Lightnin’ Sam Hopkins remains one of the crucial figures in the annals of the blues. By extension, he recorded a ton, and owning all his music will require diligence and a seriously long shelf. However, there are a few albums that are a must even for casual blues collectors, and his self-titled effort from 1959 is one of them. Recorded by historian Samuel Charters in Hopkins’ apartment while he played a borrowed guitar, it served as the door-opener to years of prominence. A highly intimate gem of nimble-fingered deep blues feeling, Lightnin’ Hopkins is out now on vinyl through Smithsonian Folkways, remastered from the source tapes in a tip-on jacket with Charters’ original notes.
To call Lightnin’ Hopkins the byproduct of rediscovery isn’t inaccurate, but it does risk stripping the contents of its unique story. Unlike Son House, Skip James, Bukka White, and John Hurt (all from Mississippi), Texan Hopkins had only been inactive for a few years when Samuel Charters found and recorded him in Houston, and if he’d been playing since the 1930s, he was still very much in his musical prime.
Hopkins debuted on record in 1946 for the Aladdin label of Los Angeles in tandem with pianist Wilson “Thunder” Smith, the partnership bringing him his sobriquet. From there, a solid decade of studio dates (and some R&B chart action) commenced; his additional sides for Aladdin fill a 2CD set, and the sessions for Gold Star take up two separate CD volumes. Additionally, there were worthy recordings for Modern, Sittin’ in With, and majors Mercury and Decca. 1954 brought a massive spurt of wild, highly amplified material for the Herald label; it contrasts sharply with the one-man circumstance of Lightnin’ Hopkins.
If commercial recording industry prospects had dried up by ’59 and Hopkins’ guitar was in hock, there was no trace of rustiness from inactivity, though the comfort level does increase as these songs progress (the bottle of gin Charters bought likely had something to do with it). What’s shared with his prior electric band stuff is a recognizable, eventually signature style based in the conversation between rural blues verve and more citified boogie motion (in this he shares much with John Lee Hooker).
Covering the topic of wrongful conviction, “Penitentiary Blues” establishes the loose intensity of his approach, with the mood heightened by the spareness of the solo setting. It and “Bad Luck and Trouble” reveal the undiminished sturdiness of his playing and the mastery of downtrodden themes, but it’s the latter track that drives home the strength of his voice, with Hopkins’ verses cutting deep and his vocal exclamations even deeper. But with “Come Go Home with Me,” he quickens the pace, digs into a groove (foot tap is audible), and effectively lightens matters.
“Trouble Stay ‘Way from My Door” spotlights the fluidity of personal style. Beginning as a slow blues rumination, after the second guitar break serving as a reset of sorts (itself a mini-showcase of Hopkins’ range), the track shifts gears into a zone that nicely underscores his experience as a commercial entity (there’s a bit of similarity with Muddy Waters’ work of the period) but without changing the pace or disrupting the atmosphere.
It’s followed by a partial reading of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave is Kept Clean,” which strengthens ties to a key formative influence (Hopkins backed the legendary bluesman) and highlights his deftness on guitar, while “Goin’ Back to Florida” further illustrates an individual interpretation of country blues rudiments, with his sensibility importantly extending to the lyrics. This attention to words and themes sharpens the potency of closer “She’s Mine,” where after repeating the song’s title for the chorus, he adds “she’s mine but she crippled, and the poor child is blind.”
“She’s Mine” is a solo boogie, as distinct from Hooker as it is reminiscent, with the dishing out of rhythm on the guitar’s body the sharp maneuver of a showman. It joins with the preceding groove machine “Fan It” to secure Hopkins’ stature as a crowd pleaser from within the session’s folk-blues environment. Between them sits “Tell Me Baby”’s reinforcement of country blues unity prior to “She’s Mine” delivering the final punch. Many blues albums come on strong to eventually grapple with a lack of variety; Lightnin’ Hopkins is as strong at its finish as it is at the start.
The simple act of turning on the tape recorder and just letting the man play (and relate his early days backing Jefferson) is an act of sincere interest in Hopkins as both an artist and a man, which is something that for obvious reasons his early commercial singles, as great as they often were, lacked. That this occurred before the blues rediscovery boom developed into its own mini-industry only adds to the appeal.
In addition to playing with Jefferson and another early Lone Star blues titan in Texas Alexander, Lightnin’ Hopkins was comfortable sharing the stage with Pete Seeger, cutting the wicked electric instrumental “Hopkins’ Sky Hop,” engaging in delicious repartee with vocalist Barbara Dane, deep-mining the solo country blues zone for a slew of albums, and even hitting the studio with the rhythm section of the 13th Floor Elevators. His life’s work will take decades for a newbie to fully absorb, but if slimming down the output to five (or so) crucial records is the desire, Lightnin’ Hopkins should absolutely be one of them.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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