Lightnin' Hopkins

Lightnin's Boogie

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Album Details

Sam Hopkins was born into a musical family in East Texas, near Centerville, on March 15, 1912, and died in Houston on January 30, 1982, having brought his electrified downhome blues to a worldwide audience. His blues came from hard life experiences that included backbreaking farm labour and time on prison chain gangs.
Hopkins music is grounded in blues traditions, influenced directly by the two most popular early Texas bluesmen, Blind Lemon Jefferson, for whom Hopkins acted as a guide for a period, and Texas Alexander, who was Hopkins cousin. However, Hopkin’s created his own dexterous style on guitar, acousticand electric, as well as on piano, and his emotional singing and his ability to create highly poetic lyrics on the spot made his performances unique.
His repertoire was a mix of original material and songs by others recast to suit himself. He became, along with John Lee Hooker, with whom he shared an idiosyncratic sense of timing that could baffle insensitive backup musicians, one of the most recorded and influential blues musicians ever.