Alan Govenar
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Mansel Rubinstein, who had the pawnshop in the Third Ward that Lightnin’ frequented, proposed the idea for an LP to Lelan Rogers, who was the chief A&R man at International Artists.23 “Lelan and I would see each other at different places around town,” Rubenstein says, “and one conversation led to another. So Lelan came by to see me one day, and I told Lightnin’ about it and he said okay so long as he was paid his one hundred dollars a song in cash.”24 Davis and Thomas were already quite familiar with Lightnin’ and were excited by the idea. “We were thrilled,” Davis recalled, and after Rogers presented the terms to Noble Ginther, one of the owners of International Artists, the session was planned.
The stories surrounding the session are legendary but muddled, and much of what’s been published or told about the session is false: from Johnny Winter sitting in and Paul McCartney and John Lennon calling and asking if they could come to the studio to Lightnin’ being paid one thousand dollars a song. Lightnin’ was never interviewed about what actually transpired, but during the session, Davis and Thomas were doing psychedelic drugs, and by all accounts, Lightnin’ was drinking heavily.
John David Bartlett, who had been signed by International Artists right out of high school, says he picked Lightnin’ up at his apartment on Gray Street in the Third Ward to take him to the session. “Noble Ginther asked me,” Bartlett says, “and I told him sure, ‘Absolutely wonderful, I’d love to do it.’ He gave me an address and I went over there to the Third Ward … with a bottle of whiskey that he handed me to take to Lightnin’…. And I knocked on the door and went into the house … it was a very tense, very weird atmosphere. It felt like I was definitely not the most welcome human in the world. Lightnin’ was in the kitchen, and he was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to go or not, and finally I talked him into going along.”25
Thomas, however, said he went with Lightnin’ to pick up Billy Bizor “in the ghetto from a one-room apartment with a cot and basin hanging off the wall. And there were lots of people [at the studio], many of whom were musicians, and the scene was at times chaotic. Danny and I were the rhythm section on all the tracks on Free Form Patterns. The other players were Billy Bizor on harmonica and Elmo [Elmore Nixon] on piano. Lelan was there for most of the session and Fred Carroll engineered. Lelan was in his usual state and most interestingly, Danny and I both were on psychedelics of some sort, but Lightnin’ made a comment, ‘I don’t have nothin’ against playin’ with white boys but we’re gonna drink first!’ Whereupon he pulled out some homemade ‘shine’ and we passed the bottle. Interesting mix with drugs, to say the least. Fred would put a roll of tape on and we’d just play. Lightnin’ would say, ‘Here’s one that goes like this’ and just kick it off. No explanation of key or arrangement, just play the blues. It was mostly 16-bar blues but occasionally it would be 15-bar, or 17-bar and no one would know it was comin’. That was just the way Lightnin’ did it. Lightnin’ wouldn’t say, ‘Here’s what happens here,’ or anything like that, he’d just say, ‘Well, here’s one that goes like this’ and kick off another song instead of trying to explain the previous debacle. Fred actually left the control booth periodically since there wasn’t much engineering to do. He’d come in now and then and just throw on a clean roll of tape and we’d keep pickin’.”26
Despite the unevenness of the recordings, Lightnin’ liked Thomas and Davis and asked them to accompany him on other gigs over the next two months, when they weren’t touring with the Elevators. “Lightnin’ used Duke and me for live performances,” Thomas said, “at Love Street Light Circus in Houston and at Vulcan Gas Co. in Austin.27 I spent about the next two months as his drummer for live shows because the Elevators were doing studio work and weren’t doing live gigs. There was a soup kitchen/cafe in the Montrose/Westheimer area where we all used to hang out for good soul food and jam sessions at night called Cleveland’s. Lightnin’ would bring his wife [Antoinette]. They were stylishly dressed and Lightnin’ was always a gentleman.”28 Lightnin’ even appeared in a show with the 13th Floor Elevators at Rice University on March 7, 1968.
For Bartlett, Lightnin’ was a major influence. “He even taught me songs,” Bartlett says. “I was particularly drawn to the song ‘Mr. Charlie.’ He showed me an E minor thing that he did, and I played ‘Mr. Charlie’ for him, and he said, ‘You played that pretty good, and you have my permission to sing that song.’ And I made it part of my repertory.”29
Within weeks after Lightnin’ recorded for International Artists, Stan Lewis decided to bring him back into the studio for his Jewel label. He made the necessary arrangements with Lightnin’ and sent Don Logan, who had previously worked as a deejay on KEEL-AM, a top forty station in Shreveport, to produce the LP in Houston at Bill Holford’s studio on January 17, 1968. Logan had started work that year as vice president of Lewis’s recording company, which by then included three different labels: Jewel Records, Paula Records, and Ronn Records.
“Stan set the session [with Lightnin’] up,” Logan says, “As far as I know, Lightnin’ did not have a phone number that he gave out to anybody to where they could just call him. As far as I know, there was just a pay phone number that Stan would call…. Lightnin’ liked to handle his own business.” But when Logan got to Houston, finding Lightnin’ was more complicated than he anticipated. “It was one of the largest ghettos that I had ever seen,” Logan recalls, “and I’d been to Washington and Detroit…. I flew down to Houston by myself and got a rental car. And then a guy named Wild Child Butler, he was a blues singer and harp player who had recorded for Jewel, he was one of our artists; he helped me locate Lightnin’. I spent two days looking and finally we saw him in his Chrysler with his big whip CB antenna on the back, waved at him. Wild Child and I had been to every dive in the ghetto there. ‘Hey have you seen Lightnin’?’ Finally Wild Child went into a grocery store and asked if anyone had seen Lightnin’ around … and the people there knew him.”30
For the session, Lightnin’ put together a small band with Butler on harmonica, Elmore Nixon on piano, and two other sidemen on bass and drums, whose names were not written down. However, once the session was underway, Logan realized that the drummer was a problem. “He would slow up and get fast, and then slow down and get fast. And I said, ‘Well, Lightnin’ this is never going to see the light of day, and I got money in my pocket and I’m not going to give it to you if we don’t get a good cut on these things.’ And I told him the drummer would have to go.”31
Finally Lightnin’ gave in; he dismissed the drummer who was there and called another one. While they waited for him to arrive, Holford said, “You know, I’m going to have to charge you for the time while we’re waitin’ for the drummer to get here.” So Logan tried to get Lightnin’ to record a song he had written, but he wouldn’t do that and Logan decided to record an interview with him. The interview has never been released and, according to Lewis, it’s “buried away” in an off-site storage facility he rented. In the interview, Lightnin’ rambled on about playing at Carnegie Hall years before and retold the stories he’d been telling interviewers for years. “He even talked about playing for the Queen [of England],” Logan says, unaware that this was yet another “myth” that Lightnin’ sought to perpetuate. Interestingly enough, he had told the same story to Lelan Rogers during the International Artists session, and it appeared on the back cover notes of Free Form Patterns.
When the new drummer arrived, the session proceeded quickly; Lightnin’ recorded eleven songs and was finished in about four hours. Overall, however, the recordings were rough; the band was unrehearsed, and the recordings rehashed old material. The stand-out on this LP is “Vietnam War,” which he had never recorded before and had an ominous, though enigmatic, tone.
Mama says, “Son, how can you be happy
When your brother’s way over in Viet Nam?”
I told her, “He may get lucky and win some money
Before he die, he may bring some money home”
Logan was relieved to finish the ses
sion, though he realized he might need to do some overdubbing before the LP was released. But when he prepared to leave the studio, he saw the drummer who had been fired waiting near the door. “We were standing shoulder to shoulder, and Lightnin’ stepped in between us … and Wild Child said later, ‘Man, you almost bought the farm there because the guy had a knife.’ I never saw a knife … but Lightnin’ soothed him over.”32 In addition to the problems getting the drummer right, Logan also had difficulty getting Lightnin’ to sign a contract. “I had publishing contracts and recording contracts for Lightnin’ to sign,” Logan remembers, “and I said, ‘Look, man, I got the money, but I’m not going to give it to you unless you’re going to sign this contract.’ So what he did, he gave me the contract and he signed it with an X. Well I knew what to do when somebody signed it with an X, I had my witnesses sign and say that’s his signature.” But then Logan noticed that he carried a notebook around with him. “He had a list of songs written down, and in there he told me was every song that he had ever recorded since he first started recording. And who he recorded it for. And he had everything that he had recorded for us.”33 While Lightnin’ may have written down his songs in the notebook he was carrying, it seems likely that someone else, perhaps Antoinette or Harold, had helped him. He certainly was able to sign his name if he wanted to, as evidenced by other documents that exist from years earlier. By signing with an X he was simply expressing his refusal to abide by any contracts presented to him.
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.34
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.”35
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.”36
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.”37
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:
You know, please, please, please, forgive me for my mistake
But after all that flood come in California, do you
know The good Lord’s ground begin to shake
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.”38
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.”39
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.”40
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.”41
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:
I was tryin’ to make a living, I even taken a quart of wine, sold it to a chile (x2)
They picked me up right then and put me on that rock pile
Breakin’ rocks all day long, that’s the reason if you ever go to Arizona
You better leave them Indians alone
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:
I looked at them little pretty hippies
The dress so short, I says, “Whoo, look at that little girl walk”
I liked her a little better when I heard her, she begin to talk
She says, “Sam, ain’t this a pretty sight to see?”
I says, “Yeah,” She says, “Just lookie here, take a hip on me”
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.”42
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.”43