Lightnin' 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.

Background 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.

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 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.

Career 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. 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.

Hopkins was Houston's poet-in-residence for 35 years. He recorded more albums than any other blues musician.

Hopkins died of esophageal cancer in Houston on January 30, 1982, at the age of 69. 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":

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... Sounder (1972), directed by Martin Ritt (the soundtrack included Taj Mahal singing a version of Hopkins "Needed Time") His song "Once a Gambler" is on the soundtrack of the 2009 film Crazy Heart.

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