Lightnin' Hopkins

{{Short description|American singer-songwriter, pianist, and guitarist (1912–1982)}}

{{Other people|Sam Hopkins|Samuel Hopkins (disambiguation){{!}}Samuel Hopkins}}

{{Infobox musical artist

| name = Lightnin' Hopkins

| image = Lightnin'_Hopkins.jpg

| caption =

| image_size =

| background = solo_singer

| birth_name = Samuel John Hopkins

| alias =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1912|03|15}}

| birth_place = Centerville, Texas, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1982|01|30|1912|03|15}}

| death_place = Houston, Texas, U.S.

| origin =

| instrument = {{hlist|Guitar|piano|organ|vocals}}

| genre = {{hlist|Electric blues|country blues|Texas blues}}

| occupation = {{hlist|Musician|songwriter}}

| years_active = 1946–1982

| label = {{hlist|Aladdin|Modern|RPM|Gold Star|Sittin' in With/Jax|Mercury|Decca|Herald|Folkways|World Pacific|Vee-Jay|Arhoolie|Bluesville|Tradition|Fire|Candid|Imperial|Prestige|Verve|Jewel}}

| website =

}}

Samuel John "Lightnin'" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982){{cite book| first1= Bob| last1= Eagle| first2= Eric S.| last2= LeBlanc| year= 2013| title= Blues: A Regional Experience| publisher= Praeger | location= Santa Barbara, California| pages=294 | isbn= 978-0313344237}} 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.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-guitarists-of-all-time-19691231/lightnin-hopkins-19691231 |title=Lightnin' Hopkins {{pipe}} Rolling Stone Music {{pipe}} Lists |magazine=Rolling Stone |access-date=2010-08-09}}

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".{{cite book

| first= Tony

| last= Russell

| year= 1997

| title= The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray

| publisher= Carlton Books

| location= Dubai

| page= 64

| isbn= 1-85868-255-X}} 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".{{Cite web|url = http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1984/grammys.htm|title = 26th Grammy Awards - 1984|date = |access-date = |website = |publisher = Rock on the Net|last = |first = }}{{Cite web|url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C06sjY7YgXE|title = Stevie Ray Vaughan - Interview 06/23/88|date = 23 June 1988|access-date = 28 Jul 2014|via=YouTube}} In his own lifetime, Hopkins was one of the initial inductees in 1980 to the Blues Hall of Fame.{{cite web |title=1980 Blues Hall of Fame Inductees |url=https://blues.org/hof_years/1980-blues-hall-of-fame-inductees/page/2/|website=Blues.org}}

Life

Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas.{{cite book |title=Woke Up This Mornin': Poetry of the Blues |last=Nicholas |first=A. X. |year=1973 |publisher=Bantam Books |page=87 }} 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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/lightnin-hopkins-mn0000825208|title=Lightnin' Hopkins Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More|website=AllMusic|access-date=January 16, 2024}} 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.{{cite web | url = {{AllMusic|class=artist|id=frankie-lee-sims-p125539/biography|pure_url=yes}} | title = Frankie Lee Sims: Biography | website= AllMusic | last = Dahl | first = Bill | access-date = 2010-10-19}} 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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.wirz.de/music/hopkins.htm|title=Illustrated Sam Lightnin' Hopkins discography|website=Wirz.de|access-date=January 9, 2025}} An Aladdin executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and dubbed Hopkins "Lightnin'" and Wilson "Thunder".{{cite book|title=The Guinness Who's Who of Blues|editor=Colin Larkin|publisher=Guinness Publishing|date=1995|edition=Second|isbn=0-85112-673-1|pages=181/3}}

File:Hopkins-Goldstar-Promo.jpg

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.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}} 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.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}

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.{{cite web|url=http://www.blues.org/halloffame/inductees.php4?YearId=25|title=1980 Hall of Fame Inductees|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070305080004/http://www.blues.org/halloffame/inductees.php4?YearId=25 |access-date=2025-01-10|archive-date=5 March 2007 }}

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".{{cite news| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/01/obituaries/sam-lightnin-hopkins-69-blues-singer-and-guitarist.html| title = Obituary: Sam (Lightnin') Hopkins, 69; Blues Singer and Guitarist| author = Saxon, Wolfgang| date = February 1, 1982| access-date = November 11, 2012| newspaper = The New York Times}} Hopkins is buried at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston, Texas.{{Cite web|url=https://digitalcollections.rice.edu/Documents/Detail/lightnin-hopkins-grave/306782|title=Lightnin' Hopkins' grave|website=rice.edu|publisher=Rice University Fondren Library Woodson Research Center Special Collections & Archives|date=2001}}

A statue of Hopkins, unveiled in 2003, sits in Crockett, Texas.{{Cite web|url=https://www.campstreetcafe.com/HoustonChronicle.htm|title=Houston Chronicle article|author=Marty Racine|date=2002|website=Campstreetcafe.com|access-date=January 10, 2025}} 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.{{cite web | title=The Team | website=Wherelightninstrikes.com | date=2011-02-28 | url=https://www.wherelightninstrikes.com/the-team/ | access-date=2023-08-24}}

Musical style

{{Unsourced section|reason=One referenced source only|date=January 2025}}

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.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} 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.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}

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.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} 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.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}}

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

{{blockquote|You may see a fast life woman sittin' round a whiskey joint,

Yes, you know, she'll be sittin' there smilin',

'Cause she knows some man gonna buy her half a pint,

Take it easy, fast life woman, 'cause you ain't gon' live always...}}

Discography

=Early compilations of previously issued material=

Early Recordings (Arhoolie, 1946-50 [1969]) - collection of Gold Star recordings
Early Recordings Vol. 2 (Arhoolie, 1946-50 [1971]) - collection of Gold Star releases
Lightnin' Hopkins Strums the Blues (Score, 1946-48 [1958]) - collection of Aladdin releases
Lightning Hopkins Sings the Blues (Crown, 1947-1951 [1961]) - collection of RPM releases
Last of the Great Blues Singers (Time, 1950-51 [1960]) - collection of Sittin' in With releases
Lightnin' and the Blues (Herald, 1954 [1960]) - collection of Herald releases

=Original LP releases=

The Rooster Crowed in England (77, 1959 [1960])
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 [1962])
Blues in My Bottle (Bluesville, 1961)
Blues Hoot (Horizon, 1961 [1963]) with Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry - reissued as Coffee House Blues
On Stage (Imperial Records,[1962]) 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 [1963])
Lightnin' Strikes (Vee-Jay, 1962)
Hootin' the Blues (Prestige Folklore, 1962 [1965])
Goin' Away (Bluesville, 1963)
The Swarthmore Concert (Prestige, 1964 [1993])
Down Home Blues (Bluesville, 1964)
Soul Blues (Prestige, 1964 [1965])
Lightning Hopkins with His Brothers Joel and John Henry / with Barbara Dane (Arhoolie, 1964 [1966])
My Life in the Blues (Prestige, 1964 [1965])
Live at the Bird Lounge (Guest Star, 1964)
The King of the Blues (Pickwick, 1965) - reissued as Let's Work Awhile
Blue Lightnin' (Jewel, 1965 [1967])
Live at Newport (Vanguard, 1965 [2002])
Lightnin' Strikes (Verve Folkways, 1965 [1966]) - reissued as Nothin' But the Blues
Something Blue (Verve Folkways, 1967)
Thats My Story (Polydor, 1965 [1970])
Blues Festival Song & Dance (Arhoolie, 1967) shared disc with Mance Lipscomb and Clifton Chenier
Texas Blues Man (Arhoolie, 1967)
Free Form Patterns (International Artists, 1968)
Talkin' Some Sense (Jewel, 1968)
Lightnin' Hopkins Strikes Again (Home Cooking, 1968 [1975])
The Great Electric Show and Dance (Jewel, 1969)
California Mudslide (and Earthquake) (Vault Records, 1969)
Lightnin'! (Poppy, 1969) - rereleased on Arhoolie in 1993
In the Key of Lightnin' (Tomato, 1969 [2002])
Lightning Hopkins in Berkeley (Arhoolie, 1969 [1970])
Po' Lightnin' (Arhoolie, 1961/69 [1983])
The Legacy of the Blues Vol. 12 (Sonet, 1974 [1977])
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 1976 (Island, 1977) shared disc with various artists
The Rising Sun Collection Vol. 9 (Just a Memory, 1977 [1996])
Mighty Crazy (Catfish, 1980 [2002]) shared disc with Big Mama Thornton
The Rising Sun Collection (Just a Memory, 1980 [1996]) shared disc with Louisiana Red, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
Forever (Paris Album, 1981 [1983])

=As sideman=

With Sonny Terry

Sonny Is King (Bluesville, 1963)

Films

The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1968), directed by Les Blank and Skip Gerson (Flower Films & Video)
The Sun's Gonna Shine (1969), directed by Les Blank with Skip Gerson (Flower Films & Video){{Cite web|url=https://lesblank.com/films/the-suns-gonna-shine-1969/|title=The Sun's Gonna Shine (1969) - Les Blank Films|website=Lesblank.com|date=July 7, 2024|access-date=January 10, 2025}}
Sounder (1972), directed by Martin Ritt (the soundtrack included Taj Mahal singing a version of Hopkins "Needed Time"){{cite book| last=Christgau| first=Robert| year=1981 |title=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies| publisher=Ticknor & Fields| chapter=Consumer Guide '70s: M| chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k=M&bk=70| access-date=January 31, 2021| isbn=978-0899190266}}
His song "Once a Gambler" is on the soundtrack of the 2009 film Crazy Heart.{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/crazy-heart-original-motion-picture-soundtrack--mw0001954842|title=Crazy Heart [Original Motion Picture Soundtrac...|website=AllMusic|access-date=January 8, 2025}}

Books

Mojo Hand: An Orphic Tale, by J.J. Phillips (Serpent's Tail), {{ISBN|978-1852421090}}.
Lightnin' Hopkins: Blues Guitar Legend, by Dan Bowden, {{ISBN|978-0786602384}}.
Deep Down Hard Blues: Tribute to Lightnin', by Sarah Ann West, {{ISBN|978-1556181504}}.
Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues, by Alan Govenar (Chicago Review Press), {{ISBN|978-1556529627}}.
Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin' Hopkins, by Timothy J. O'Brien and David Ensminger (University of Texas Press), {{ISBN|978-0292762145}}.

References

;Inline citations

;Further reading

Stambler, Irwin; Landon, Grellun (1983). The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country & Western Music (2nd ed.). St. Martin's Press. {{ISBN|0-312-24818-0}}.
Liner notes to the CD Country Blues, Ryko/Tradition Records.