Can I get “Boom Boom”? Happy Delta blues birthday to John Lee Hooker. They say he was born on this day in 1917 (or maybe 1912 or even 1920) in the town of Tutwiler in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. He wrote “Boom Boom” in 1961 and famously performed his signature hit in the 1980 film “The Blues Brothers.” A Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he died in 2001.