Comments: 10

• Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn May 20th 1962, "Boom Boom" by John Lee Hooker entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #100; eight weeks later on July 15th, 1962 it would peak at #60 {for 1 week} and it stayed on the chart for 10 weeks...
  It reached #16 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart...
  He had two records peak at #1 on the R&B Singles chart; "Boogie Chillen'" {1948} and "I'm in the Mood" {1951}...
  Mr. Hooker passed away on June 21st, 2001 at the age of 83...
  May he R.I.P.
• Torty from TucsonI thought the Animals stole the tune for this song from Spinal Tap's song Gimme Some Money, but not only do I find out that Hooker wrote this well before Spinal Tap, the Animals actually recorded it a year before Spinal Tap's song. I learn something everyday. TIC
• Rotunda from Tulsa, OkWhen the James Bond movie "Skyfall" came out last year, The Animals' version of "Boom Boom" was in the soundtrack near the movie's end-----when Bond is holed-up in that huge old house awaiting the final confrontation with villains. You can hear the song playing as artillery explodes! I first hear this song as the Animals' version from 1964 when I was in high school. In this area back in '64 I recall it was on our local rock charts Top Ten. Not many of us kids paid much attention to the Billboard charts back then. Then later, I learned it was written & recorded by Hooker. I then became a Hooker fan in '65. What a blues master! It's unfortunate that VeeJay Records in Chicago folded up and cheated so many of its artists (the Four Seasons included!) of royalties and other monies due them. Hooker did a double album with Canned Heat in the Seventies I really loved too. And I am not sure, but think Boom Boom was on it too. I didn't keep that album, unfortunately. Last year (2013), ABKCO Records released a "Best of The Animals" CD with digitally remastered songs, to include Boom Boom. Mercy! This version still can "raise the dead" if ya know what I mean. It is a blues song, but it is an "all out rocker!!" About ten or 12 years ago, Eric Burdon reunited with the Animals for a U.S. tour and I caught them in KC. When Boom Boom was played, they brought down the house!!
• Rocky from Tulsa, OkWhat a song!! I'm a fan of John Lee Hooker from way back. When I was a teen, I used to listen to R&B and Blues radio stations from Louisiana and Arkansas at late night. I recall when BOOM BOOM hit the radio airwaves on blues stations in 1962. While other teens were listening to Twist songs on radio by Chubby Checker, I was groovin' to Hooker's BOOM BOOM and other songs. My fascination with the Blues began that year with Hooker and other blues artists. Then in the British Invasion of rock, I heard the song again, but a slightly altered version by The Animals (with Eric Burdon's lead vocals). Man the dude Burdon could wail piercing high notes! I got the 45 rpm single (MGM Records) cause I jusst had to have his version of the song too. But the Hooker original------you gotta listen to it!
• Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn December 5th, 1964, "Boom Boom" by the Animals entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; eventually it peaked at #43 and stayed on the Top 100 for 7 weeks...
  It reached #14 on the Canadian RPM Singles chart...
  RIP John Lee Hooker (1917 - 2001) and Eric Burton will celebrate his 73rd birthday come next May 11th, 2014.
• Rise from Exeter, CaThe Animals' version in their live show (youtube)is pretty amazing. The mid-60s Animals were in rare form.
• Sean from Chicago, IlOkay, time for me to get picky here. Although in the extended version of The Blues Brothers, John Lee Hooker refers to what he was playing as "Boom Boom" (and argues with his bandmates over writing it!), what he was playing was actually more of an amalgam of "Boom Boom" and another of his songs, "Bang Bang Bang Bang." In fact, the overall sound is much closer to that of "Bang Bang Bang Bang."
• Don from Newmarket, CanadaJohn Lee also recorded this tine with Big Headed Todd & The Monsters. Well worth seeking out!
• Ragnar from Horten, NorwayJohn Lee Hooker re-recorded Boom Boom for his 1998 album 'Best of friends'.
• Ron from Folly Beach, ScJohn Lee was inspired to write Boom Boom by a waitress he knew in a diner. She would make a gun with her hand and go boom boom at john lee telling him she was gonna shoot him right down.

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