Hooker remains utterly unrepentant. As far as he is concerned, he was
being systematically cheated by the Biharis, and all he was doing was cheating
right back. ‘The Bihari brothers, they was crooks. They wouldn’t give me any money. They didn’t have grounds to stand on when they knew what I
was doin’. I work for the money. Just gimme a name! Texas Slim, Johnny Williams
... what name you wanna give me? Gimme the money, just gimme any damn name
you wanna give me. Pull the name out the hat. Modern wasn’t payin’ no money.’ Hooker worked just as hard at record-making as he’d worked in the steel mills and auto factories. In 1949, Hooker released no fewer than thirteen singles. Under his own
name he had three ‘legitimate’ releases on Modern and one on
Sensation. As ‘Texas Slim’ he had four discs out on the King
label. As ‘Birmingham Sam And His Magic Guitar’ he had one out on Savoy
Records. He was ‘The Boogie Man’ on Acorn Records, ‘Delta John’ on Regent, and ‘Johnny Williams’ on the tiny Staff label. King
and Savoy were nationally-distributed labels, but most of the others
were peewees whose releases only ran to a few hundred copies, most of which
wound up in local juke boxes. Most peculiarly of all, he was ‘Little
Pork Chops’ for the Danceland label. Hooker dislikes this particular pseudonym more than any of the
others and, unmistakable aural evidence to the contrary, fiercely denies being,
or ever having been, ‘Little Pork Chops’. ‘“Little Pork Chops”? I never heard of such a thing. You put that in
your book and I’ll sue you!’ Most
of the songs for those impromptu cash-in-hand sessions were
written in the car on the way to the studio. While Barbee drove, Hooker would
hum to himself and pick his guitar in the back seat. When they arrived, he
would lay down the tunes in one or two takes and be back in bed before dawn,
with only the roll of bills on the bedside table to tell him whether he’d
really been out to cut a session, or simply dreamed that he had.
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