Lightnin' Hopkins

Best dressed bluesman of all?

Aug 13, 2024

I know thats a deeply shallow headline. But it might as well be Lighnin’ as much as anybody else.

He must have been the first blues player I ever shelled out some pocket money on in the early 70s. He had a budget priced album - shared with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee that was available in Australia. A beautifully designed cover thaat sucked me in. It was all acoustic country blues which wwas a bit too rustic and soft for me - especially Sonny Terry and Brownie when they started to play Down By The Riverside…

“Blues Is Life”. I needed that kind of unequivocal statement as a teen. (I was impressed by anybody who could summon that kind of force for decades) I came to a record like this via the Rolling Stones who always credited their influences. I was mad for Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, though again my gateway to them was via the LONDON SESSIONS albums where they were backed by the cream of British blues power. Even then it was embarassing to hear Eric Clapton telling Howlin’ Wolf how to properly play his own licks. Their voices settled all the arguments though. Spoiled me for life as to what constitutes a proper lead vocal.

Howlin’ Wolf had a great biography written about him by two academic blues lovers. He deserved the full bio treatment. There was also the great movie about Chess Records called CADILLAC RECORDS which had amazing actors as Wolf, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Little Walter. All their weaknesses, power , encounters with luck and great rivalries

That whole 60s British blues mad generation really pulled a lot of these guys out of a rut. But there seemed to be strange dissonant moments as they met each other for real. Muddy Waters went to the UK with his electric sound but the audience only knew of acoustic blues so he returned with that kind of a repertoire and by that time his electric recordings had hit the shops. Eventually it all meshed.

Female photographer Val Wilmer wrote a great book which touched on this period.

It was an amazing moment when the Stones power pulled Howlin Wolf onto American tv, Brian Jones fever for him is palpable.

Howlin Wolfs biography has great scenes where he proudly drives from out of the rural South to Chicago in his own car, indebted to no one. He loved to pay his taxes and the union dues for his players and put himself through night school. A totally inspirational character.

Howlin’ Wolf was too hot for most blues academics though. He put on a show and mugged and pulled faces, not like a dignified, dying old blues man at all. Wolf was a flesh and blood entertainer.

Check this out! 1970. Playing for a college crowd and giving it to them, hard! Look at this guy! I would have loved to have seen him play. I live now in 2024 and people think a festival like Coachella or Glastonbury is hip. Fuuuuuuuck ooooooooofffff!

Anyway. That young white thirst for authentic experience led to that 60s /70s blues boom and landed that Lighnin Hopkins album into my house at Werona street in Mt Gambier, South Australia.

It carried on into the 70s with hardcore roots reggae. White people like me just eventually had to face facts that black players looked cool from the time they walked until the time they couldn’t. It was nothing to do with youth culture. They were black and downbeat. They had all the cool.

But I keep seeing images of Lighnin’ Hopkins on my social media feed. I never sought it out, it just started coming. And I began to realize that he was a supreme dude. He knew his cloth and his derbies and his shoes and socks and shades. He came from Texas, like so many of my favourite American musicians.

Check it