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Lightnin' hopkins wife

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Lightnin' Hopkins His Life And Blues BOOK

By the time of his death in 1982, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins was likely the most recorded blues artist in history. This brilliant new biography--the first book ever written about him--illuminates the many contradictions of the man and his myth.

Born in 1912 to a poor sharecropping family in the cotton country between Dallas and Houston, Hopkins left home when he was only eight years old with a guitar his brother had given him. He made his living however he could, sticking to the open road, playing the blues, and taking odd jobs when money was short. This biography delves into Hopkins’s early years, exploring the myths surrounding his meetings with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his relationships with women, and his lifelong appetite for gambling and drinking.

            Hopkins didn’t begin recording until 1946, when he was dubbed “Lightnin’” during his first session, and he soon joined Muddy Wat

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About

Details:352 pages, Hardcover, ISBN: 978-1556529627
Publisher: Chicago Review Press, May 2010
Format: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 in.

By the time of his death in 1982, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins was likely the most recorded blues artist in history. This brilliant new biography--the first book ever written about him--illuminates the many contradictions of the man and his myth.

Born in 1912 to a poor sharecropping family in the cotton country between Dallas and Houston, Hopkins left home when he was only eight years old with a guitar his brother had given him. He made his living however he could, sticking to the open road, playing the blues, and taking odd jobs when money was short. This biography delves into Hopkins’s early years, exploring the myths surrounding his meetings with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his relationships with women, and his lifelong appetite for gambling and drinking.

Hopkins didn’t begin recording until 1946, when he was dubbed “Lightnin’” during his first session, and he soon joined Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker o
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Remembering The Legacy Of Lightnin’ Hopkins: The Texas Troubadour


Texas bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins career was both long and fruitful. He performed live for six decades and recorded for over 30 years, amassing a catalogue that was larger than almost any of his contemporaries. Not only was he prolific, but he was also a great raconteur and a very good live performer with an act honed to perfection at pre-war dances and parties.

Born Sam Hopkins on March 15, 1912, his father was a musician who died when Sam was very young. The family moved to Leona in Texas where he grew up; in 1920 he watched Blind Lemon Jefferson at a picnic in Buffalo, Texas, which inspired him to make a “cigar box” guitar. His older brother Joel taught him to play the homemade guitar before his mother, Frances, encouraged him to play organ at her home church services. However, he was drawn to the music played by his older brothers Joel and John Henry. He soon dropped out of school and started work on a plantation. “I did a little plowin’ – not too much, chopped a li’l cotton, pulled a li’l corn. I did a

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