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Zakiya Hooker

John Lee Hooker’s Living Legacy

Vera Lee Hooker was born in Detroit on April 1, 1948. Vera Lee Hooker is a daughter of blues legend John Lee Hooker. She was John Lee Hooker only General Partner as well as his creative partner in his last years on Earth. Of his eight children, John Lee chose Zakiya to transfer his immense legacy to as he appointed her to be the executor of his estate and the sole trustee of his trust. He gave Zakiya the keys. In 1987, after taking the name Zakiya (Swahili for "intelligence", and Hebrew for "pure, exonerated"), she met and married Ollan Christopher Bell who also became her musical and songwriting partner. In 1991 Zakiya Hooker made her first public singing appearance in a duet with her father, and by 1993 released her first album, Another Generation Of The Blues, on Silvertone Records in Europe. In 1998 her second album, Flavors Of The Blues, was released worldwide on Pointblank/Virgin Records. In June 2001 Zakiya Hooker and John Lee Hooker were starting to work together on his new album, when he left for Delta Blues Heaven at his home in Los Altos, California. Zakiya Hooker continued the work they had started, and, with music/songwriting partner and producer Ollan Christopher Bell helming the production, they together completed John Lee Hooker’s new album and titled it Face To Face. Nine of the tracks on this album include past and current members of Bluz 4 U, the band that now backs Zakiya Hooker in her live performances. She is now working on her third album and tours with Bluz 4 U. Zakiya Hooker performed at film director Martin Scorsese’s Radio City Music Hall blues concert (2/7/03 in NYC), a concert that was filmed by director Antoine Fuqua and released as a feature film in 2005, and she was a panelist, as well as performer, at San Francisco’s KQED-TV launch program for Scorsese’s fall 2003 PBS-TV series The Blues.

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