TEXAS BLUES MAN ~

 

LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS ~

 

WOODBURNER ~

One of the best books summing-up the life and music of Lightnin' Hopkins

by the late Timothy O' Brien from the University of Houston (the city was Lightnin's stomping ground) 

and musician and writer David Ensminger

Mojo Hand

University of Texas Press (2013)

LIGHTNIN' (Afterword) ~

Chris Strachwitz, Arhoolie Records

Bob,

You probably have this track, but I've always loved it. I grew up listening to the Arhoolie recordings of Lightnin'. My father actually picked him up hitchhiking on Highway 82 in Mississippi in the 60s. My father was heading home to Greenwood from college and saw a guy with a guitar walking along the road. He had no idea who the guy was, despite the guy assuring him he'd made records. They stopped at a little burger joint on the side of the road, but Lightnin' couldn't go in because of segregation laws, so my father bought him a burger and Lightnin' agreed to come to Greenwood and play a house party my father was throwing (his parents were out of town). A few months later a package arrived postmarked from Houston and it contained several of Lightnin's records with a note saying 'I told you I was famous.' Oh how I wish my father still had that.

whit

unknown, Long Gone Miles, Lightnin' Hopkins, Chris Strachwitz

Photo By Mack McCormick

Dear Whit,

Great great story about Lightnin' and your father. Someone had to pick up the hitchhiking musician! Glad it was your father.

Someone else has a similar story about picking up Townes Van Zandt in Texas. Again, just trampin', picked up, said he was known had records etc., and later he either sent the driver some records or else pulled them out of his pack after or during the drive.

Speaking of drive, I collect Arhoolie Records. One time we were in Taos after spending some days in Wisconsin with Cid and Niedecker events/readings. We had a train ticket west to Milwaukee and made it further (at about the same price) since someone, quite kind, paid our way out and so we made the itinerary to Denver. After Wisconsin and friends (including Ted) we went westward and ended up spending some days traveling around New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas...where I plugged into some Arhoolie finds for my collection back home. There was a fellow opening a used LP store, and it looked momentary, in Taos, and he had just picked up at the town dump a scarf of Arhoolie. He said he wasn't sure what he really had but he priced them at $3-5 because he needed the money for the first month's rent. I bought them all. Some more Lightnin' included. The next day I mailed my clothes home and wouldn't part with my LP treasures, or trust the mail. I lugged them through Denver, Chicago, Albany, Springfield, Brattleboro. Companions.

24 degrees this morning. Hard frost.

all's well, Bob

Here's more on Whit, his terrific new book of poems, and the UK wonder
Skysill Press

http://skysillpress.blogspot.com/2010/07/just-published.html

LIGHTNIN' TECHNIQUE ~






Lightnin' usually tuned his guitar in the key of E, though not necessarily to

a concert pitch. He utilized what ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons has called

"that turnaround....It's a signature lick....He'd come down from the B chord and

roll across the top three strings in the last two bars. He'd pull off those strings to

get a staccato effect, first hitting the little open E string then the 3rd fret on the

B string and the 4th fret of the G string. He would then resolve on the V chord

after doing his roll. It's a way to immediately identify a Lightnin' Hopkins tune."





Lightnin' was tremendously appealing for aspiring blues guitarists to

emulate because his signature turnaround was relatively easy to learn,

but it was extremely hard to replicate his sound because of his distinctive

held notes, pauses, string bending, and shortened and lengthened measures.

Sometimes, as bluesman Michael "Hawkeye" Herman points out, Lightnin'





"played it in triplets, sometimes as a quarter note, sometimes as an eighth

note....He knew how to play the same lick/riff forward, backward, from the

middle to the front, from the middle to the back, from the back to the front...

each effort creating a completely huge guitar vocabulary." Ultimately, it didn't

matter what kind of guitar he was playing, acoustic or electric. "He just had

this feel," guitarist and luthier Sam Swank maintains, echoing the sentiments

of so many Lightnin' devotees. "There aren't that many blues guitar players

in the world that when you drop the needle on the record, anybody who's

anybody knows who that is. Lightnin' Hopkins is one of those guitar players."

Alan Govenar
Lightnin' Hopkins, His Life and Blues
(Chicago Review Press 2010)