Alan Govenar

by Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life;Blues

  With Harold and Benson managing Lightnin’s bookings, he was much more selective, and he enjoyed spending more time with Antoinette in Houston. On Friday nights, Benson says, Lightnin’ and Antoinette had a steady date night, and went to some friends’ house where they played the card game Pitty Pat. On other nights, Lightnin’ loved to gamble and shoot dice. “He would take me with him to Fifth Ward and to Third Ward,” Benson remembers, “different places where he would shoot all night. He would want me to go with him. I’m a pretty big guy, so he would want me to go with him to hold his money, and then we’d go in there, and he’d always have a couple of guns.”49

  In the Third Ward, there was a man by the name of Mr. Blackwell that Lightnin’ liked. “He owned a walk-up barbecue stand at the corner of McGowen and Dowling,” Benson said, “and he and Lightnin’ would shoot dice at Lightnin’s place. They would take a bathroom rug and turn it upside down, and they would shoot head to head dice all night. Sometimes Mr. Blackwell would lose fifteen thousand dollars, and maybe Lightnin’ might lose. And they’d bullshit each other. Lightnin’ would say, ‘Mr. Blackwell, you need to go sell some barbecue and c’mon back.’ They were good friends.”50

  On Sundays, Lightnin’ liked to get in his car and cruise past the churches in the black neighborhoods of Houston, but never go inside. “We would get in the car,” Benson recalls, “and at twenty miles per hour we’d cruise Third Ward, and Fourth Ward, and Acres Home, but we would still have some cold Pearl and CC [Canadian Club] and he would cruise and yell at people and say little things like, ‘Hey, baby, where you goin’ with them groceries?’”51

  When he wasn’t cruising the neighborhoods or shooting dice, Lightnin’ hung out in front of Johnny Lee’s, a Chinese grocery in the Third Ward. “He sat in his car at his corner,” Benson says, “and he would make loans to people in the community, and he would sit there with a couple of pistols in the car and a half pint of Canadian Club. So whenever I wanted to find him, I’d get in my pick-up truck and I would cruise and usually catch up with him there…. And I would go sit in the car with him and we’d sit and drink Canadian Club until both of us would get drunker than shit and then he would say, ‘Let’s go get something to eat.’ Well, I had a key to the apartment and Miss Nette would always keep the refrigerator full of food she’d cooked for us. So we’d go home and we’d warm up something from Miss Nette, or if she was there, she would fix something for us, and we’d eat and sit around and play guitars.”52

  One time Benson drove up to Johnny Lee’s grocery store and was shocked to see that Lightnin’ “had a gun to a guy’s head … and he had a Pearl beer in his other hand. And he walked over to my truck, still pointing the gun at the guy, handed me the beer through my truck window, and said, ‘Hold this beer for me, baby, while I kill this motherfucka.’ And I’m looking at the windshield at him, and he’s arguing with the guy. ‘Who told you to drink my liquor?’ and the guy says, ‘Lee,’ a cousin of Lightnin’s, who lived out in Sunnyside. ‘Well, who told you to drink out of the bottle? Why couldn’t you drink out of the cap? You’re supposed to drink out of the cap so they can tell that you’re not greedy…. You can’t turn the bottle up.’ See the guy had taken a drink from the bottle, and Lightnin’ was going to kill him. Lee was so drunk; he was wallowing all over this hood of his car. He couldn’t even stand up. And Lightnin’ said, ‘Who told you to drink out of the bottle?’ And the guy said, ‘My mama.’ And Lightnin’ said, ‘You’re right, because if you had said my mama, you’d be dead right now.’ And Lightnin’ started pistol whipping Lee and then he come back to me and said, ‘C’mon, baby let’s go.’ And he got in his car and I followed him around to his apartment.”53

  Benson believed that Lightnin’ wasn’t “as hard as he put on to be. But Lightnin’ would kill you. He was from that generation that would kill somebody, but when you did anger him, he was dangerous. But he was a very sweet man. He could be very tender.”54 Michael Point, a white hippie writer and blues fan, who sometimes served as Lightnin’s driver in the 1970s, recalled that often times when he arrived early to pick up Lightnin’ for a gig, “He’d be out on the porch with all these neighborhood kids around him, and he’d be playing a kids’ concert for them, all cheerful and positive—Sesame Street versions of his songs. It’s the last thing he’d want anyone to know.”55

  When Lightnin’ was in the white world, he was often more withdrawn; he didn’t say much, but he was nonetheless self-assured and confident in his own ability to do whatever he pleased on stage. On April 10, 1979, Lightnin’ appeared in his fourth and final program at Carnegie Hall in a show called Blues ‘n’ Boogie that was organized by Christophe De Menil and her production company in New York. Anton J. Mikofsky, a blues fan and photographer, was hired to write the program notes and worked as a kind of consultant for De Menil. “She had a definite idea of who she wanted to book,” Mikofsky says, “but was open to suggestions. Her vision was that the superstar would be Clifton Chenier, the great zydeco accordion player from Louisiana. He hadn’t been in New York City since maybe the 1950s, when, I think, he played the Apollo, so this would be a comeback for him. And she arranged for Big Mama Thornton to be a special surprise guest with Clifton Chenier. And the second billing would either be John Lee Hooker or Lightnin’ Hopkins. As it turned out, the way the program reads, John Lee Hooker is second billing, and Lightnin’ Hopkins is third billing.”56

  Mikofsky had seen Lightnin’ on different occasions over the previous four or five years, and had had a chance to speak to him backstage. At the Village Gate, Mikofsky remembered one night seeing John Belushi at Lightnin’s show. “He was a big blues fan,” Mikofsky said, “long before he did The Blues Brothers, and he would hang out backstage, and instead of being a journalist or worshipping fan, he would take over. He was like a take-charge kind of guy, an aggressive type, not in a bad way necessarily, but one time, as I remember it, he set himself up as a kind of doorman. He was going to screen whoever was going to get access to the dressing room; he was the real boss of the door. He would keep the riff-raff out of Lightnin’s dressing room. Fortunately, I was already inside.”57

  Mikofsky found Lightnin’ to be very friendly, “but at the same time, he had a certain reserve. He was very laconic. I used to wonder about the older black guys, if it was growing up in a segregated society, where you had to kow-tow a little bit. You didn’t want to be another Emmett Till. But once you got to know these old black musicians, they warmed up a lot. Lightnin’ definitely felt that way with real blues fans that were sincere, or other musicians. For example, there was a piano in a rehearsal room back stage. This is Carnegie, and he actually sat down and he started playing piano a little bit. He was a little more versatile than people think…. Lightnin’ was definitely chatting with people … I didn’t feel any animosity or resentment or anything, but I know that maybe at some point in the past in the South, they had to be cautious or careful of what they did or what they said. Or adopt a kind of glowering personality like Howlin’ Wolf, who felt he had to be more aggressive.”58

  When Lightnin’ got to New York City for the Carnegie Hall show with Benson and Wrecks Bell, whom he had asked to come along as his bass player, Mikofsky was sensitive to Lightnin’s performance style and needs on stage and volunteered his services to find an appropriate drummer for the gig. “Lightnin’ felt,” Mikofsky says, “that he should be at least a trio, and drums would certainly round out his sound … and the best one that was available was Charles ‘HoneyMan’ Otis. He was, I think, from New Orleans, a very funky drummer. He had worked with a lot of various bands and black artists. So I fixed them up … and they got along famously. And they actually did very well together.”59

  On stage, Lightnin’ was at ease. Bell had played bass with Lightnin’ on numerous occasions, but hadn’t really traveled much with him. “We brought him because Lightnin’ basically liked him,” Benson says. “But he had been in a fight, and his face was all bandaged up. And I think we had to lend him the money to get
a tuxedo, but it all worked out in the end.”60

  During the show, Benson was backstage talking with John Lee Hooker. Hooker asked if Benson wouldn’t mind letting Lightnin’ know that he had a special request, and much to Hooker’s amazement, Benson acted on it immediately. He crept out on the stage in the middle of the set and whispered in Lightnin’s ear that Hooker wanted him to sing “Mr. Charlie.” “John Lee stuttered,” Benson says, “and that was one of his favorite songs [because it’s about a boy who stutters and gets beyond it by singing]. So it seemed like the moment I said the words ‘Mr. Charlie’, Lightnin’ hit the note and launched into the song.”

  For Christophe De Menil, Carnegie Hall was more than a concert; it was a social and media event. She planned a pre-party at Windows on the World on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and an after party at the restaurant One Fifth. “Look magazine,” Benson says, “even made some arrangement to take Lightnin’ on a carriage ride through Central Park and I had to go to do the sound check. Lightnin’ didn’t really like it…. He would have preferred to sit around the hotel and shoot the bull with Clifton and John Lee and the rest rather than being out on some publicity thing.” The Carnegie Hall show was nearly sold out, though Mikofsky said it was never his impression that De Menil ever thought she was going to make money. Benson recalls, “All the New York press came out—it was a hell of an affair. Paul Simon was on the guest list. George Plimpton and Lee Radziwill were there. Lightnin’ didn’t much care for the party at Windows on the World, but he liked One Fifth. In the middle of that party, everybody got sort of schnockered and women started taking their clothes off on the dance floor, and Lightnin’ was entranced. They were all getting naked and he was sitting back in a corner there.”61

  Lightnin’s performance at Carnegie Hall was high profile, and on June 20, 1979, the mayor of Houston issued a proclamation to celebrate “Lightnin’ Hopkins Day” as part of the Juneteenth Blues Festival, which included a parade down Dowling Street in the Third Ward that culminated with free concerts in Miller Outdoor Theater at Hermann Park. On August 3 and 4, Lightnin’ was one of the headliners at ChicagoFest, and on October 10, he appeared at the Armadillo in Austin. Lightnin’ was also invited back to New York to perform at the Lone Star Cafe by Christophe De Menil, who also provided Lightnin’ with lodging at her residence at Sutton Place.

  In 1980, Benson says he sensed that Lightnin’ was having health problems, but he wasn’t really sure. He had noticed how Lightnin’ had trouble finding the right food to eat for years, but it didn’t really click until later when he started having more serious symptoms. He didn’t eat much and he was getting thinner. Eventually Benson realized that Lightnin’s touring had declined not only because he didn’t like traveling, but because it simply became too difficult physically. However, Lightnin’ did not want to stop performing.

  For Lightnin’s sixty-eighth birthday, Benson says, Antoinette and Ron Wilson, who had accompanied him on his tour to Sweden and Germany, gave Lightnin’ a 1980 Gibson Custom Les Paul Silverburst guitar. By then Lightnin’ had established his guitar preferences and had become somewhat of a guitar collector. For years he played a small Harmony flat-top and a Gibson J-50 outfitted with a DeArmond soundhole pickup. But in the 1960s, he began using a Gibson J160E that he purchased at Ray Henning’s Heart of Music store in Austin, though he also liked to perform with his red Guild Starfire and Fender Stratocaster and sometimes even used a wah-wah pedal.62

  In June 1980, Lightnin’ was invited again to be a headliner at the Juneteenth Blues Festival, which was an event that had honored him the previous year and whose director, Lanny Steele, Lightnin’ liked a great deal. Onstage, no one knew exactly what to expect. Steve Ditzell, a guitarist for Koko Taylor’s band, was sitting backstage when Lightnin’ was about to go on. “I remember that day very well. I met him back stage and shook his hand. Well, he was getting ready to go do a gig, so [was] very reserved at that moment. He had a little 100-ml flask, one of the smaller ones, and he was working on that. He said, ‘That’s just enough,’ and he was with his wife [Antoinette]. They were both real cordial. You know, musicians before they play, they tend to be kind of withdrawn, because you’re psyching yourself; you’re getting ready to do a show. That’s the state of mind he was in.”63

  Muddy Waters had finished his set to loud applause, but this was Houston and the anticipation was building for Lightnin’. He wasn’t going to be upstaged. He was the headliner. “It was great,” Ditzell said. “He came out there and sat on one of those metal folding chairs. And he had a black Stratocaster and he had it turned up loud, and he just had a bass player and a drummer, and he sang into that mike, and when he wasn’t singing into that mike, he rocked back on that chair, back on the last two legs; thought he was going to tip over backwards a couple of times. And he would hit these notes with that Stratocaster, just grin at the sky…. It was fantastic. There were maybe four thousand people there and they were all just crazy over Lightnin’ Hopkins…. He was absolutely fuckin’ great. In fact, I’ve told friends of mine thinking back over the years, when I’ve been asked what is the one performance that stands out over anybody, and it was Lightnin’ Hopkins that day. He just tore that place up.”64

  Lightnin’ then traveled to Montreal, where he was recorded live at the Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club on July 22, 1980, by Doudou Boicel, the Canadian impresario who had also recorded him at the same venue on June 23, 1977. Clifford Antone then invited Lightnin’ to play at his club in Austin as part of a benefit for Clifton Chenier. While in Austin, Antone recalled, Lightnin’ liked to go fishing on Town Lake. “It was actually just an excuse to get out there and drink some beer,” Antone said. “He played at my club three or four times.”

  Lightnin’ returned to New York City to play at Tramps on August 8, and again from September 16 to 18, October 31, and November 1. Benson says that Tramps was owned by a Texan, who was able to pay well and take good care of him and Lightnin’ while they were there. Robert Palmer in an article in the New York Times prior to the October 31 show at Tramps, however, recounted an interaction he observed between Lightnin’ and an unnamed club owner, in which Lightnin’ demanded payment before playing. “He was flashing a gleaming, gold-toothed smile,” Palmer said, “and his powder blue suit was the brightest thing in the dingy nightclub basement, but his eyes were hidden behind dark sun glasses and it was impossible to read what was in them. He took a swallow of whisky, shook his head slowly from side to side, and looked up at the club owner, who was standing in the doorway of the dressing room. ‘You’ve got one more show to do, Lightnin’,” he said. Mr. Hopkins tapped a bulge in his hip pocket significantly; it could have been a wallet or a flask, but on the other hand … ‘If you want it now, Lightnin’, that’s no problem,’ said the club owner. Mr. Hopkins smiled even more broadly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I want it now.’ The club owner disappeared and Mr. Hopkins leaned back in his chair, emitting a short, dry laugh.”65

  Lightnin’ made his last trip out of the country to appear at the fourth annual Festival de Blues en México on October 15, 16, and 18, 1980. He had never been to Mexico City and Antoinette traveled with him. Lightnin’ was a headliner on a bill that included his old friend Willie Dixon, as well as Carey Bell, Eddie Clearwater, and Edwin Helfer. Jim O’Neal, who was then editor of Living Blues magazine, put the lineup together, and for Lightnin’, he hired Aaron Burton on bass and Steve Cushing on drums, both of whom were from Chicago. Cushing says he didn’t have much trouble following Lightnin’, though Burton had a little more difficulty because Lightnin’ changed his tempo unpredicatably. “When he came on stage, which was about the only time we saw him, he already had his guitar out of the case and he was carrying his guitar, it was a hollow body, by the neck, and he was wearing these beautiful cowboy boots and he had a bottle, I think it was Jack Daniels in the other hand. And he was with the most beautiful black woman [Antoinette] I had ever seen in my life. And she was over sixty years old. She was rea
lly statuesque. She made a real impression. I don’t remember if she was light-skinned or dark, but I do remember she had silver highlights in her hair.”66

  As Lightnin’ walked past Cushing and Burton, he said hi, but “that’s basically all he said,” Cushing recalls. “He never told us what to play or anything to do. He just expected that we’d be together enough to follow him. God, the guy had been playing for decades, so he’d probably been in every situation you could imagine. And the fact that we weren’t lost was probably a relief to him. He wasn’t hard to play behind. For a drummer, especially if you play a double shuffle, you’re always on the beat. The people who have problems are the melody instruments because they have to be in a certain key at a certain time. So it was much harder for Aaron Burton on bass than it was for me. Well we were scrambling trying to keep up with him, but we did. I guess we were just sort of laughing between ourselves at how Lightnin’ would jump. And when Lightnin’ jumped time, actually, it didn’t matter, I’d be right there with him.”67

  Lightnin’s set didn’t last very long. “I was really surprised,” Cushing says, “because we played really long sets in Chicago, and I guess, this was as close to the big time as I ever got, but if he played half an hour, I think that would have been stretching it.” The audience wanted to hear more music, and Lightnin’s conversational approach didn’t work very well because most of the people listening didn’t speak English. This was especially true when Lightnin’ did “Mr. Charlie,” which was clearly one of his concert favorites, but he did finally realize that there was a language problem and just played the songs.68