Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin' Hopkins (1959)

Artist: Lightnin' Hopkins

Album: Lightnin' Hopkins

Genre: Blues

Released: 1959 [1990]

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Originally released as The Roots of Lightnin' Hopkins, Smithsonian/Folkways' Lightnin' Hopkins was recorded in 1959. Upon its initial release, it was a pivotal part of the blues revival and helped re-spark interest in Hopkins. Before it was recorded, the bluesman had disappeared from sight; after a great deal of searching, Sam Charters found Hopkins in a rented one-room apartment in Houston. Persuading Lightnin' with a bottle of gin, Charters convinced Hopkins to record ten songs in that room, using only one microphone. The resulting record was one of the greatest albums in Hopkins' catalog, a skeletal record that is absolutely naked in its loneliness and haunting in its despair. These unvarnished performances arguably capture the essence of Lightnin' Hopkins better than any of his other recordings, and it is certainly one of the landmarks of the late-'50s/early-'60s blues revival.

AllMusic Review by Thom Owens

Tracklist

1. Penitentiary Blues

2. Bad Luck And Trouble

3. Come Go Home With Me

4. Trouble Stay 'Way from My Door

5. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

6. Goin' Back to Florida

7. Reminiscenses of Blind Lemon

8. Fan It

9. Tell Me Baby

10. She's Mine

FLAC (tracks+.cue)