Alan Govenar (26 page)

The British photographer and critic Val Wilmer wrote in
Jazz Beat:
“Lipmann and the NJF [National Jazz Federation], assisted by the good judgment of Willie Dixon, put on the best balanced package shows blues enthusiasts could hope for. This one was no exception.” About Hopkins, Wilmer focused on his performance style: “He walked on stage, cool, assured, slid into a chair and just went into a blues about a little girl…. His splendid eerie guitar made him the hit of the show for this reviewer and a partisan section of the audience screamed their approval to show they felt the same. He did ‘Baby Please Don't Go,' sang some more about air transport, imitating jet noises with his instrument and then he was gone.”
³⁶
Wilmer hoped that a “single tour” could be arranged for Hopkins, but commented that “apparently his price is prohibitive.” While many American blues singers regularly included England in their tour itineraries, the 1964 tour was the only time Lightnin' ever played there.

A film clip from an unspecified date during the American Folk Blues Festival in the United Kingdom shows Lightnin' on stage, decked out in a black tuxedo and bow tie, with processed hair, sunglasses, and a neatly folded white handkerchief in his breast pocket. His introduction to the song “Come On, Baby, Come Home with Me” was awkward—he stumbled on his words and explained, “It's not exactly the blues right now”—but his playing was sharp on amplified guitar and his vocals shuffled forward with confidence.

When Lightnin' got back to Texas, Kay Pope interviewed him about his trip for the
Houston Chronicle
Sunday magazine. “Lightnin' Sam Hopkins leaned back and talked about what he'd seen in Europe,” Pope wrote. “Next to the bed the TV carried on its own conversation and down below his little wife, Antoinette, applied determination and a dust mop to the stairs of their boarding house.” In the article Pope not only recounted Hopkins's impressions of his travels, but also evoked a sense of his home life with Antoinette, who rummaged around their living quarters, looking for the list of tour dates and a packet of photographs. Even though Lightnin' and Antoinette were not legally married, they were very much living as a couple.

Highlights of the trip for Lightnin' included “good German beer,” eight bottles of which he bought for himself and carried with him. “They're good folk over there,” Lightnin' said. “But their bread's too hard. When I'd finally find some food I liked, I'd a whoppin' of it. I found some chicken in one or two places, I'd order a whole chicken. Wrap the rest in paper and take it with me.” Overall, Lightnin' was pleased with the way the audience responded to him. “I talked to a few people over there,” he said, “them that spoke English who wanted my autograph. A few, not many. But I make my guitar talk just like I talk. They could understand. They all jump, shout, jaw, and grab me at the end. They wouldn't be happy like that if they didn't like me.”
³⁷

While Lightnin's acclaim was growing in England and throughout Europe, his recordings were garnering strong reviews in the United States. On October 3, 1964,
Billboard,
in its review of Lightnin's “Down Home Blues” (Prestige 1086), wrote: “The appeal of real blues is growing. It is part of America's contribution to musical culture. Lightnin' Hopkins is an outstanding purveyor of the blues as blues should be sung. His guitar and vocal work are a perfect marriage of instrument and talent.”
³⁸

Lightnin' was in demand, and although he often was reluctant to travel, some gigs were too good to refuse. On November 7, 1964, he was featured in another show at Carnegie Hall, which by then had become a major venue for folk and blues shows. Lightnin' appeared on the same bill as Mississippi John Hurt, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk, and Doc Watson. Barbara Dane, who by then had moved from Berkeley to New York, attended the concert but was disappointed: “Lightnin' walked on stage and put his shades on and started to do his thing, and it was totally, how should we say it, contained. He was not giving anything, not giving anything emotionally to it that was visible. He wasn't attempting to communicate or do the kind of thing he would have done at the Cabale or the Ash Grove where he's sitting face to face with people, basically talking to them through his music. In this case, in the Carnegie Hall setting, I was really studying it carefully, and saw how different his demeanor was. My take on it was, he was saying, ‘Okay, you know, this is a hot shit place and everything. I'm not giving you anything because you don't understand it. It's not for you. I'll just do what I gotta do. You all love me if I do something great or not because you're into this sort of gotta really love the black artist, that kind of thing, and I'll just do and get off of here.' And that's what he did. Then, of course, the audience went wild.”
³⁹
While Dane sensed that Lightnin' felt contempt for the audience at Carnegie Hall, other factors may have been at play. She wasn't with him backstage, and what she observed may have simply been an indication that he had had too much to drink, as he sometimes did, before he got on stage. Lightnin' was very much aware of the fact that he was revered by white audiences no matter what or how he performed. Mitch Greenhill said that he once asked him “whether he preferred performing to white audiences or black audiences. And he said that white audiences were much more attentive and respectful. He was really happy to have found this little niche and he was working it.”
⁴⁰
In other words, he didn't have to work very hard for the money he earned from such performances. Lightnin' was a star, but he was loyal to his longtime supporters, and when he returned to Houston, he performed at the Jewish Community Center on November 19 as part of its folk song series, a gig that no doubt paid considerably less than what he got from appearing at Carnegie Hall.

On December 2, 1964, Lightnin' made his last LP for Prestige/Bluesville; it was produced by Sam Charters, who featured six song tracks and eight tracks of interviews that he did with Lightnin'. These interviews constitute the only recorded autobiography that Lightnin' ever did. However, they contained little new material. By the time these recordings were made, Lightnin' had done countless interviews, and the stories related to his childhood, his meeting with Blind Lemon Jefferson, travels with Texas Alexander, move to Houston, discovery by Lola Cullum, getting his nickname, and thoughts on the blues had appeared in liner notes and articles by Mack McCormick and others. What's particularly striking, however, is Lightnin's tone and awareness that he was shaping his own legacy, even if the facts were skewed and somewhat vague.

In addition to recording for Bluesville in December 1964, Nashville producer Aubrey Mayhew (who may have been responsible for the Bird Lounge LP) brought Lightnin' into a studio in Houston and recorded a solo album with him for the Pickwick label. The overall quality of the session was poor; Lightnin' rehashed old material, drawing upon previously recorded songs and reiterating themes and lyrics that had become the staples of his concert performances.

For the first few months in 1965, Lightnin's touring slowed down, whether it was by choice, fear of flying, or a saturated market. On March 18, Strachwitz recorded Lightnin' in Houston, accompanied by drummer Harold “Frenchy” Joseph, whom he had heard play with Lightnin' in the Third Ward. “He was a tough drummer,” Strachwitz says, “and he really grooved with Lightnin'. Spider [Kilpatrick, one of Lightnin's primary Houston drummers] was always sort of raggedy. He didn't put that solid beat behind him. Spider drummed in the Holiness Church and was Lightnin's usual cat because he would play for very little, I think. He was from Houston. Frenchy was also in Houston…. He was a total wine head, but he could sure play drums. That's when we did ‘Money Taker' and ‘My Little Woman,' which has got a sort of racist tone: ‘My little woman, she ain't no Mexican. You better believe she ain't no Jew, but she's my Frenchman little girl.'”
⁴¹

In April, Lightnin' traveled to Chicago, where Willie Dixon had helped to arrange some dates for him. Dixon and Hopkins had become friends during the American Folk Blues Festival tour. “Dixon was a great diplomat,” Strachwitz says. “He always talking…. He helped Lippmann and Rau get all these musicians for the festival tour. And when Lightnin' came to Chicago, he would have arranged for him to stay some place, or maybe with him.”
⁴²

Lightnin' stayed in Chicago and played Western Hall on April 17, Peppers Lounge on April 18, and then went to Gary, Indiana, before returning to Western Hall on April 24 and 25, and a club in Joliet, Illinois, on April 26. While he was playing largely for white audiences in other cities, all of his Chicago dates were in black venues, except for perhaps the booking in Joliet. “The black world still loved him,” Strachwitz recalls. “The black world finally met him. He had never gone anywhere, because he didn't travel in those days [in the 1950s]. He was a country boy, and when he was in the big city, he found his way around there by knowing these people, you know, that came from the country.”
⁴³

In July, Strachwitz took Lightnin' to the Newport Folk Festival, which by then was well known for presenting legendary blues singers from around the country, including Reverend Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker, Fred McDowell, Sleepy John Estes, Son House, and Skip James, among others.
⁴⁴
Strachwitz was excited to bring Lightnin' to Newport, but it was more chaotic than he had expected. “I remember staying in this dormitory, kind of a bunk house,” Strachwitz recalled, “it was like army barracks, and we were sleeping in these double bunks. Anyway, I was driving around, and Lightnin' said, ‘I got to get something to drink,' and so he got his little gin and I decided to get some plum brandy. I got fuckin' drunk on that shit, and the next day, I remember, they all left, Dixon and everybody. ‘We got to go to work. C'mon, Chris.' I said, ‘Man, I can't get out of bed,' and I just laid there sick as a dog. And I remember them coming back. Willie Dixon said, ‘Chris, you missed a big fight' [he used to be a boxer]. Oh, man, this guy [Alan] Lomax, him and this Dylan manager [Albert Grossman], they got into a fistfight. Dylan had plugged in [July 25, 1965], and Mr. Lomax didn't like it. Grossman had said, ‘No, that boy stays plugged in.' I forget exactly what they said, but he said they had an all-out fight there. God, I felt so bad missing that fight. That was my entire memory of the festival.”
⁴⁵

On stage, Lightnin'—who appeared July 24, the day before Dylan—played an amplified acoustic guitar and was backed by drummer Sam Lay on four of eleven songs.
⁴⁶
Lay, who toured with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, remembered that Hopkins had already heard of him, and “they [the festival organizers] knew I was capable of following any kind of traditional blues like that, that is my kind of music. And he stated that he'd never heard a drummer could play like that, and follow his timing and all. It was just that simple to me. That type of stuff I've heard so much on recordings and things. There really wasn't any time [for rehearsing], but neither of us needed rehearsing with the other one. He knew what he was going to do, and I knew what to do with what he was doing.”

Near the end of Lightnin's set, Willie Dixon came up on stage and jammed with him and Lay. “Willie came up to bandstand and played bass,” Lay says, “and there was no stumbling around.” The response to Lightnin' was enthusiastic, and his set was tight and dynamic, as evidenced by the recordings that were finally released on the Vanguard label in 2002.
⁴⁷
About Lay, Strachwitz commented, “He was a real pro. To him, Lightnin' was a real, individualistic guy, but he knew what to do. It was a black community thing.”
⁴⁸
Lay knew how to follow Lightnin's lead. He was more familiar with his music than most sidemen. Lay, like Hopkins, had southern roots. He had come to Chicago in 1960 with Little Walter, and decided to stay.

From Newport both Hopkins and Lay went to New York City, where Lightnin' was booked solo at the Gaslight Cafe on August 4, 5, and 6, 1965, and Lay was appearing at the Village Gate. “We stayed in the same hotel,” Lay says. “It was the Hotel Albert. It wasn't one of the big hotels. It was where a lot of us stayed. And went out in the daytime together, myself, him, and my wife. We'd go up me and him, and walk down through the park, Washington Square Park, down through the Village and go on to one of these places called Chicken in a Basket. We walk out there and get some chicken. He would pay for it.”
⁴⁹
After his gig, Lay would go over to the Gas Light to hang out with Hopkins. The Gaslight was a coffee house at 116 MacDougal Street, and Lightnin' was on a bill that included the singer/songwriter Eric Andersen and the comedian Flip Wilson, and it was an easy walk from there to the hotel. The shows at the Gaslight were much like those at the Village Gate, and often featured an unexpected mix of performers, who alternated sets.

Lightnin's travel schedule was intense; the offers were too good to turn down, and during the summer of 1965 he was in and out of California. On October 4 and 5, the Verve label, in association with Folkways, recorded him in Los Angeles for an LP called
Lightnin' Strikes.
⁵⁰
The sessions were tough, but Lightnin' was actually to record three albums worth of material. The sidemen, Jimmy Bond on bass and Earl Palmer on drums, had some trouble keeping up with him, and the producers decided to overdub Don Crawford on harmonica to fill out the sound on yet another version of “Mojo Hand,” as well as on “Little Wail,” “Hurricane Betsy,” and “Shake Yourself.” Overall, the production was sloppy, and when
Lightnin' Strikes
was released a year later, it mistakenly had a photograph of Reverend Gary Davis on the cover on the first pressing.