Alan Govenar

by Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life;Blues

  To finish his first LP with Lightnin’, Strachwitz recorded him performing the song “California Showers” in his apartment in Berkeley, but he still needed more to round out the release. So after Lightnin’ returned to Houston, Strachwitz asked him to go with his drummer Spider Kilpatrick to Bill Holford’s ACA studio to record four more songs.89 Lightnin’ was used to going over to ACA Studio, and Holford sent Strachwitz the tapes.

  ACA Studio was highly regarded, not only because of Holford’s technical expertise but because he could work well with Lightnin’. In 1962, McCormick supervised the recordings at ACA Studio of three more of Lightnin’s LPs for Prestige/Bluesville: Walkin’ This Road by Myself, Lightnin’ and Co., and Smokes Like Lightning. For these LPs, McCormick wanted a bigger band sound, probably because he or his producers thought it might sell better, and he brought in Billy Bizor on harmonica, Buster Pickens on piano, Donald Cooks on bass, and Spider Kilpatrick on drums. They were all friends of Lightnin’s who had played with him at different times over the years. Walkin’ This Road by Myself contained one of Lightnin’s most well-known songs, “Happy Blues for John Glenn,” which, according to McCormick, he composed after watching John Glenn make the first American orbital space flight on his landlady’s TV on February 20, 1962. In his session notes, McCormick wrote, “He arrived at the studio an hour early, in itself a rare event presaging things to come. As members of his entourage unloaded instruments and ran his errands, he sat out back in his car. At one point he asked for a piece of paper, and with a nod at the Gettysburg address legend, a torn envelope was provided. His making notes for the song was essentially a symbolic act, for a half-hour later the envelope contained only three marks resembling hex signs.” But when he sat down to record, he “insisted on propping it up in front of him as he took his place beneath the microphone. In some way the cryptic marks identified for him the incidents he wished to touch upon, and with it in place he was ready to extemporize. He called for a last-minute reference to confirm Glenn’s first name and whispered his question because, child-like, he intended to surprise those present (including the musicians who accompany him) with his song’s subject.”90

  Despite all the preparations, a short in the guitar amplifier ruined the first take. “It had been a moody blues set to the same tune as the bitter protest ‘Tim Moore’s Farm,’” McCormick said, but while the repairs were being made to the amplifier, Lightnin’ saw a newspaper account of Glenn’s flight and changed his tone: “some detail there seems to have altered his concept, for when he launched into the song again it was definitely a happy blues.”91

  In the song “Happy Blues for John Glenn,” Lightnin’ played a melodic pattern that was less familiar than what he usually did, and while performing he apparently couldn’t remember the chord sequence and the band got confused, but in the end were able move into a strong, grooving rhythm. And while the lyrics were some of Lightnin’s most imaginative, they bordered on nonsense.

  People all was sittin’ this morning with this on their minds

  There ain’t no man living can go around the world three times

  But John Glenn done it. Yes, he did! He did it, I’m talkin’ about it

  Only he did it just for fun

  Half a million dollars made him feel so well

  He got to eatin’ his lunch, he could hardly tell

  The other songs on the LP were more typical to Lightnin’s repertoire, but the band had difficulty following him. Lightnin’ did play an up-tempo version of Sonny Boy Williamson’s standard “Good Morning Little School Girl,” in which he quipped, “Lightnin’ is a school boy, too.”92

  On Smokes Like Lightning the band sound was a little tighter, and the solos by Hopkins were the highlights. But in McCormick’s notes, it became clear that his relationship with Hopkins was deteriorating. McCormick began the notes by responding to a question he was then being asked about how Lightnin’ had changed since he met him: “No, he has not changed. He is just the same as he has been his adult life, a natural born easman, consumed by self-pity and everlastingly trying to persuade the world that it is his valet.” McCormick then ridiculed Lightnin’ further, maintaining, “We might almost imagine Lightnin’ the most purely dedicated of all artists for he goes to astonishing lengths to maintain himself in a pathetic, blues-producing state. He is, for example, an incorrigible gambler who will take advantage of simple-minded friends with the crudest of dice tricks…. He is a joke to the gamblers of Houston’s Third Ward.”

  McCormick’s tone was at once angry and illuminating about Hopkins’s personal life: “Lightnin’ sings endlessly of mistreating women though in fact he has been the pampered daytime pet of a married woman [Antoinette Charles] for 14 years. She often accompanies him on trips out of town and is then introduced as his wife, but in Houston, a triangle is maintained with everyone keeping carefully to their own corner. He has no personal relationships that are not severely limited. He spends most of his time surrounded by a coterie of ‘helpers,’ restless young men who envy him on one hand and on the other answer his incessant demands for attention, accept his drunken tongue lashing, and let him maneuver them into humiliating positions (ie. [sic] Clearing a path to the men’s room for him). He is lovable and yet tyrannical in the same sad way of a very spoiled child.”93

  The details about Lightnin’s daily life are revealing, though it is surprising that they were published as liner notes, especially given the ranting tone of McCormick’s text. McCormick, instead of discussing the music on the LP, continued his diatribe against Hopkins and described how Lightnin’ left Houston to avoid his sister’s funeral, leaving the harmonica player Billy Bizor to make the necessary arrangements. Reportedly, Bizor drove Lightnin’s brother Joel and their mother, Frances Hopkins, who was eighty-eight years old at the time, back to Centerville after the funeral and discovered that the gas and electricity had been turned off because the bills had not been paid. Resigned, Mrs. Hopkins, “resting herself on the steps of the rickety two-room cabin,” McCormick wrote, “mused by herself: ‘I had five children and they could each play music, but the baby couldn’t do nothing else but. And he never has been no help to nobody except when you wanted to hear music.’ She turned her head to the west, as if seeing the Hollywood nightclub where Lightnin’ had gone, and firmly answered the question the fans had been asking: ‘I guess he never will change.’”94

  Lightnin’ had pushed McCormick to the limits of what he was able to endure. While the tone of his text is harsh, it is likely a realistic portrayal of what McCormick observed and experienced. Lightnin’ was not easy to work with, but on the other hand, McCormick had been telling him what to do for years, and Lightnin’ was no doubt fed up. In other places and with other people, Lightnin’ was perceived differently. Ed Pearl from the Ash Grove describes him as a “gentle person,” as did Barbara Dane. But neither of them had tried to be Lightnin’s manager as McCormick had; they might not have thought of him as “gentle” if they had.

  Especially insulting to Lightnin’ was the way McCormick characterized his relationship with his mother and implied that he had neglected her needs. Lightnin’ was devoted to his mother and did his best to help her. Years later, Lorine Washington, a 105-year-old woman in Centerville who had been friends with Lightnin’s mother, remembers, “Sam used to come back to Centerville and bring money for his mother and his aunt.”95 Mabel Milton, another friend of Frances Hopkins, concurs, “He’d come with Nette. She was a beautiful woman. Lightnin’ liked good-lookin’ women. And they’d bring things to his mother.”96 In a 1960 interview with Dane on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, Lightnin’ talked at length of the importance of his mother in his life. “She raised all us kids…. She’s a mother and father, because my father got killed when I was three years old…. So I think it’s my duty to stick around and do the very best I can for her until something else happens. That’s the way I feel about it.”97

  In this context McCormick’s liner notes were likely intolerable to Lightnin’, who, from h
is point of view, had given to McCormick more than he ever received in return, though McCormick didn’t see it this way. McCormick’s frustration with Hopkins had been building over the years of his association with him. To Andrew Brown, McCormick said, “He became a lot less vigorous about what he was doing as he made more money…. He took a glee in giving the least of himself and still collecting greater sums of money than he’d made earlier…. I think he kind of felt like he was scamming people. ‘Here I come, I’m supposed to sing, I do mostly talking, and the people laugh,’ but it was often a slightly embarrassed laugh, because he was doing things that made people uncomfortable.”98

  As much as McCormick blamed Lightnin’ for the problems that ensued, he nonetheless did what he could to control his affairs. As he pointed out in an undated letter to Prestige in 1963, “Lightnin’ Hopkins has been under comprehensive contract to me since 1959,” and acknowledged that Lightnin’ had signed a ten-record deal with Prestige, of which only four of the LPs had been completed with him as producer. McCormick complained that Prestige had not contacted him for nineteen months and had moved forward to continue recording Lightnin’ “in violation of the agreement.” Moreover, McCormick said that he was willing to “supervise what ever final sessions they should desire,” but they needed to be done quickly because “Hopkins’s poor health and arthritis” was “growing more serious.” This letter prompted an exchange of correspondence between McCormick, Prestige attorney M. Richard Asher, and Sam Charters, who was then working as recording director for Prestige in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.99 A deal was finally hammered out in November, and Prestige agreed to pay Lightnin’ through McCormick for “at least 50 strong potential selections” with an advance payment of twelve hundred dollars and a balance of eight hundred dollars to be paid out in eight monthly installments. However, McCormick never produced the recordings, and on December 18, Prestige stopped payment on the second one-hundred-dollar installment check to McCormick.

  On January 24, 1964, Charters made arrangements for funds to be transferred to the Homestead State Bank in Houston for the purpose of Lightnin’ being paid five hundred dollars for each LP recorded at “the studios of Mr. J. L. Patterson, Jr.” (who had purchased Gold Star Studios from Bill Quinn).100 Lightnin’s last three Prestige albums, starting with Goin’ Away from June 1963, were recorded at Gold Star and overdubbed with bass and drums in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.101 Prestige severed their working relationship with McCormick, who had disappeared and appeared to have taken the advance payments sent to him. McCormick later wrote to Charters from Jocotepec, Mexico, where he had gone to get away from “Houston’s dampness and cold for health reasons,” stating that Lightnin’ had received no royalty payments and questioned whether or not the check sent had in fact ever been cashed.102 Charters, who had long held a grudge against McCormick, angrily replied on February 27, 1964: “Your letter reached me in time to delay the issuing of a warrant for your arrest in Houston; however, if I don’t hear from you concerning the money you have received for the Lightning Hopkins sessions I will have to consider some kind of action …. Lightning Hopkins, for whom the money was sent to you as agent, has stated verbally … that he did not see you at any time before you left the country and that the money sent on to you was not turned over to him. He also stated that he knew nothing about a pending exclusive contract with a major label and denied that poor health is interfering with his playing.”103 Moreover, Charters says that he had researched the Prestige files on Lightnin’ to confirm that he had been sent regular statements, both as artist and composer, and that “all checks had been cashed.”

  In a letter to Charters, received by Prestige on March 16, McCormick denied any wrongdoing. He claimed that he had made all the necessary arrangements before leaving for Mexico and had given the advance payment, after it had cleared the bank, to Lightnin’ via a personal check, though this has never been confirmed. There are no copies of McCormick’s canceled check to Lightnin’ in the Prestige files. McCormick did not want to accept any responsibility for the missing money, nor did Lightnin’.104 It is possible that Lightnin’ owed McCormick money, and that McCormick kept the advance as a means of collecting what was due to him. Lightnin’ could be extremely demanding and irresponsible, but McCormick had nonetheless worked hard to record, manage, and promote his career. McCormick was a major figure in introducing Lightnin’ to a white audience, but this incident with Prestige pushed their already strained relationship to the breaking point. Needless to say, McCormick never worked with Hopkins again.

  When Charters saw Lightnin’ a few months after McCormick had run off, he felt “Lightning didn’t seem to mind what had happened that much…. He shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘You can manage me for a while—if you got any jobs.’”105 Lightnin’ realized that he needed help to get the best recording deals and bookings in the white blues revival scene. He was making more money than he ever had in his life, and he was enjoying himself. He particularly liked the West Coast, where he was able to visit with family and friends. Antoinette had relatives in the Los Angeles area, and Lightnin’ could spend time with her there without the pressures of her “other family” in Houston. The blues revival had untold benefits that Lightnin’ was only just beginning to realize.

  6

  The Touring Intensifies

  In 1962, Peter Gardner, the adult activities director for Houston’s Jewish Community Center, started a Folk Song Series that featured a mix of revivalists and traditional musicians. Lightnin’s first show at the Jewish Community Center on March 15, 1962, was a big hit, though he was initially skeptical. To perform for an enthusiastic audience of white, mostly middle-and upper-middle-class Jews, some of whom spoke Yiddish among themselves, must have made Lightnin’ a little uncomfortable, yet more acutely aware of how his life and career were changing. His concert there typified the expanding folk and blues revival scene that was taking hold across the country, and the opportunities for new bookings had never been greater. But at this point, Lightnin’ also had a following in the juke joints and cafes of the Third Ward, where he liked to gamble and carouse. As much as he was able to cross between black and white audiences, he did so with caution. He had a deep-seated distrust for some white producers and concert promoters, but he was learning how to get what he wanted and was loyal to those who treated him fairly.

  Less than a week later Lightnin’ returned to New York City, where he stayed for several weeks, presumably with Martha Ledbetter, and performed at the Village Gate seven times in a month-long period, appearing on bills with flamenco guitarist Sabicas, Roy Haynes, the John Coltrane Quartet, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Nina Simone, and Don Sherman.

  On March 31, 1962, Robert Shelton, in his New York Times review of Lightnin’ and Sabicas at the Village Gate, alluded to the comparisons “many have drawn between the flamenco music of the Spanish gypsies and the Southern Negro folk blues for their emotional content, personal expressivity, and rhythmic vitality,” but pointed out that “there is really more to contrast between these two leaders in their fields.”1 Most notably, Sabicas played a seven-hundred-dollar Velasquez guitar with “an ordered consciousness of technique,” while Lightnin’ accompanied his “moody subjective songs” on a sixty-five-dollar Harmony. Moreover, Shelton observed that Hopkins’s demeanor on stage had changed since he appeared in three New York concerts in the fall of 1960. “Aware that his fame has spread far from his home in Houston,” Shelton commented, “Mr. Hopkins seems more expansive on stage, and the audience seems more receptive to his subtle showmanship and wry humor.”2

  About three weeks later, on May 17, 1962, Shel Kagen supervised a live recording of Lightnin’ at the Second Fret, a folk club in Philadelphia. The resulting LP was called Hootin’ the Blues and was issued two years later by Prestige, which timed its releases in an effort to not oversaturate the marketplace with Lightnin’s recordings. Lawrence Cohn wrote the liner notes and recounted his meeting with Lightnin’ when he came to New York City to perform at Carn
egie Hall in 1960. “A man of many, many moods (some of which must baffle even Lightnin’ himself),” Cohn wrote, “he can be sullen and brooding, pompous and sarcastic and yet, in his own way and to his own personal desire and satisfaction, charming and coy—possessed of an unbelievable naiveté in respect to many worldly considerations and matters.” Yet Cohn maintained the coffee-house setting of the Second Fret enhanced Lightnin’s music: “His sharpness and magnificent delivery have never been presented in better light and quite possibly, the atmosphere created by the live audience to which Lightnin’ can work is responsible.”3

  Bobby Robinson, when he issued his LP Mojo Hand on his Fire label in 1962 with the recordings he had made with Lightnin’ two years earlier, took a different approach. In his liner notes Robinson wrote, seemingly in response to the intel-lectualism of folk and blues revival writers: “With so much having been said about the man, Samuel ‘Lightnin’ Hopkins … has been probed, by every important committee on un-musical activities, even an attempt at assassination by the Mafia’d of Snobdom, and each time came out completely exonerated—there is no room or need for additional dissertation on the great personable career of this titan of the blues. Lightnin’ stands today, as he has for more than a decade, a giant in the field of focus.”4 Robinson then went on to tout, tongue-in-cheek, the fidelity of his album and its presentation of “a new dimension in recorded sound … the aroma of his cigar, the open flask and the odors incident to and usually manifested as a result of the proximity of instruments and bodies, is evident and oozes up and out from every groove.”5 Robinson, based in Harlem for decades, understood his audience, and while the records he released had crossover appeal, judging from the charting success of not only Hopkins but Elmore James, Buster Brown, and others, he had a solid following in the African American community.