee Hooker to get a concert celebration as Detroit Music Weekend embraces the blues
Detroit Free Press
Detroit’s dean of the blues is set to be honored with a special summer tribute, including a posthumous key to the city.
The late bluesman John Lee Hooker will be celebrated by local and visiting performers at the latest edition of Detroit Music Weekend, scheduled July 2 outside Music Hall.
The free festival will feature a daylong lineup of artists performing in celebration of the influential singer-guitarist, including Michigan mainstay Bettye LaVette, Detroit blues queen Thornetta Davis and Serbian-born star Ana Popovic. Detroit’s Jimmy D. Scott will close the evening with an all-star jam that includes Kern Brantley, Howard Glazer and Harmonica Shah. Tosha Owens and Eliza Neals also fill the bill.
For fest organizer Vince Paul, president of Music Hall, the real coup is the booking of Zakiya Hooker, the 74-year-old daughter of the late musician and a veteran blues artist in her own right. She’ll perform with a band that includes her husband, Ollan Christopher Bell (of the ‘70s soul group the Natural Four) and Canadian guitarist Anthony Reed.
The Detroit native, who left the city for California in the mid-‘70s and now lives in Georgia, said she’s thrilled to come home for a tribute to her father in the city where he made his name.
“When I got the word from Vince, the first thing I said is that it’s way overdue,” Hooker said. “Detroit is where (John Lee Hooker) became famous. It’s where ‘Boogie Chillen’ put him on the map. I was really touched that they’ve taken the time to pull this together.”
Zakiya Hooker will accept a key to the city in honor of her father, who died in June 2001, presented by the office of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. She said much of the Hooker family is expected to attend, including some of the late star’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Detroit Music Weekend’s John Lee Hooker tribute will be staged at Music Hall’s new amphitheater space, built last year on the venue’s former parking lot at Madison Street and Grand River Avenue. Initially devised as a workaround amid pandemic limitations on indoor gatherings, the outdoor performance area is likely to endure as a permanent fixture outside Music Hall.