Alan Govenar (37 page)

After Lightnin's session with Logan, he spent much of his time during 1968 in Houston, though he did play at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin on February 23 and 24, and in Los Angeles at the Ash Grove on April 4 and July 24–28. He was also invited to participate in the Smithsonian Institution's Second Annual Festival of American Folklife, held on the Mall from July 3 to July 7, and for which Mack McCormick was hired as fieldworker and was likely the main coordinator of Texas talent. By this time, Lightnin' had little, if anything, to do with McCormick, though McCormick was responsible for Lightnin's booking at the Festival. Lightnin' appeared on a program on Sunday night, July 7, that also showcased two of McCormick's other main discoveries, Mance Lipscomb and barrelhouse pianist Robert Shaw, in addition to the Baca Orchestra, a group of Czech-Americans from Fayetteville, Texas.
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The scope of Lightnin's touring expanded in 1969. The Dallas Museum of Fine Arts presented him in a program with John Lomax Jr. on March 7 and 8, and in May he traveled to California, where he recorded an album for the Vault label in Los Angeles that was produced by Bruce Bromberg. At the time, Bromberg was working in sales for California Record Distributors, a company that was owned by Ralph Kaffel and Jack Lewerke, who also started Vault as their own independent label.

Bromberg had seen Lightnin' at the Ash Grove, and finally met him through Long Gone Miles, who most people considered his protégé. According to Ed Pearl, “Luke ‘Long Gone' Miles [a young black singer] appeared on Lightnin's doorstep in Houston a long while back, and Lightnin' wanted to close the door. And Luke proceeded to just go to sleep on his doorstep…. He was a real country guy. So Lightnin' took a fancy to him and let him hang around and he was a good singer, and Lightnin' sometimes let him perform with him on stage. And when Lightnin' came to L.A. by himself, he often stayed at Long Gone's house.”
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Bromberg got to know Long Gone because he admired his singing and wanted him to join his own band. “One time,” Bromberg said, “me and my friend Walker were rehearsing at Long Gone's house and Lightnin' was there. That was kind of scary. Mostly he was sleeping. He was sleeping on a couch. He had his hat over his eyes and we were clunking along there. We played every song in the same key, E. And he raised his head up and just said in his great voice, ‘Your E string is a little out of tune there.' And put his hat back on and went back to sleep.”
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For the Vault LP, “Lightnin' recorded live [with his Gibson guitar and electric pickup], no overdubs. He sang and he played what he wanted, but I had some songs that I really liked by him. I'd say you know that one … you got one sorta like that? And he'd do it. He was a pleasure, he was a prince.”
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For the Vault LP title song, Lightnin' made up “California Mudslide (and Earthquake)” on the spot, in which he bemoaned the torrential rains and the wrath of God. He reflected on his own life as a sinner: “Why you know I must be born by the devil, Po' Lightnin' don't wanna be baptized,” but then asked for forgiveness:

When Lightnin' finished recording, Tony Joe White of “Polk Salad Annie” fame, who listened in during the session, picked up his guitar and the two jammed for a while. “Tony really knew his blues,” Bromberg says, “and Lightnin' really enjoyed it, but he wouldn't let us record. Tony wrote the liner notes.” But instead of providing any contextual information about the session, White was descriptive, personal, and almost trite: “And his boots were from Mexico with silver caps on the toes and brown baggy pants tucked inside … he was a soulful sight … it's hard to say anything … as I'd much rather sit, be quiet, and listen to him. I've dug him since I was 12, and met him when I am 25. He can make chills run over you when he sings about ‘The California Mud Slide' or anything.”
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From Los Angeles, Lightnin' went to Berkeley and recorded an album on May 19, 1969, for Poppy, an independent label that had also recorded the singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt, who had championed Lightnin's music in Houston and had hung out with him whenever he got the chance. Van Zandt's girlfriend Fran Petters Lohr recalled that one time, “it was announced in the paper that Lightnin' Hopkins had died,” and Van Zandt got “real upset.” Together they drove over to Lightnin's apartment and they knocked on the door. “Lightnin' always had these bodyguards, these people around, so they opened the door and Townes said, ‘Oh, my God, Lightnin'. They said you were dead.' And Lightnin' just says, ‘I don't think so.' So we sat there and they played guitars and talked for hours.”
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For Lightnin's session on Poppy, produced by Strachwitz, he was accompanied by Jeff Carp on harmonica, Johnny “Big Moose” Walker on piano, Paul Asbell on rhythm guitar, Gino Skaggs on bass, and Francis Clay on drums. Lightnin' had flown up to the Bay Area for an appearance at Zellerbach Hall with Mance Lipscomb, Bukka White, and Son House. Concert organizer Joe Garrett, who greeted Lightnin' at the airport, said that when he got off the plane, “he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and he drank it like you would drink a Coca Cola on a hot day, just to get his nerves back…. He was really shaken up by that.”
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About the Poppy session, Strachwitz says, “Kevin Eggers from Poppy got in touch with me and asked me to supervise Lightnin's recordings. He wasn't particularly interested in new material. He wanted his hits. I thought the whole thing was so-so, and he probably could have gotten one good LP out of it, but he made it into a two-volume set.”
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Often times, when Lightnin' went to California, Strachwitz says he took the bus, but by the late 1960s, with his ever-expanding audience, he was forced to fly more often.

Strachwitz recorded Lightnin' twice in 1969, once on May 20 for Poppy and again on December 8 for Arhoolie. Francis Clay accompanied Hopkins on drums, and with his solid backing, Lightnin's sound was tight and yielded a few songs that were at once fresh and revealing. “Sellin' Wine in Arizona” was autobiographical:

While “Sellin' Wine in Arizona” had the character of many of Lightnin's songs in which he cast himself as a victim, “Up On Telegraph” is both topical and funny as he commented on the hippies he encountered on a walk on that famous avenue:

Clearly, Lightnin' was enjoying himself, and his guitar playing was light and ironic to underscore the good-natured humor of the moment. Lightnin' had made a number of friends in Berkeley, and he liked spending time there. He'd see Barbara Dane, or stay with relatives in Oakland, or visit with Carroll Peery from the Cabale, or go around town with Strachwitz. On this trip, from Berkeley he headed back to southern California to play in a show on May 30 that included the rock band Canned Heat and Albert Collins, who said his mother was “kin to all the Hopkins family.”
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When Lightnin' got back to Houston, Stan Lewis contacted him again, and Don Logan took him to ACA studio (not Muscle Shoals, as has been written since the album was new) to record an LP called
The Great Electric Show and Dance.
During the session, Logan said he “got along all right” with Lightnin' and the recording proceeded smoothly. “I knew that what would sell was Lightnin' and his guitar,” Logan says, “but I had this weird idea that if I put some electric-type fuzz guitar in the background, we could reach the college kids. At that time, we were one of the few record companies sending out samples to the small-power college radio stations, and that was at Stan's insistence. So Jewel came out with the album
The Great Electric Show and Dance
[which was in many ways like Muddy Waters's
Electric Mud
LP] and the [Lightnin'] fans did not like it…. But it still got a lot of play on college campuses around the country…. And over the years, the fans have said that it would have been better if I'd taken out all that shit [overdubbed effects] I'd put in there and just came out with the album.”
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In the end, Logan recognized that Lightnin's strength was not in the background accompaniment. “You just have Lightnin' singing the song and you have him playing his guitar licks. He was an unorthodox singer, but musician-wise on the guitar, he played some licks that made all of the white groups buy his stuff…. So, every little band out there probably bought Lightnin' Hopkins just to hear his licks, which were simple, but they made a lot of sense in his music.”
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Ultimately Lightnin' was not a big seller for Jewel, but Logan worked hard on sales and promotion. “I pretty much did everything,” Logan says, “I'd even call the mom and pop shops and say, ‘Man, I got a great new blues.' It wouldn't be big orders, but it'd be small ones. That's the kind of artist Lightnin' was.”
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During the summer of 1969, Lightnin' began to venture out and travel to festivals and cities where he had never been before. On August 3, at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in Michigan, Dan Morgenstern described Lightnin's performance as “anything but eclectic. His style both vocally and on guitar, his demeanor, and his material (though he also dips into the traditional well) are genuinely original, and he was a joy to behold.
Sharp
from dark glasses to yellow shoes, he seemed determined to have a good time and take the audience with him. ‘It's good out here in the prairie like this,' he told them, launching into ‘Mojo Hand.' Among the things that followed in a set that seemed to end too soon (Lightnin' knows how to pace himself), the standouts were ‘Don't Wanna Be Baptized' and a long anecdote about a girl who stole his brand new Cadillac.”
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Backstage at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, writer and photographer Dick Waterman recalled that Son House's wife Evie approached him and asked, “Dick, do you know that Lightning Hopkins man?” Waterman was in a way shocked by the question; Evie was known to go to church three or four times a week and read the Bible at home. But she genuinely wanted to meet Lightnin', who was “holding court … with processed hair and sunglasses, he was dressed in a shark-skin suit and held a cigar in one hand and a plastic cup of whiskey in the other.” And when introduced to Evie, Lightnin' dropped his cigar and “drew her to his side and looked up at her: ‘Hello, sweet thing,' he whispered. ‘What's a young girl like you doing here all alone?'” Evie, Waterman wrote, “put her hand to her face and started to giggle,” and after a few minutes came over to him and said, “That Lightning, he sure does say some pretty things to the ladies.”
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Waterman had known Lightnin' for a number of years, and sometimes took him to festivals and concert dates. On one road trip going to a gig in Santa Monica, Lightnin' pointed to a liquor store in front of them. Waterman dutifully stopped the car, but when he asked for some money, Lightnin' replied, “Aw, now Dick, I ain't got nothing but a hundred dollar bill.” Waterman replied, “They'll change it,” and Lightnin' countered, “Dick, now you take a look at how Lightning is dressed tonight. Ain't I looking sharp?” Hopkins was wearing a “white suit, black shirt with a bolo tie, and black and white saddle shoes.” Then Lightnin' stroked himself from his ribs down to his knee, and said, “They goin' to give me some big mess of dirty one dollar bills and five dollar bills…. See how smooth ol' Lightning is lookin'? I can't be having it, Dick. I can't let them give me some big ball of dirty money because it would just mess up my line.” Waterman looked at Lightnin' with amazement and went in and bought “the damn bottle again.”
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From Ann Arbor, Hopkins went to the Blossom Music Center in Cleveland, Ohio, where he appeared on a bill with B. B. King and the Staple Singers on August 8, and was featured at the Chicago Blues Festival on August 30. In the fall, he played dates mostly around Houston before going back out to the West Coast, where he recorded in Berkeley on December 8, and appeared at the Ash Grove from Christmas Day to January 4, 1970, on a program that included Firesign Theatre as well as Taj Mahal on New Year's Eve.

On January 27, 1970, Lightnin' was in a bad car wreck; the car in which he was a passenger was nearly totaled and he injured his neck. He was driving back from Austin or Dallas, and the person at the wheel didn't see a barricade in front of him and drove off the road. Lightnin' cracked a vertebrae in his neck and was lucky he wasn't paralyzed, but he had to wear a neck brace for some time that restricted his traveling.
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In June, however, he did go to California, playing at Lincoln School Auditorium with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Sandy Bull in San Francisco, and then went back to the Ash Grove, June 18 to 28. “He started coming back whenever he wanted to or whenever I wanted him to,” Ed Pearl says. “One of us would call the other. I didn't work with anyone. There were no agents. When Lightnin' came to the Ash Grove, he just introduced a whole new aspect of the blues, and people flocked to it. And he just set a standard and kept on top of it. His draw was as big as Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf. But to the Ash Grove crowd, Lightnin' was there a lot and was never second to anyone.”
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