Prestige ProfilesLightnin' Hopkins
Release Date: 10/25/2005
Original Release:
2005
# of Discs:
2
J&R Item # 602911_CD
UPC # 025218580823
Label: Fantasy Records (USA)
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Disc: 1
Disc: 2
To listen to sound clips, you'll need the most current version of the
Performer: Lightnin' Hopkins
Producer: Kenneth S. Goldstein; Mack McCormack; Samuel Charters Distributor: Universal Distribution Notes: Personnel: Lightnin' Hopkins (vocals, guitar); Billy Bizor (vocals, harmonica); Sonny Terry (harmonica); Buster Pickens (piano); Leonard Gaskin, Donald Cooks (bass instrument); Belton Evans, Spider Kilpatrick, Herbie Lovelle (drums). Recording information: ACA Studios, Houston, Texas; Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (1960 - 1964). Although Prestige was primarily known as a jazz label, they did host some superb blues artists, including the brilliant, idiosyncratic Texas guitarist Lightnin' Hopkins. Hopkins was only with Prestige for a spell in the early 1960s, but this excellent 16-track collection skims the cream from his output for the label. Featured in both solo and group settings, Hopkins lays down his inimitable sparse, country-blues guitar style, not to mention his legendary ability to improvise wry, comic stories.
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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Alvin, Dave Alvin, Phil Andersen, Eric Brown, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Greg Burnside, R.L. Carolina Slim Collins, Albert Crudup, Arthur "Big Boy" Davis, Reverend Gary Edwards, David "Honeyboy" Fulson, Lowell Guthrie, Woody Harpo, Slim Harris, Peppermint Hooker, John Lee Hot Tuna J, LL Cool King, Freddie Louisiana Red Reed, Jimmy Shines, Johnny Smither, Chris Toure, Ali Farka Van Zandt, Townes Walker, T-Bone Washboard Sam Waters, Muddy Wolf, Howlin'
Influences:
Alexander, Texas Blake, Blind Broonzy, Big Bill Estes, Sleepy John Hurt, Mississippi John Jefferson, Blind Lemon Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Robert (Mississippi) Leadbelly Lipscomb, Mance Patton, Charley
Similar Genres:
Texas/W. Coast Blues |