Lightnin' Hopkins

The Profile

American blues guitarist and singer associated with Texas blues; influential figure in the mid-20th-century blues revival.

Born March 15, 1912; died January 30, 1982. Samuel Barclay Charters located and recorded him in Houston in 1959, producing the one-microphone sessions that became the album 'Lightnin' Hopkins'.

Mr Wolf recounts the 1959 rediscovery of Sam Hopkins by Samuel Barclay Charters in Houston and the one-microphone, rented-room session that produced the album Lightnin' Hopkins. The review highlights the album's raw, stripped-down power and its role in Hopkins's artistic revival. It praises moments of irony and intimacy, calling the record a peak of the blues revival.