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Lightnin' Hopkins

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dave stott:
Does anyone have an idea as to when Lightnin Hopkins switched from acoustic guitar to electric?

I am trying to find the recordings in which he plays acoustic guitar....

Most of the CD's I have have so much "twang" in the guitar, it is tough to determine if it is an electric guitar causing it or if he is playing close to the bridge to get the "twang".

Rivers:
Probably that DeArmond pickup he stuck on his Gibson at some point. I'd also like to know where the definitive Lightnin' acoustic recordings are collected all in one place. I have smatterings spread over a few CDs. I've come to accept that I have to put on my Sam Hopkins sunglasses when I listen to him and just ease into it.

Bunker Hill:
The sixty-five "rediscovery" recordings done for Mack McCormick between 16th February 1959 and 8 December 1959 were all with acoustic guitar. I think some of the Prestige/Bluesville sessions were too.

Three or so months back in another thread I did offer up a chronological 1946-80 LH session discography (i.e role of accompanist too) which I cobbled together a few years ago. I only had two takers. Whilst this obviously doesn't show which guitar was in use at any particular time it is useful at identifying the McCormick or Prestige sessions.

Bunker Hill:
The following few paragraphs come from Charlotte Phelan's lengthy feature "Song Maker" in the Houston Post, 23 August 1959. She attended some of the recording sessions that McCormick held at Sam's home:

In the light of day, Hopkins is a quiet, self-contained man with deep-seated dignity. The other day he was pensive, remote, reluctantly responsive, even after his regular breakfast of two bottles of beer, which are always supported during the day with similar sustenance.

Sitting on the chenile-covered bed in the simple room he rents in a private home just off Dowling Street, Lightning's slender, strong fingers with their thorny, calloused tips worried aimlessly at the steel strings of his guitar.

Finally, acceding to McCormick's prodding, he began, "The day is dark and cloudy...old Lightning gonna get rich againand go on and shake hands with all my friends..." Complex figurations on the guitar were minor, somber-hued, penetrating.

But at night, in the magic milieu of one of his dance halls where he is surrounded by a crush of intense and voluable admirers, Lightning becomes vitalized, frenetic. Audience and performer float up on a expanding bubble of mutual joy.

For such engagements, Hopkins rejects a standard guitar in favor of an electrically amplified instrument, and blandly ignores the expressed objections of McCormick and other purists. Lightning makes his point about needing amplification: "It gets so noisy, my sound is taken away from me. I can't hear myself."

Bunker Hill:
This is just one of a series of photos taken by Andrew Hanson at the Houston Folklore Group's "Hootenanny" in the Summer of 1959. This was LH's first experience before a concert audience or before a predominately white audience of any kind.

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