Monday 4 April 2011

John Lee Hooker

Strange title, you're thinking. Well it's not that strange given that back in the 1960s - probably 1967 - our three girl harmony group, The Cedarfolk (named after the grammar school we all attended), were given the support slot for the great man himself at, I think, High Wycombe college. I remember distinctly feeling that we were the wrong group in the wrong place that night. But Hooker and his band were wonderfully reassuring when we met backstage and I don't remember anyone throwing anything.

We sang a mixture of English and American "folk" songs - the sorts of things that Joan Baez had only recently made famous. I accompanied these on a nylon-strong guitar. Our fame up to that point had spread only as far as the Kenco Coffee Bar in Dunstable so being the supporting group to a US-based blues singer was certainly a step in the right direction.

I'm mentioning this today because the Cedarfolk are once again meeting for a chin-wag. One of our number lives abroad so we don't get together often. I'm not even sure I've got any recordings of us; mum thinks there are some tracks hidden deep in her collection of cassettes.

I'd often recounted the John Lee Hooker story; so often in fact that I began to wonder if it really was true. A few years back however one of our number brought the poster along when we met and now I at least have a photo of that to prove that I'm not as senile as all that.

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