Lightnin' Hopkins

Aubrey Mayhew, founder of the maverick country label Little Darlin' Records, sought out taciturn bluesman Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins in Houston in 1967 and persuaded him to make some casual field recordings for him at nearby Gold Star Studio and, as it turned out, at two small local bars. The results of these extremely loose and casual sessions were issued as a series of five short albums under the blanket title of The Lost Texas Tapes, and it is those five releases that are collected here into one double-disc set. Intimacy is the operative word for these tracks, as Hopkins (playing solo electric guitar) sounds relaxed and at ease, and while these recordings are hardly the place to start with Lightnin', die-hard fans will find them indispensable for the insight they give into his creative process…

57 Tracks/20 Never before on CD/12 Previously unreleased performances. Remastered from Analog tapes. Texas bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins career was both long and fruitful. He performed live for six decades and recorded for over 30 years amassing a catalogue that was larger than almost any of his contemporaries. Not only was he prolific but he was also a great raconteur and a very good live performer with an ‘act’ honed to perfection at pre-war dances and parties. His guitar playing was unconventional, some have even called it ragged, but it is not as a guitarist that he will be remembered. Somehow the way he set his songs seemed totally apposite and it gave everything he did an authenticity that few others were ever able to match.

Lightnin’ Hopkins is arguably the greatest Texas blues star of the 1960s era. A country bluesman of the highest caliber, his career began in the 1920s and stretched all the way into the 1980s. Along the way, Hopkins watched the genre change remarkably, but he never altered his mournful Lone Star sound, which translated onto both acoustic and electric guitar. His style, strong rhythms punctuated by his flowing but compact lead lines, created a stinging and heart-tearing evocative sound. This quintessential collector’s edition includes two of Hopkins’ finest albums: the long unavailable Lightnin’ Strikes, originally released in 1962 by Vee-Jay Records, and the self-titled Lightnin’ Hopkins, his1959 debut for the Folkways label. The two LPs are widely regarded as landmarks of the late-‘50s/early-‘60s blues revival. Both solid-blues masterpieces have been remastered and packaged together in this very special release, which also includes 5 bonus tracks from the same period.