Blues Masters: The Very Best Of Lightnin' Hopkins

Performer: Lightnin' Hopkins
Producer: James Austin; James Austin (Compilation)
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Full title: Blues Masters: The Very Best Of Lightnin' Hopkins. Personnel includes: Lightnin' Hopkins (vocals, guitar, piano); Thunder Smith (piano); Joel Hopkins (guitar); Sonny Terry (harmonica); Donald Cooks, Leonard Gaskin (bass); Belton Evans (drums). Recorded between 1941 and 1961. Includes liner notes by David Ritz. Digitally remastered by Bob Fisher. Personnel: Sonny Terry (vocals, harmonica); Joel Hopkins (guitar); Thunder Smith (piano); Belton Evans (drums). Audio Remasterer: Bob Fisher . Liner Note Authors: David Ritz; Charlie Musselwhite. Recording information: Houston, TX (11/04/1946-07/13/1961); Los Angeles, CA (11/04/1946-07/13/1961); New York, NY (11/04/1946-07/13/1961). A seminal figure in the history of the blues, vocalist/guitarist Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins specialized in the spare, rural sound pioneered by Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Hopkins is well represented by this excellent 16-track Rhino collection, which draws from the bluesman's 1940s, '50s, and '60s material. Although the tunes occasionally feature some minimal backing, Hopkins, like many blues legends (particularly the aforementioned artists), is at his best when it's just his weathered voice and a guitar, as on the ominous "Shotgun Blues" and the pleading classic "Baby Please Don't Go." Some sessions, such as the appropriately energetic "Coffee Blues," find Hopkins trading in his acoustic guitar for an electric, but regardless of his six-string choice, he's always in prime form. Although there are other fine, and, in some cases, more comprehensive Hopkins compilations on the market, this wisely selected overview of his peak years is still one of the best available.

Q (4/01, p.123) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...He did sexual jealousy and economic bitterness as well as anybody. But more so than Robert Johnson...there was always ribaldry afoot..."

Some artists are influential because so many followers try to imitate them; others are influential precisely because they cannot be imitated. Lightnin' Hopkins was of the latter variety. With a career that stretched from the 1920s through the '70s, the Texas bluesman was a genre unto himself, a deft guitarist equally at home in a quiet solo performance or fronting an electrified boogie band. He was a free-associating poet who made up entire songs on the spot, and a leathery-voiced singer whose vocals simultaneously communicated a lifetime of misery and an endless reserve of self-confidence.

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