LIGHTNIN'  HOPKINS

March 15, 1912 - January 30, 1982
Birthplace: Centerville, Texas

Lightnin' Hopkins was a Texas blues great whose career spanned six decades and who, in all probability, made more recordings than any other blues artist. His was a prolific songwriter, a master raconteur, and a convincing performer. His guitar style, with its ragged rhythms and carefree collection of meter and structure could never be considered conventional. But it did possess a remarkable and authenticity, and it almost always seemed the ideal vehicle to carry his and complement his dry, sagebrush-scratched vocals.

When it came to recording or performing, Hopkins often improvised with and humor. He made up verses as he went along, or else altered lyrics as he saw fit. Hopkins was, in the end, a tremendously important blues figure one of the most influential country blues artists of the post-World War II period. In Texas only Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker have had as much impact on be state's blues legacy.

Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas, and learned guitar from his older brother Joel, himself a blues musician. In 1920, when he was eight years old, Hopkins met and performed with Blind Lemon Jefferson at a country picnic. The opportunity to play alongside Jefferson left a profound mark on the young Hopkins. The incident so strengthened his desire to become a blues musician that by the time he was in his early teens he was accompanying his popular blues vocalist cousin, Texas Alexander, at house parties and picnics and traveling all over East Texas. Hopkins continued to perform on and off with Alexander until the mid-'30s when Hopkins was sent to a prison work farm for an unknown offense.

Upon his release, Hopkins resumed his partnership with Alexander. They performed on Houston street corners and in small clubs, and periodically traveled to Mississippi and other southern states to play parties and juke joints. In 1946 a talent scout for Aladdin Records discovered the duo in Houston and offered them a recording contract. Hopkins followed up on the offer; Alexander didn't. When Hopkins cut his first songs later that year in Los Angeles, it was with Wilson "Thunder" Smith, a Houston pianist, not his cousin. During Hopkins's debut recording session, he was given the nickname "Lightnin' " and Aladdin billed the duo as Thunder and Lightnin' on its first releases.

Hopkins tasted success with the song "Katie May," which became a hit in the Southwest. Aladdin called Hopkins and Smith back to Los Angeles the following year to make more recordings. A second session later in 1947 was scheduled just with Hopkins. Given his erratic approach to singing and playing the blues, Hopkins was at his best when he performed with no accompaniment.

In all, Hopkins recorded forty-three sides for Aladdin. At the same time he was also making records for Gold Star in Houston, occasionally recording the exact same songs he cut in L.A. with Aladdin. During his career, Hopkins recorded for more than twenty labels, making his discography one of the longest and most complicated in blues history.

Hopkins recorded regularly from 1946 to 1954, cutting dozens of songs, not only with Aladdin and Gold Star but also with Mainstream, Mercury, Herald, and other labels. But because none of Hopkins's releases ever sold remarkably well, his first recording phase ended as interest in electric blues, particularly Chicago- made, picked up. Hopkins went back to playing Houston clubs and parties until be was rediscovered by blues historian and record producer Sam Charters in 1959. Under Charters' guidance, Hopkins resumed his recording career, this time cut- ting material for Folkways, Prestige/Bluesville, Arhoolie, and other labels in the 1960s.

Though Hopkins continued to work out of Houston and played there often, he broadened his popularity considerably during the folk-blues revival of the early '60s. In the year after meeting Charters, Hopkins went from playing small blues joints in Houston to sharing a bill at Carnegie Hall in New York with Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. His raw blues sound and narrative talents made him a popular performer on the concert and coffeehouse circuit and a regular at folk and blues festivals. In 1964 he toured with the American Folk Blues Festival package in England and continental Europe and afterwards returned to Carnegie Hall. The following year he was a featured performer at the Newport Folk Festival.

His simple, traditional interpretation of the blues influenced a number of white folk-blues artists. By the late 1960s, Hopkins's appeal had even begun to pour over into rock territory. For one Bay Area concert, Hopkins headlined over the popular acid-rock group Jefferson Airplane. At another he performed with the Grateful Dead. All along, Hopkins kept on recording for practically any label that would pay him cash up front.

Hopkins remained busy as both a recording and performing artist in the 1970s. He contributed to the soundtrack of the movie Sounder in 1972, appeared in a number of blues documentaries, played the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Carnegie Hall again, toured Europe, recorded for the Sonet label, and continued to maintain his traditionalist blues style, even though interest in his brand of country blues had, by the late '70s, all but dried up. Hopkins was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1980. He died of cancer in 1982.