Lightning Hopkins

Samuel John "Lightnin'" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist from Centerville, Texas. In 2010, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him No. 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

The musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick opined that Hopkins is "the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act". He influenced Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Jr., and a generation of blues musicians such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, whose Grammy-nominated song " Rude Mood" was directly inspired by the Texan's song "Hopkins' Sky Hop". In his own lifetime, Hopkins was one of the initial inductees in 1980 to the Blues Hall of Fame.

Life

Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas. As a child, he was immersed in the sounds of the blues. He developed a deep appreciation for the music at the age of eight, when he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas. He went on to learn from his distant older cousin, the country blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander; Hopkins had another cousin, the Texas electric blues guitarist Frankie Lee Sims, with whom he later recorded. Hopkins began accompanying Jefferson on guitar at informal church gatherings. Jefferson reputedly never let anyone play with him except Hopkins, and Hopkins learned much from Jefferson at these gatherings.

In the mid-1930s, Hopkins was sent to Houston County Prison Farm, but why he was imprisoned is unknown. In the late 1930s, he moved to Houston with Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to break into the music scene there. By the early 1940s, he was back in Centerville, working as a farm hand.

Hopkins took a second shot at Houston in 1946. While singing on Dowling Street in Houston's Third Ward, which would become his home base, he was discovered by Lola Anne Cullum of Aladdin Records, based in Los Angeles. She convinced Hopkins to travel to Los Angeles, where he accompanied the pianist Wilson Smith. The duo recorded twelve tracks in their first sessions in 1946. An Aladdin executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and dubbed Hopkins "Lightnin'" and Wilson "Thunder".

Hopkins recorded more sides for Aladdin in 1947. He returned to Houston and began recording for Gold Star Records. In the late 1940s and 1950s he rarely performed outside Texas, only occasionally traveling to the Midwest and the East for recording sessions and concert appearances. He performed regularly at nightclubs in and around Houston, particularly on Dowling Street, where he had been discovered by Aladdin. He recorded the hit records "T-Model Blues" and "Tim Moore's Farm" at SugarHill Recording Studios in Houston. By the mid- to late 1950s, his prodigious output of high-quality recordings had gained him a following among African Americans and blues aficionados.

In 1959, the blues researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick contacted Hopkins, hoping to bring him to the attention of a broader musical audience engaged in the folk revival. McCormack presented Hopkins to integrated audiences first in Houston and then in California. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall on October 14, 1960, alongside Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, performing the spiritual "Mary Don't You Weep". In 1960, he signed with Tradition Records. The recordings which followed included his song "Mojo Hand" in 1962.

In 1968, Hopkins recorded the album '' Free Form Patterns'', backed by the rhythm section of the psychedelic rock band 13th Floor Elevators. Through the 1960s and into the 1970s, he released one or sometimes two albums a year and toured, playing at major folk music festivals and at folk clubs and on college campuses in the U.S. and internationally. He toured extensively in the United States and played a six-city tour of Japan in 1978.

Hopkins was Houston's poet-in-residence for 35 years. He recorded more albums than any other blues musician. Hopkins was one of the initial inductees to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.

Hopkins died of esophageal cancer in Houston on January 30, 1982, at the age of 69. His obituary in the ''New York Times'' described him as "one of the great country blues singers and perhaps the greatest single influence on rock guitar players". Hopkins is buried at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston, Texas.

A statue of Hopkins, unveiled in 2003, sits in Crockett, Texas. His Gibson J-160e "hollowbox" is on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and his Guild Starfire at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., both on loan from the Joe Kessler Collection.

Musical style

Hopkins's style was born from spending many hours playing informally without a backing band. His distinctive fingerstyle technique often included playing, in effect, bass, rhythm, lead, and percussion at the same time. He played both "alternating" and "monotonic" bass styles incorporating imaginative, often chromatic turnarounds and single-note lead lines. Tapping or slapping the body of his guitar added rhythmic accompaniment.

Much of Hopkins's music follows the standard 12-bar blues template, but his phrasing was free and loose. Many of his songs were in the talking blues style, but he was a powerful and confident singer. Lyrically, his songs expressed the problems of life in the segregated South, bad luck in love and other subjects common in the blues idiom. He dealt with these subjects with humor and good nature. He often referred to himself as "Po' Lightnin'" in his songs when talking about himself or referring to himself as the protagonist of the song. This is also the name of one of his albums. Many of his songs are filled with double entendres, and he was known for his humorous introductions to songs.

Some of his songs were of warning and sour prediction, such as "Fast Life Woman":

Discography

Early compilations of previously issued material

*'' Early Recordings'' (Arhoolie, 1946-50 969 - collection of Gold Star recordings
*'' Early Recordings Vol. 2'' (Arhoolie, 1946-50 971 - collection of Gold Star releases
*'' Lightnin' Hopkins Strums the Blues'' (Score, 1946-48 958 - collection of Aladdin releases
*'' Lightning Hopkins Sings the Blues'' (Crown, 1947-1951 961 - collection of RPM releases
*'' Last of the Great Blues Singers'' (Time, 1950-51 960 - collection of Sittin' in With releases
*'' Lightnin' and the Blues'' (Herald, 1954 960 - collection of Herald releases

Original LP releases

*''The Rooster Crowed in England'' (77, 1959 960
*''Lightnin' Hopkins'' ( Folkways, 1959) - reissued as ''The Roots of Lightnin' Hopkins''
*''Country Blues'' (Tradition, 1959)
*'' Autobiography in Blues'' (Tradition, 1960)
*'' Down South Summit Meetin''' (World Pacific, 1960) with Brownie McGhee, Big Joe Williams and Sonny Terry - reissued as ''Summit Meetin' ''
*'' Last Night Blues'' ( Bluesville, 1960) with Sonny Terry
*'' Lightnin''' (Bluesville, 1960)
*'' Lightnin' in New York'' ( Candid, 1960)
*''Mojo Hand'' (Fire, 1960 962
*'' Blues in My Bottle'' (Bluesville, 1961)
*'' Blues Hoot'' (Horizon, 1961 963 with Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry - reissued as ''Coffee House Blues''
*'' On Stage'' (Imperial Records,962 reissued Dolchess 2013
*'' Lightnin' Sam Hopkins'' (Arhoolie, 1962)
*'' Walkin' This Road by Myself'' (Bluesville, 1962)
*'' Lightnin' and Co.'' (Bluesville, 1962)
*'' Smokes Like Lightning'' (Bluesville, 1962 963
*'' Lightnin' Strikes'' (Vee-Jay, 1962)
*'' Hootin' the Blues'' ( Prestige Folklore, 1962 965
*'' Goin' Away'' (Bluesville, 1963)
*'' The Swarthmore Concert'' (Prestige, 1964 993
*'' Down Home Blues'' (Bluesville, 1964)
*''Soul Blues'' (Prestige, 1964 965
*'' Lightning Hopkins with His Brothers Joel and John Henry / with Barbara Dane'' (Arhoolie, 1964 966
*''My Life in the Blues'' (Prestige, 1964 965
*'' Live at the Bird Lounge'' (Guest Star, 1964)
*''The King of the Blues