Lightnin' Hopkins - Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop

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Justice Blues and later in his final 1950 session’s Bottoms Blues.Lightnin’s Boogie is a guitar showcase, always a highlight of his performances, while What’d I Say is Lightnin’s version of Ray Charles’s huge 1959 hit. (Lightnin’ voiced his admiration of Charles in a 1962 Prestige label album cut, Me and Ray Charles.) The 1970 performances close with How Long Has It Been, the nearest thing offered in these performances to a ‘holy blues.’ Lightnin’ had previously performed it in the Les Blank film, The Blues According to Lightnin’ <strong>Hopkins</strong>. A well-heeled Lightnin’ appeared on Austin City Limits in 1979, accompanied by Ron Wilson on bass and Bill Gossett on drums. Along with reprises of Mojo Hand and Black and Evil, Lightnin’ offered the blues perennial Rock Me Baby (first recorded in 1950 by Lil Son Jackson as Rockin’ and Rollin') and some original observations on women and cars, Ain’t No Cadillac. The 67 year old Lightnin’ aimed to prove he was an old dude with youngfashioned ways; note the rakish fedora and his cranking wah-wah pedal! Note, too, how he seemingly tries to throw his bass player with his idiosyncratic timing during his solo on Mojo Hand. (“Black and Evil” indeed!) The ever-resourceful Lightnin’ revamps Ain’t It Crazy as an outro to say goodbye to his audience on what was his last video appearance. From the Houston streets of 1960 to an Austin soundstage nearly 20 years later, this video collects a range of Lightnin’s work, a visual complement to the recordings Chris Strachwitz calls “brief audio snapshots of one of the great folk poets to emerge from the African-American experience in Texas.” We can add to them these vital “video snapshots” as well. – Mark Humphrey For help with background material, thanks to Mary Katherine Aldin. 24
“I WAS JUST TOO TOUGH” In the Les Blank film, The Sun’s Gonna Shine, Lightnin’ is seen surveying a country town’s main street next to a sign: “Centerville—population 836.” “Centerville, Texas is my home. Ain’t too much to tell you about it. It’s just a little ol’ one horse town. Born and raised there. Didn’t stay there long. Left there when I was eight years old. I went back when I was 12; leave again. Just travelin’. I didn’t get no schoolin’, man. I got my education by sittin’ around talkin’ and lookin’ at what this one do and what that one do. You go to that field, there was your school with that hoe and plow that mule. Chop that cotton. Well, I said I wasn’t going to do it. I didn’t. I was just too tough. Why, I just know’d there was something in store for me, man. It wasn’t nothin’ on the end of that hoe handle for me. Chopping cotton, plowing that mule for six bits a day. That wasn’t in store for me.” 25
Page 1 and 2: Lightnin’ Hopkins Rare Performanc
Page 3 and 4: wit and implacable personality. Lig
Page 5 and 6: presented Po’ Lightnin’s troubl
Page 7 and 8: trains,” he told Paul Oliver in C
Page 9 and 10: claimed he led Cullum to Hopkins, w
Page 11 and 12: voice bray over a wiry guitar about
Page 13 and 14: (Hentoff remembers Lightnin’ as
Page 15 and 16: Photo by Don Schlitten At every opp
Page 17 and 18: Photo by Michael P. Smith LIGHTNIN
Page 19 and 20: in Houston...He could have done a l
Page 21 and 22: “WATCH THE STRINGS, NOW, NOT MY F
Page 23: quintessential Lightnin’ mood pie
Page 27 and 28: Photo by Ed Badeaux 27

Lightnin' Hopkins - Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop

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