Lightnin HopkinsRare Performances

1960-1979

2PO LIGHTNIN:AN APPRECIATION

by Mark Humphrey

I was born March the 15th,Man, the year was 19 an 12.Yes, you know ever since that dayPo Lightnin aint been doin so well. Lightnin Hopkins, Goin Back and Talk to Mama

The year of Sam Hopkins's birth saw the publicationof the earliest blues on sheet music, including Hart WandsThe Dallas Blues. Legend has it, too, that Blind LemonJefferson embarked on his musical wanderings through thecountry towns south of Dallas and bordered by the Brazosand Trinity Rivers at about the same time. 1912, then, wasa banner year for Texas blues. It may be the time celebratedwhen Lemon sang: Blues come to Texas, lopin like amule.

Lightnin Hopkins lived the blues but had little use formules. Plowing that mule for six bits a day, he wouldrecall ruefully. That wasnt in store for me. What the fu-ture held for Sam Hopkins could have been little guessedby anyone in Centerville, Texas in the Spring of 1912.Nearly seventy years later, Lightnins death was mournedworldwide as the passing of a major figure in Americanmusic. Passing with him was much of a tradition he wrestedfrom men like Jefferson and embellished with his own sharp

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3wit and implacable personality. Lightnins uniqueness madehim a formidable presence in life. Sadly, it also renderedhis a tradition without heirs.

No one came along to extend and elaborate onLightnins idiosyncrasies in the way he had Jeffersons,but thats not to say he wasnt influential. Most of the Texas-born blues singer/guitarists of the post-War eramen likeFreddie King and Albert Collinspoint to him as an semi-nal influence. Watch Freddie King play on other Vestapolvideos and watch Lightnin here: Though the results aremarkedly different, both use what might be called theTexas pinch, a heavy thumb-forefinger interaction thatcharacterizes the picking of most Texas bluesmen. But theyounger men of necessity took Lightnins lessons ontobandstands and into performance situations that demandedstrict meter and a uniformity at which Lightnin balked.Though he would be christened King of Dowling Streetand live much of his life in urban Houston, Lightnin wouldalways play country, if we use that adjective to suggest aragged soulfulness that proudly scorned being fenced inby musical convention. Lightnin played as he felt and forall his vaunted jiving, never played a note he didnt reallymean.

His legacy? Over 600 recorded performances. LesBlank's documentary film, The Blues According to LightninHopkins. A novel he evidently inspired, Jane Phillipss MojoHand. And performances like those on this video. Even ifhe left no musical heirs, Lightnin made sure the world re-membered hed passed through. More than a decade sincehis death, his remains one of the most recognized bluesnames, a still-potent synonym for Texas country blues.

When I play a guitar, Lightnin said in Les BlanksThe Blues According to Lightnin Hopkins, I play it frommy heart and soul...The blues is something that the peoplecant get rid of. And if you ever have the blues, rememberwhat I tell you. Youre gonna hear this in your heart...Hear what? A sharply tremulous riff, a kind of auditoryshudder, followed by a blues sung in a voice Jane Phillipscalled slowly rough and delicately brutal, like stones be-ing rattled in a can of ribbon cane syrup. Lightnin livedthose country blues, a musical art both intimate and exu-berant, evocative of hard lives from which a few menwrested powerful bittersweet poetry. They were men we

4once pictured hunkered over cheap guitars on back porchesor in dim-lit bars, isolated and brooding as they sang toconsole themselves as much as to anyone else. (Such afigure was portrayed on the cover of the influential 1961Columbia album, Robert Johnson: King of the Delta BluesSingers.) From the moment of his rediscovery in 1959,Lightnin became, for many of us, the living archetype ofthis music. As much as anyone we would see during the1960s blues revival, he embodied the part.

Lightnin had breathed the blues idiom since childhood.I had the one thing you need to be a blues singer, heonce said. I was born with the blues. Lightnin was in-spired by early encounters with two giants of early recordedTexas blues, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Alger TexasAlexander, a distant cousin. In mythically perfect fashionLightnin left home early to hobo across Texas, served timeon a chain gang (and earned the scars to prove it), expe-rienced the indentured servitude of sharecropping andspent much of his adult life hustling tips with his songs inHouston bars, street corners, even on buses. Drawing froma deep well of commonplace verses augmented by a quickwit for creating fresh ones, Lightnin entertained the com-munity around Houstons Dowling Street with songs thatreflected their common experience. Po Lightnin, as hecalled himself in song, became the black HoustonianEveryman. His endless stream of autobiographical songs

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5presented Po Lightnins troubles, joys and spur-of-the-moment observations on everything from natural disas-ters (Hurricane Beulah on this video) to astronauts (the1962 Bluesville recording, Happy Blues for John Glenn).Lightnin Hopkins can turn the beam of his perception ona sudden incident, wrote Paul Oliver in Conversation withthe Blues, an immediate phenomenon and highlight it ina spontaneously created blues.

His reputation spread nationally via recordings andradio exposure in the early 1950s. A decade later he wasplaying Carnegie Hall and being hailed as the last greatblues singer. If not that, Lightnin was surely one of thelast to display firsthand the imprint of such rustic mastersas Jefferson and Alexander. His raw poetic gift was tire-less and his facile guitar lines much-copied by white ad-mirers who saw him play endless national (and on rareoccasions, international) tours during the last twenty-someyears of his life. His deeply personal music not only re-flected the experiences of himself and his community buttouched a universal nerve. Chris Strachwitz, who often re-corded Lightnin, has called his records brief audio snap-shots of one of the great folk poets to emerge from theAfrican-American experience in Texas.

That experience was noted for its brutal cycle of gru-eling labor rewarded by grim impoverishment. Music of-fered a rare release from it. Ive been a poor man all mydays, Lightnin relates between songs on this video. Inever was born with a dime, nothin. But I got to hustlinand I learned how to knock up on a little change. His hustlewas blues and the guitar. Lightnins first, Jas Obrecht wrotein a 1982 Guitar Player eulogy, was homemade at ageseven from a cigar box, a plank and chicken wire... Hepicked up the rudiments of guitar from his older brother,Joel and was already playing competently at age eightwhen he first met Lemon Jefferson at a Baptist picnic nearBuffalo, Texas. Lightnin vividly recalled the encountersome 40 years later for Samuel Charters:

He had a crowd of people around him and I was stand-ing there looking at him play and I just went to playing[on] my guitar just what he was playing. So he say, Whosthat playing that guitar? So they say, Oh, thats just alittle boy here knocking on the guitar. He says, No, hesplaying that guitar, says, Where he at? Come here, boy.

6And I went on overthere where he wasand hes feeling forme and I was so lowhe reached down andsays, This here iswhat was picking thatguitar? They say,Yeah. So he said, Dothat again. So I didthe little note again,the same one he

done. He said, Well, thats my note, says, thats the samething. Boy, you keep that up you gonna be a good guitarplayer. So he went on and commenced to playing; so Iwent on to playing with him. I was so little and low thepeoples couldnt see me and we was standing by a truck.They put me up on top of the truck and Blind Lemon wasstanding down by the truck. And me and him, man, wecarried it on... - Lightnin Hopkins quoted in The Bluesmenby Samuel Charters, Oak Publications, New York, 1967.

Following the example of another older brother, JohnHenry, Sam dropped out of school to hobo through Texasand would again cross paths with Jefferson. I usta playwith Blind Lemon down in Deep Ellum, he told me in 1980.There aint no Deep Ellum no more. Deep Ellum wasDallas version of Storyville, a central Texas red light dis-trict where prostitutes and blues singers plied their trades.Both Leadbelly and the white Shelton Brothers memorial-ized it in song:

When you go down in Deep EllumKeep your money in your pantsCause the redheads in Deep EllumNever give a man a chance. - Shelton Brothers, Deep Elem [sic] Blues, 1935

By the time Sam Hopkins was in his twenties, he wasworking a self-made circuit between Dowling Street andWest Dallas with stops along the way at such small townsas Crockett, Brenham, Buffalo and Palestine. If a friendwas going on a trip, Sam might ride in the relative luxuryof a an old T-model truck. Sometimes bus drivers wholiked his music offered a lift. And on occasion he simplyhopped freights. Had to wait my time to get on those freight

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7trains, he told Paul Oliver in Conversation with the Blues.Other boys, theyd run, swing on them things. I couldntdo that. See, I always take my guitar with me; Im scaredIm gonna bust it. So when it was standin still Id slip inthe box car and ride.

I just go from place to place playin music for thedances, Sam told Oliver. Reeling off names of forgottenTexas farms with sizable black work crews, he added, ev-ery one of those farms gave Friday and Saturday nightdances...All you had to do was to rap on your guitar andtheyd pat and holler. Ol sister would shout, You swingmine and Ill swing yours! Sometimes they would havethe blues played, but they most was really dancin yousee. Have fast songs like Oh My Babe and Take Me Back...

Mance Lipscomb first saw Sam in Galveston in 1938,when he was already a force with whom any visiting song-ster had to reckon. In Houston he got a big name, Mancerecalled, because he was a good songster. SometimesSam accompanied a veteran of the trade, Alger TexasAlexander, his celebrated cousin. An immensely popularand prolific recording ar tist in the 1920s and 30s,Alexander played noinstrument but oftencarried a guitar withhim, should he encoun-ter a willing accompa-nist. Alexanders fluidsense of tempo madehim notoriously difficultto second, as LonnieJohnson, who workedwith Alexander on sev-eral Okeh recordings,testified to Oliver: Youhad to be a fast thinkerto play for Texas Alex-ander. When you playout there with him youdone nine days work inone! Playing for Alexander was a demanding apprentice-ship, but one which showed Sam the potential rewards ofa blues recording career: Alexander drove the ...firstCadillac that I ever known to be, Sam would tell Charters.

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8...everybody admired him, you know, because coloredpeople didnt have nothing. They didnt even have Model-T Fords then and you know he come in a Cadillac. (Sameventually did his cousin one better. When I met him in1980, he bragged of owning two Cadillacs!)

Like Alexander, Sam served time on a Houston CountyPrison Farm in the late 1930s, an experience the autobio-graphical singer would later recall in several recorded titles,among them Penitentiary Blues, Prison Farm Blues, I WorkDown on the Chain Gang and Prison Blues Come Down onMe. He told Paul Oliver he served about coupla hundreddays on a road gang after a fight (I was...kinda mean).You go out, catch the mules, hitch the wagon, get right ondown to work, he recalled. Every evenin when you comein they would chain you, theyd lock you with a chainaround your leg...you had a bunk of your own and theydlock you to a post. In the time-honored tradition ofLeadbelly, Lightnin claimed his music bought his freedom:Got away from there by singin the blues, he said.

In 1946, Texas Alexander was himself only recentlyfree from prison when a talent scout, Anne Cullum, heardhim singing on Dowling Street to Sams accompaniment.Cullum had already gotten fellow Houstonian Amos Milburnon Aladdin Records in Los Angeles and made similar ar-rangements for Alexander and Hopkins, but reportedlybalked at Alexanders jailbird reputation and replaced himwith pianist Wilson Thunder Smith. Singer/pianist Milburn

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9claimed he led Cullum to Hopkins, who serenaded himduring a recovery from an auto accident: One night around1 a.m. I heard this lonesome guitar down the street and Isaid, Who is this guy sounds so good! Milburn told inter-viewer Steve Tracey. And it was Lightnin Hopkins. So Igot to the window and yelled him over and from that nighton for five nights a week he would sing the blues for meand that was kind of nice. When I got the [leg] cast off andeverything and I was ready to go, I went over to talk toLightnin. At that time he had a partner playing piano withhim, Thunder Smith. So I went to this lady doctor (AnneCullum) and brought Lightnin over to let her hear him.She was inspired also, so we all packed up and took atrain to California.

It was surely Sams furthest trip to date from his be-loved Texas. In the distant city of Los Angeles, he bothrecorded and became Lightnin for the first time: an Aladdinrecording engineer figured Thunder and Lightnin wouldlook catchy on a record label and it was this newly-namedduo which waxed Katie Mae Blues on November 4, 1946.The Thunder and Lightnin team lasted another session andthen Lightnin, more often than not, was on his own. It suitedhim: Like his cousin, Texas Alexander, his meters werequirky and other accompanists would simply crowd theintimate dialogue between Lightnin and his guitar. Backin Houston, there were other sessions for Aladdin and Im-perial in 1947-48 and then several for Bill Quinns Hous-ton-based Gold Star label between 1948-50.

In 1951, Quinn sold 22 of Lightnins Gold Star mas-ters to Modern Records, then one of the leading labels forblues and gutsy R&B. The move from a small regional in-dependent, Gold Star, to the L.A.-based Modern label gaveLightnins records national distribution. His star in the as-cendant, Lightnin obliged all comers between 1951-54,among them Sittin In With, Decca, Mercury, and Herald.Lightnin shone as the much-recorded center of a smallgroup of introspective Texas country singer/guitaristsamong them Lil Son Jackson, Frankie Lee Sims andSmokey Hogg who enjoyed a brief vogue in the early1950s.

The blues audience was then almost exclusively blackand its enthusiasm for this music was fueled in ways thatseem ironic today. Urban radio stations targeted at black

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listeners were still new in the early 1950s and Memphisstation WDIA, self-proclaimed Mother Station of the Ne-groes, surged with 50,000 watts as one of the nationsmost powerful. Moohah Williams wore several hats atWDIA, one of which was Mr. Blues, host of a downhomeblues show entitled Wheelin on Beale. Mr. Blues held mockannual elections for President of the Blues, commander-in-chief of an august body called the Royal AmalgamatedAssociation of Chitterling Eaters of America, Inc. for thePreservation of Good Country Blues. Louis Cantor de-scribed one memorable election in Wheelin on Beale(Pharos Books, New York, 1992): A spirited contest in 1954pitted the incumbent President Lightnin Hopkins againsthis upstart challenger Muddy Waters (whom Mr. Blues likedto refer to as the unclean stream)...Mr. Blues himself tooka forthright stand for the old order by becoming LightninHopkinss Campaign Manager. The forces of destructionare on the march and are boring from within with an in-sidious deadliness, he said in an interview just before theelection. We must not be caught unaware. Vote now for atrue blues ticket. Vote for Lightnin Hopkins. Historyrecords that, while Muddy walloped him on the R&B chartswith such stingers as Hoochie Coochie Man in 1954,Lightnin nonetheless retained a loyal constituency at WDIAand his President of the Blues moniker.

It may have been small consolation, however, as theblack audience for his music (and offers to record it) re-ceded in the mid-1950s. Yet it was stations like WDIA whichunintentionally opened the door to Lightnins next audi-ence. Radio formats targeted at the African-Americanmarketplace made a wide range of hidden music sud-denly accessible to all Americans. More than ever before,white listeners could vicariously eavesdrop on black cul-ture and music. Those with more than a passing curiositymight even seek out the recordings of artists with suchexotic and sinister sounding names as Muddy Waters andHowlin Wolf. Men like Lightnin were fast fading from com-mercial favor in the black community, but they were build-ing an as yet invisible new audience comprised of youngwhite listeners who tuned in (often over parental objec-tions) to hear songs that spoke frankly from the far side ofthe American Dream. This new audience listened furtivelyto static-ridden colored stations and thrilled to hear a grim

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voice bray over awiry guitar about aM u s s y - H a i r e dWoman (a 1956Lightnin single). Itwas an ent irelyother experiencefrom hearing PerryComo croon Roundand Round.

White fascina-tion with the blueswasnt exactly new.Chris Alber tsonpaints a vivid por-trait in his BessieSmith biography ofroaring TwentiesNew York swel lsentertained at CarlVan Vechtens soi-rees by the singing(and antics) of the blues Empress. John Hammonds leg-endary From Spirituals to Swing concert brought Big BillBroonzy, Sonny Terry and other blues primitives beforeuptown jazz buffs in 1938. Folk and blues enthusiastsshared a rare common passion in blues. The savvy Broonzyexploited this, touring Europe in the early 1950s and tout-ing himself as Americas last living blues singer. But by1958 Broonzy himself was dead and Muddy Waters initialforays before white blues purists, especially in Englandwere rejected as aggressive and overamplified. The aston-ishing parade of pre-War blues rediscoveriesSon House,John Hurt, Skip James, Bukka Whitewas still half a de-cade in the future. A trickle of reissue albums, most sig-nificantly the Riverside label Blind Lemon Jefferson Lps(praised in both down beat and Sing Out!), had whettedboth folk and jazz appetites for authentic country blues,especially the Texas variety. The stage thus set, LightninHopkins was about to make a propitious entry.

Samuel B. Charters influential book, The CountryBlues, was published in 1959 and closed with a vivid chap-ter about Lightnin, the last of the great blues singers.

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Charters had found him in Houston and in January of 1959there recorded the material for the Folkways albumLightnin Hopkins (reissued in 1990 as Smithsonian/Folk-ways CD SF 40019). Included was a moving spoken rec-ollection of Blind Lemon Jefferson and a performance ofJeffersons See That My Grave Is Kept Clean. Charters thusunderlined the lineage of a certified legend in Lightninsmusic. For collectors who revered Jefferson, hearingLightnin remember him and perform his music was a riv-eting experience akin to a later decades blues fans hear-ing Johnny Shines sing Robert Johnsons songs. Here wasa living link to a mythic past. Lightnins obscurity in Hous-ton abruptly ended.

Following a recording dry spell of nearly three yearsduration, the second of eight more 1959 sessions cameonly a month after Lightnins Folkways recordings, his firstto be marketed to a white urban audience. That audiencewas eager to see him perform and got its first glimpse at ahootenanny in Houstons Alley Theatre presented by folk-lorist Mack McCormick. In 1960, Lightnin made the firstof many tours of the West Coast, performing at the Trou-badour in Los Angeles and the University of California FolkFestival in Berkeley. He had ventured to New York Cityonce to record for Sittin In With in 1951 and returned foran eventful month late in 1960, beginning with a CarnegieHall concert on October 14th and culminating with his re-cordings for Nat Hentoffs Candid label on November 15th.

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(Hentoff remembers Lightnin as calculating. He was me-ticulous about mike placement and things. He knew whathe was doing.)

Lightnin certainly made the most of his 1960 visit toNew York City. He performed at the Village Vanguard andappeared on a CBS television program, A Pattern of Wordsand Music. Prior to his Candid session, he had already cutfour LPs (yielding 36 titles) for Bluesville/Prestige, Fire andSphere Sound.

His Carnegie Hall appearance was on a folk bill fea-turing Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, with whom Lightninperformed the spiritual, Oh, Mary Dont You Weep. Incon-gruous as that trio may seem in retrospect, it was a PRcoup for Lightnin to be seen in such company. Seeger wasthe sainted elder statesman of folkdom and Baez its an-gelic new diva. Their alliance with the vaunted heir toLemon Jefferson provided Lightnin entree to legions ofearnest collegiates looking beyond the Kingston Trio forveins of folk music with deeper roots. The blues revival,which coincided with the most idealistic years of the CivilRights struggle, was beginning to kick in. Lightnins pres-ence gave it a considerable boost.

During this period Lightnin made a vivid impressionon Baezs manager, Manny Greenhill. In those days Igambled, Greenhill recalls. Id promise an artist $1,000,have one booking for them and then hustle. Havingbooked Lightnin at Radcliffe University, Greenhill wasshocked to see his untested gamble descend from a Grey-hound bus clutching a cheap and battered Stella guitar ina paper sack. I was terrified, he recalls. Lightnin said,Dont worry. And of course, he was right. Id never seenhim perform. I had no idea he could coax that caliber ofmusic from such an instrument.

Lightnin could make do with whatever instrument wasat hand from plywood acoustic boxes to, in his later days,Fender Stratocasters. In The Country Blues, Charters wroteof his playing: The guitar trailed along, echoing the words,droning in a rhythmic drumming on a lower string, thenringing above the voice between lines and carrying offpainfully intense, lyric passages between the verses. JohnS. Wilsons down beat review of Lightnins Candid record-ings said: The subtle nuances of his phrasing, comple-mented by his light, spidery guitar patterns, are artistry of

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the most compelling sort. (Lightnin won the 1962 downbeat International Jazz Critics Poll as New Star, MaleSinger.) Striking as Lightnins marriage of voice and gui-tar were, his gift for endless lyric invention was his great-est asset. Certainly it was the one which enabled him torecord 50 songs in a months span in 1960 with little rep-etition of material. Chris Strachwitz marveled at this in-credible improvised poetry, which inspired him to startArhoolie, a label on which Lightnin often appeared.

Lightnins music was essentially a series of conversa-tions within conversations: Conversations between voiceand guitar; Lightnin and a woman; Lightnin and himself;Lightnin and the listener. He could be exuberant or slylycomic, but his most moving performances drew from adeep well of pained introspection he shared with other Texasbluesmen of his generation. You hear it, in sharper threads,in T-Bone Walkers music and in much of the after hoursblues that wafted from the West Coast in the 1940s, thequintessential example being Charles Browns 1946 hit,Drifting Blues. (Lightnin countrified Browns song for GoldStar as Walking Blues in 1948). Unlike the Southwestern-ers who settled in Los Angeles, Lightnin remained firmlyrooted in hardscabble Texas soil. His version of this moodymusic was elemental and for its starkness, all the stronger.

After 1959, Lightnins income-producing career wastied to performances before white audiences, though henever stopped playing for his own people in Houston,where, he said, I can be broke and hungry and walk outand someone will buy me a dinner. It aint always like thatin a strange place where you dont know no one. Lightninsnew found celebrity made him a local hero in HoustonsThird Ward. He was often a feature of Houstons annualJunetenth celebration (June 19th is celebrated by blackTexans as the day of emancipation). Local rivals acknowl-edged his primacy with a nudge: Juke Boy Bonner recordeda Look Out Lightnin' in 1967, in which he sang: They tellme you sposed to be the last of the blues singers, Lightnin,but you got to give some room to me.

Though he preferred staying home, Lightnin took hismusic to far-flung venues. His English and European ap-pearances on the 1964 American Folk Blues Festival Tourwere a sensation; he toured Europe as late as 1977, ap-pearing at the Rotterdam Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.

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At every opportu-nity, he recorded.Produced by sensi-tive admirers likeCharters or Strach-witz, Lightnins re-discovery era re-cordings yieldedstunning per for-mances whichequalled any wax-ed in the 1940s-1950s. But given

an indifferent producer and a frank goal of quick cash,Lightnins torrent of 1960s-1970s albums did little to en-hance his reputation.

The flood of Lightnin vinyl which glutted Lp cut outbins a dozen years ago is long since vanished and the CDexcerpts of his massive oeuvre tend to focus on the best ofhis early and rediscovery recordings. It is easier to makesense of Lightnins music from the judicious pruning of itcurrently at hand than it was from the embarrassment ofriches overwhelmingly available in the past. (I recall hisGold Star/Modern recordings showing up on 8-track tapesin dime store bargain bins in the 1970s!)

Lightnin Hopkins died of pneumonia on January 30,1982 in a Houston hospital. (The previous July he hadundergone surgery for cancer of the esophagus.) Mymemory of him is of a blustery man with a storm in hisspirit whose Los Angeles chauffeur I was one weekend in1980. It was my duty to get Lightnin from his hotel to hisgig and back. He traveled with an athletic tote bag (it neverleft his side) in which he carried a pint of whiskey andcans of Pearl, a Texas brew not found outside the South-west. You cant get that here, he sniffed in summary dis-missal of L.A.s provincialism. Lightnin wasnt easily cor-nered in conversation, but leapt freely into stream of con-sciousness monologues: I been everwhere a po man cango. I played in Tokyo. Shit, Tokyo! We bombed that son-ofa bitch in the War. But Im not goin back overseas, man.The people are alright, met some nice people, but its theweather. I was over there one time, it was so cold it frozemy nuts. An I aint had nothin to do with no woman ever

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since. You think Im lyin, but thats the truth!Lightnin had little use for other guitarists: Cant no-

body talk bout me bein jealous of no guitar player, heboasted, cause I learned all them sons of bitches how toplay! Even B.B. King? Listen at him! He aint got but onetune. He come down to Galveston one time and got all hisstuff from me. One longtime associate said in admira-tion, Some folks mellow when they get older, but notLightnin! Hell be scratchin n bitin till the day he dies.

The sole conversation in which I engaged him beganwith me telling him I last heard him play in Oklahoma City.Man, thats a tough town, he said. Them cowboys isrough. Wonder what makes them so rough? Then we talkedabout rodeo clowns and bull riders, sharing a mutual re-spect for the badness of cowboys. And once we were talk-ing, I asked if he would play a song during his performancethat night:

Dont the moon look pretty,Shinin through the trees?Dont the moon look pretty, darlin,Shinin down through the trees?I can see my baby, but she cant see me.

You want to hear that? Lightnin said. Yeah, all right.You know I remember that. You ask me nice. Now if some-one ask me nice to play somethin, I do it.

Lightnin honored my request that night and I recallwith gratitude that and the many other occasions when hismusic moved me. His bitterness, transformed into music,gave off an awesome beauty. Lightnin made blues as deepand raw as anyone who ever worked the idiom. Despitedeep chasms of time and culture, his audio snapshotsstill sear listeners with piquant pains and pleasures: painsof penitentiaries and sharecropping and loves lost, plea-sures of country frolics and Texas moons shining on sleep-ing lovers. Listen. Such poetry as his will not be sung again.

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LIGHTNIN AS OTHERS SAW HIM

He moves from one furnished room to another in Houston,and its hard to find out where hes living...A pawnshop ownersaid he knew a Sam Hopkins, had his electric guitar in and out...A thin, nervous man leaned out the [car] window.

You lookin for me?You Lightnin?Thats right....He sang until he became so tense emotionally that it was

impossible to talk to him. He drank steadily, but he seemed toplay more brilliantly and sing with even greater intensity...Lightnin, in his way, is a magnificent figure. He is one of the lastof his kind, a lonely, bitter man who brings to the blues the inten-sity and pain of the hours in the hot sun, scraping at the earth,singing to make the hours pass. The blues will go on, but thecountry blues, and the great singers who created from the rawsinging of the work songs and the field cries the richness andvariety of the country blues, will pass with men like this thin, in-tense singer from Centerville, Texas. Samuel B. Charters, TheCountry Blues, Rinehart & Co., New York, 1959.

Around Houston they enjoy him in an entirely natural way,flocking to beer taverns to drink and dance and occasionally lis-ten, and when he rises to the best of what is in him, to cross hispalm with silver...Paradoxically, he is at his best where the audi-ence is most inclined to ignore him; at a crowded dance hall or anoisy street corner where he has to compete with distractions, ormust fight to engage the attention of the crowd, and cannot domi-nate the situation until he has drawn upon the deepest reserves ofhis creative power. Mack McCormick, liner notes to Lightnin'And Co. Bluesville 1061 (1962)

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Lightnin Hopkins was perhaps the most inventive and emo-tional blues singer I ever met...Throughout the years I have heardmany other great blues singers, but Lightnin Hopkins has re-mained my favorite. I never tire of his records, especially his earlyones, made before I ever met him, and each performance is anemotional and memorable human experience. Chris Strachwitz,liner notes to Po Lightnin, Arhoolie 1087 (1983)

I remember Lightnin did a couple of tunes about womenwearing rats on their heads: rats was a popular name for a wayyoung women back in the 50s used to wear a little ball of hair ontheir head. In other words, at that time he was kind of current withwhat was going on. He was doing things that I wished I couldhave done...When I was a disc jockey [on WDIA] and even beforethatthe tunes that he was making made me want to really try tobecome a blues player. B.B. King, Guitar Player, June 1982

His music was...the music of the evening resurrection of anentire people. Jane Phillips, Mojo Hand, Trident Press, 1966

Lightnin Hopkins picked up an African hunters two-stringfiddle that I had collected in Nigeria and played a blues on it... Paul Oliver, Blues Off the Record, Da Capo Press, New York 1984.

Lightnin Hopkins was always one of my idols. I loved himand he had a lot of influence on me. Ive got a bigger stack ofLightnin Hopkins records than anybody elses...I remember a longtime ago I was playing a local bar in Houston and one of the fratscame up and said [to Lightnin], Do you mind playing somethingby John Lee Hooker? And he said, I am Lightnin Hopkins. Idont play nothin else... Lightnin enjoyed playing for his people

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in Houston...He could have done a lot of things, but he felt a lotmore comfortable drinking and shooting craps with his friendsback in Houston. Hed go out to California or Europe, make agood bit of money and as soon as the gigs over, he was back inHouston. When the money ran out, hed go on the road again. Johnny Winter, Guitar Player, June 1982

Lightnins lined face, usually hidden behind dark glasses andshaded by a cowboy hat and his chain gang ankle scars testify tothe hardness of his life. His blues are intense but relaxed andeffortlessly so, almost spontaneous conversational revelations ofhis own feelings and reaction to the world he has known. He stillplays for country parties as he always has, sitting back with anair of casual detachment, acutely aware of his own mastery andartistry. His musicianship still owes something to the childhoodencouragement of his idol Blind Lemon in the irregular guitar pat-terns, the suspending of the rhythm to sing and answer the wordswith extended runs and in an uncluttered directness ofexpression...he remains firmly part of the Houston ghetto, reveredby those who know him, with his gold-capped teeth, straightenedhair and the unforced aura of being his own man. Giles Oakley,The Devils Music: A History of the Blues, Harcour t BraceJovanovich, New York & London, 1976.

I did get to play with Lightnin Hopkins at the Granada The-ater. That was in 1976, 77. That was fun. He was a grumpy oldcoot. I guess he had heard it all...Lightnin Hopkins, though, couldreally play. He was great. Anson Funderburgh, quoted in AlanGovenars Meeting the Blues, Taylor Publishing Co., NY, 1988.

He frequently plays concerts and universities, too and some-times dismays his audiences by being as irascible, cantankerousand downright mean on stage as he is known to be off. BruceCook, Listen to the Blues, Charles Scribners Sons, NY, 1973.

Houston was Lightnins town...He was leader of HoustonsFourth Ward, one of the oldest black sections in Houston and man-aged the Fourth Ward Apartments, where he lived for free. Hewas regarded throughout the community as just a pillar for beingthere so long and being so well respected. He had become fa-mous and the blacks could relate to his fame because it wasabout their own heritage, the blues.

Lightnin always had a new Cadillac. Where he got themoney, nobody knows. He was a real flashy kind of guyalwaysdressed in the finest of fine. He had a constant cigar in his mouthwith a little cigar holder. Never without it. In fact, I heard a fewpeople remark as they passed by his coffin, Yeah, they done apretty good job on ol Lightnin, but wheres his cigar? BillyGibbons of ZZ Top, Guitar Player, 1982

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WATCH THE STRINGS,NOW, NOT MY FINGERS

THE PERFORMANCES

In 1960, German filmmaker Dietrich Wawzyn combedAmerica shooting footage for a series of West German tele-vision documentaries on American roots music: blues,gospel, country, New Orleans jazz and Hawaiian music.Chris Strachwitz went along as sound man and naturallypointed Wawzyn to Lightnin. This video opens with prob-ably his earliest filmed appearance performing an arche-typal Texas blues, Lonesome Road and an atypically mi-nor-keyed boogie, Lightnins Blues, the latter suggestinghis effectiveness as one-man band.

Seven years later, Lightnin found himself on displayat the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Depart-ment. There he performed a distinctly Lightnin-ized Baby,Please Dont Go, for which he casually claimed authorship.Big Joe Williams, who first recorded the song in 1935 wouldbeg to differ, but Lightnin had likely been performing it solong that it became, in his mind anyway, his song (he firstrecorded it for Gold Star in 1948). He could honestly claimMojo Hand, which may have been his last hurrah on blackjukeboxes when Bobby Robinson released it as a single onhis Fire label (he waxed it during Lightnins eventful 1960New York City junket).

Lightnins vagueness about the songs meaning (Lotsapeople wants to know what that isI aint gonna tell em)may have been more than mere coyness. Perhaps it meantany number of things, or nothing in particular. In 1930sTalking to My Self, Blind Willie McTell went ferreting afterhis mamas mojo (an apparent double-entendre), whileMuddy Waters sought a magic amulet in the mojo hand ofhis 1950 hit, Louisiana Blues. Read Jane Phillips MojoHand for one description of this spellbinding device andthe Mojo Hand chapter in Robert Palmers Deep Bluesfor quite another. (Different still is Mack McCormicks defi-nition of the mojo hand as a charm soiled with menstrualblood, guaranteed to insure fidelity.) With its quasi-Afri-can name, the mojo hand may be a kind of blues Ror-schach test which neednt have too precise a definition.

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Take Me Back is theoldest piece performedhere, a song Lightninused to entertain farmworkers at long-agocountry dances andwhich reflects pre-bluesTexas traditions. It waswidely popular withLone Star songsters;Blind Lemon Jeffersonrecorded it as BegginBack in 1926 and youcan hear ManceLipscombs version onMance Lipscomb inConcer t (Vestapol13011).

During the same 1967 visit to Seattle, some ofLightnins music was captured by the Seattle Folklore So-ciety. Hurricane Beulah is the sort of topical song for whichLightnin was noted, though it cant honestly be said that itwas made from scratch. Ostensibly a song about one ofthe hurricanes which periodically brutalize the Texas gulfcoast, he refers to a mean ol twister (tornado) whichwas actually the title of one of his songs from his debutThunder and Lightnin session in 1946! He had sung aboutHurricanes Carla and Esther for Arhoolie in 1961 and aboutHurricane Betsy for Verve-Folkways in 1965. Suchcatastrophies were inevitable parts of life on the Texas coastand Lightnin could readily recycle lyrics describing anearlier seasons calamity under the name of the latest hur-ricane. His ability to cobble bits of earlier songs into onesseemingly fresh was a skill at which the prolific Lightninexcelled.

The impetus to perform Slim Harpos 1965 hit, BabyScratch My Back, was simply that it was immensely popu-lar, one of the last blues performances to enjoy pop cross-over success and probably much requested in Houstonbars. Lightnin gives it his sly best.

Three years after his 1967 Washington appearances,Lightnin gave a memorable performance on Los Angelesstation KCET-TVs Boboquivari. Couldnt be Satisfied is a

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q u i n t e s s e n t i a lLightnin moodpiece, while Ques-tionnaire Blues is afascinating bid forrelevance beforea young audienceas the Vietnam Warraged. Lightninknew the draft wasunpopular, whilehis audience likelydidnt know he wasremembering lyr-ics borrowed fromblues older thanmost of them, lyr-ics which f i rstvoiced the am-bivalence of blackinductees duringWorld War II. Thatexperience stimulated sundry blues about the draft (LonnieJohnson cut two fine ones in 1942, Baby Remember Meand 20 to 44,a title reflecting the age limits of eligible draft-ees). Lightnin surely remembered them: Legend has it hewas saved from the clutches of Uncle Sam by a stabbingwhich hospitalized him on the eve of being drafted!

Aint It Crazy was Lightnins version of a 1959 Excellolabel hit, Its Mighty Crazy, waxed by Louisiana bluesmanLightnin Slim (Otis Hicks). Shining Moon was a staple ofLightnins repertoire first recorded for Gold Star in 1948.One of his few songs in which the legacy of Blind Lemonsguitar style remained clearly audible, its also one ofLightnins most luminously poetic works. Jane Phillips hasher Lightnin surrogate, dubbed Blacksnake Brown, per-form it in her novel, Mojo Hand: Blacksnake raised hishand and called out solemnly to the moon...he and theguitar were one, moving and pleading. Dont the moonlook pretty, shining down through the trees...'

Black and Evil is a vestige of Lightnins associationwith Texas Alexander. Its provocatively blasphemous lyr-ics rework ones Alexander sang in his 1934 recording,

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Justice Blues and later in his final 1950 sessions BottomsBlues.Lightnins Boogie is a guitar showcase, always ahighlight of his performances, while Whatd I Say isLightnins version of Ray Charless huge 1959 hit. (Lightninvoiced his admiration of Charles in a 1962 Prestige labelalbum cut, Me and Ray Charles.) The 1970 performancesclose with How Long Has It Been, the nearest thing offeredin these performances to a holy blues. Lightnin had pre-viously performed it in the Les Blank film, The Blues Ac-cording to Lightnin Hopkins.

A well-heeled Lightnin appeared on Austin City Lim-its in 1979, accompanied by Ron Wilson on bass and BillGossett on drums. Along with reprises of Mojo Hand andBlack and Evil, Lightnin offered the blues perennial RockMe Baby (first recorded in 1950 by Lil Son Jackson asRockin and Rollin') and some original observations onwomen and cars, Aint No Cadillac. The 67 year oldLightnin aimed to prove he was an old dude with young-fashioned ways; note the rakish fedora and his crankingwah-wah pedal! Note, too, how he seemingly tries to throwhis bass player with his idiosyncratic timing during his soloon Mojo Hand. (Black and Evil indeed!) The ever-re-sourceful Lightnin revamps Aint It Crazy as an outro tosay goodbye to his audience on what was his last videoappearance.

From the Houston streets of 1960 to an Austinsoundstage nearly 20 years later, this video collects a rangeof Lightnins work, a visual complement to the recordingsChris Strachwitz calls brief audio snapshots of one of thegreat folk poets to emerge from the African-American ex-perience in Texas. We can add to them these vital videosnapshots as well.

Mark Humphrey

For help with background material,thanks to Mary Katherine Aldin.

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I WAS JUST TOO TOUGHIn the Les Blank film, The Suns Gonna Shine, Lightnin is seen

surveying a country towns main street next to a sign:Centervillepopulation 836.

Centerville, Texas is my home. Aint too much to tellyou about it. Its just a little ol one horse town. Born andraised there. Didnt stay there long. Left there when I waseight years old. I went back when I was 12; leave again.Just travelin. I didnt get no schoolin, man. I got my edu-cation by sittin around talkin and lookin at what this onedo and what that one do. You go to that field, there wasyour school with that hoe and plow that mule. Chop thatcotton. Well, I said I wasnt going to do it. I didnt. I wasjust too tough. Why, I just knowd there was something instore for me, man. It wasnt nothin on the end of that hoehandle for me. Chopping cotton, plowing that mule for sixbits a day. That wasnt in store for me.

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LIGHTNIN HOPKINSRARE PERFORMANCES - 1960-1979

1. LONESOME ROAD1960 (filmed by Dietrich Wawzyn in Houston, Texas)

2. LIGHTNINS BLUES1960 (filmed by Dietrich Wawzyn in Houston, Texas)

3. BABY PLEASE DONT GO1967 (University Of Washington)

4. MOJO HAND1967 (University Of Washington)

5. TAKE ME BACK1967 (University Of Washington)

6. HURRICANE BEULAH1967 (Seattle Folklore Society)

7. BABY, SCRATCH MY BACK1967 (Seattle Folklore Society)

8. COULDNT BE SATISFIED1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

9. QUESTIONNAIRE BLUES1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

10. AINT IT CRAZY1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

11. SHINING MOON1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

12. BLACK AND EVIL1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

13. LIGHTNINS BOOGIE1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

14. WHAT'D I SAY1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

15. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN1970 (Boboquivari - KCET-TV Los Angeles, California)

16. MOJO HAND1979 (Austin City Limits - KLRU-TV Austin, Texas)

17. AINT NO CADILLAC1979 (Austin City Limits - KLRU-TV Austin, Texas)

18. BLACK AND EVIL1979 (Austin City Limits - KLRU-TV Austin, Texas)

19. ROCK ME BABY1979 (Austin City Limits - KLRU-TV Austin, Texas)

20. Good Night Blues1979 (Austin City Limits - KLRU-TV Austin, Texas)

BONUS TRACKS:21. Baby, Come Go Home With Me

1960 (TV Special - New York City)22. Going Down Slow

1960 (TV Special - New York City)23. Bunion Stew

1960 (TV Special - New York City)24. Let's Pull A Party

1960 (TV Special - New York

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From Blind Lemon Jeffersonto Freddie King, Texas gavethe world generations ofextraordinary blues singer-guitarists, of whom nonemade a deeper impressionthan Sam Lightnin Hopkins(1912-1982). He was theembodiment of Texas countryblues and inspired novelists,filmmakers, and of course,count less blues s inger-guitarists. The stunning im-pact of his charismatic per-formances comes fully to lifein this DVD tracing Lightninscareer subsequent to his re-discovery in 1959.

Samuel Charters found him on hard times in Houston and brought PoLightnin to the attention of white folk audiences. In 1960 German filmmakerDiet-rich Wawzyn captured Lightnin on his Houston home turf, and the clipshere of him performing on the street and in a Houston bar are rare glimpsesinto his milieu (and the earliest known footage of Hopkins). Seven years latera relaxed Lightnin delivered engaging folk-blues performances for Seattlefolklorists, five of which appear here. In 1970 he painted a masterful andentertaining musical self-portrait in eight songs from the Los Angeles PBS showBoboquivari. Finally, Lightnins lion in winter appearance on Austin CityLimits in 1979 shows a still-powerful country bluesman disproving the olddog/new tricks adage with a Stratocaster and wah-wah pedal! Four rareperformances from a 1960 TV show are included as bonus tracks. Thiscollection offers a fresh reflection of one of the most deeply creative andentertaining characters who ever sang and played the blues.

1. Lonesome Road2. Lightnin's Blues3. Baby Please Don't Go4. Mojo Hand5. Take Me Back6. Hurricane Beulah7. Baby, Scratch My Back8. Couldn't Be Satisfied9. Questionaire Blues10. Ain't It Crazy11. Don't The Moon Look Pretty12. Black And Evil13. Lightnin's Boogie

14. What'd I Say15. How Long Has It Been16. Mojo Hand17. Ain't No Cadillac18. Black And Evil19. Rock Me Baby20. Good Night Blues

BONUS TRACKS:21. Baby, Come Go Home With Me22. Going Down Slow23. Bunion Stew24. Let's Pull A Party

Running Time: 70 minutes B/W and ColorCover Photographs: Michael P. Smith

Nationally distributed by Rounder Records,One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140

Representation to Music Storesby Mel Bay Publications 2001 Vestapol Productions

A division ofStefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop Inc.

Vestapol 13022

0 1 1 67 1 30229 4

ISBN: 1-57940-914-8

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