The Best of Austin City Limits: Big Blues Extravaganza!

Pretty self-explanatory, great line up of artists performing live on the set of Austin City Limits.  Ripped from my CD with EAC to FLAC.  Scans includes a fold out poster... enjoy!!!


1. Albert Collins - Travelin' South  4:39
2. Lightnin' Hopkins - Rock Me Baby  3:48
3. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Love Struck Baby  3:02
4. Jimmie Vaughan and the Tilt-A-Whirl Band - Six Strings Down  4:16
5. Miss Lavelle White - I've Never Found a Man to Love  3:35
6. Keb' Mo' - Tell Everybody I Know  3:31
7. Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Born in Louisiana  4:20
8. Dr. John - Since I Fell for You  4:36
9. Buddy Guy - Mary Had a Little Lamb   5:30
10. Taj Mahal - Queen Bee  5:48
11. The Neville Brothers - Yellow Moon  6:14
12. Rory Block - Big Road Blues  2:15
13. W. C. Clark - Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away  5:31
14. B. B. King - Night Life  6:17
15. Delbert McClinton - Leap of Faith  4:02

Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin' & Co. / Smokes Like Lightnin'

BVLP 1061   Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin' & Co.

Billy Bizor (hca, vo) Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Spider Kilpatrick (d)

Houston, TX, February 17, 1962

 

Buster Pickens (p) Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Donald Cooks (b) Spider Kilpatrick (d)

Houston, TX, February 20, 1962

 

Lightnin' Hopkins went from gigging at back-alley gin joints to starring at collegiate coffeehouses, appearing on TV programs, and touring Europe to boot. His once-flagging recording career went right through the roof, with albums for World Pacific; Vee-Jay; Bluesville; Bobby Robinson's Fire label (where he cut his classic "Mojo Hand" in 1960); Candid; Arhoolie; Prestige; Verve; and, in 1965, the first of several LPs for Stan Lewis' Shreveport-based Jewel logo. Hopkins generally demanded full payment before he'd deign to sit down and record, and seldom indulged a producer's desire for more than one take of any song. His singular sense of country time befuddled more than a few unseasoned musicians; from the 1960s on, his solo work is usually preferable to band-backed material. Filmmaker Les Blank captured the Texas troubadour's informal lifestyle most vividly in his acclaimed 1967 documentary, The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins. As one of the last great country bluesmen, Hopkins was a fascinating figure who bridged the gap between rural and urban styles. - AMG

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BVLP 1070   Lightnin' Hopkins - Smokes Like Lightning

Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo)

Houston, TX, January, 1962

 

Billy Bizor (hca, vo) Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Spider Kilpatrick (d)

Houston, TX, February 17, 1962

 

Buster Pickens (p) Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Donald Cooks (b) Spider Kilpatrick (d)

Houston, TX, February 20, 1962

 

One of the most weirdly compelling elements of Smokes Like Lightnin' is Mack McCormick's liner notes, reproduced from the original 1963 LP. Almost breathtaking in their ferocity, McCormick's notes characterize Hopkins as a spoiled crybaby whose only redeeming quality is his ability to make music. The album, recorded in three 1962 sessions, consists simply of Hopkins and his guitar, except for three songs that are performed with a full band. The sound is spare and very loose, with a re-recording of "T Model Blues" and the dance song "Let's Do the Susie-Q," a musical exhortation that seems unlikely to inspire dancing. A brief and uneven album, Smokes Like Lightnin' is less compelling than Hopkins' '50s recordings, but strikes an appealingly lazy acoustic groove.  - Greg Adams/AMG

Lightnin' Hopkins - Blues In My Bottle / Walkin This Road By Myself

BVLP 1045   Lightnin' Hopkins - Blues In My Bottle                     

Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo)

Houston, TX, July 26, 1961

The late great Lightnin' Hopkins was one of the most natural of bluesmen, a poet who would often make up lyrics as he recorded. He was at his best when unaccompanied, as on this 1961 Prestige date. Though he usually played electric guitar, the Texas blues titan performed on this release with an acoustic, and the result is most rewarding. Tunes include "Goin' to Dallas to See My Pony Run" and "Buddy Brown's Blues."  - Roundup Newsletter/AMG

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BVLP 1057   Lightnin' Hopkins - Walkin' This Road By Myself

Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo)

Houston, TX, July 7, 1961

Billy Bizor (hca, vo) Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Spider Kilpatrick (d)

Houston, TX, February 17, 1962

Buster Pickens (p) Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Donald Cooks (b) Spider Kilpatrick (d)

Houston, TX, February 20, 1962

Lightnin' Hopkins had a hard and fast approach to dealing with the abundance of record labels he recorded for during his career. The irascible bluesman would show up at the session in question but would refuse to play a note until he was paid his fee upfront. Once paid and satisfied, he'd unpack his stock set of boogie blues riffs and pretty much improvise songs on the spot until he'd fulfilled his agreed upon quota. Then he would leave. This system led to an awful lot of similarly constructed and executed throwaway tracks, but Hopkins had a special gift for personalizing the blues that came through in the best of these improvised songs, and a few gems always showed up in the process. This disc features Hopkins with drummer Spider Kilpatrick, harmonica player Billy Bizor, and pianist Buster Pickens,  produced by Kenneth S. Goldstein and Mack McCormick. The end result is a pleasant representation of what Hopkins did both as a solo act, when he was arguably at his best, and with a small, sympathetic combo. - Steve Leggett/AMG

Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin' / Last Night Blues

Sam Hopkins was born on March 15, 1912 in Centerville, Texas. In 1920, at the age of eight, Hopkins met and played with the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson, even becoming Jefferson’s guide for a short time. Hopkins’ cousin, the great bluesman, Texas Alexander, was another influence. Their musical partnership was broken up by Hopkins’ time in Houston’s County Prison Farm during the 1930s.

When Hopkins made his way to Houston’s Third Ward in 1946 he was introduced to Lola Anne Cullum, a talent scout who had pieced together deals with companies such as Aladdin Records out of Los Angeles. She paired up Hopkins with a piano player by the name of Wilson “Thunder” Smith and came up with the name “Lightnin’” as an obvious match. It stuck.

Hopkins had no little success with a release named “Katie May,” cut on November 9, 1946. After that came a series of releases on the Aladdin label - “Shotgun Blues,” “Short Haired Woman,” “Abilene” and “Big Mama Jump.” The blues floodgate had opened. What followed was more than thirty years of albums on everything from small, obscure labels to big ones. The list includes Modern/RPM, Gold Star, Mercury, Jax, Decca, Astan, and Herald. During this period he cut some of the most ferocious blues guitar mixed with what he called “air songs,” meaning those where he’d just pull the lyrics right out of the air on the spot.

Hopkins’ career faded until a folklorist by the name of Mack McCormick rediscovered him and presented him under the growing label of “folk artist.” It made no difference to Lightnin’ what they called him, he played as he always had. In 1959 he worked with Sam Charters on Folkway Records to record a groundbreaking solo album in Hopkins’ apartment on a borrowed guitar. Again, Hopkins’ career was off and running “like a turkey through the corn.”

More albums than can be counted followed, including those on labels such as Candid, Arhoolie, Prestige, Verve, Jewel, World Pacific, Bluesville, Fire and Vee-Jay. For an upfront fee, the whiskey- or gin-flavored albums were often recorded by tiny, obscure one-person labels. Since Hopkins had the gift of the air song, he had no shortage of material. The songs would range from intense, deep-tissue blues to some of the more surrealistic ever recorded as he reached for rhymes.

An apocryphal story of Hopkins as a performer involved Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. Supposedly, Gibbons heard Hopkins play at a coffeehouse and muttered, “He doesn’t even know when to change chords.” Hopkins was standing behind Gibbons and leaned forward, surprising the teenager with “Lightnin’ change when Lightnin’ want to.”

Indeed, Hopkins had a bag of licks and patterns that fit largely into two divisions — slow E and Fast E - with an occasional venture into A. His rhythm and the chord changes went with his feelings at that moment in time and, as such, made it difficult for other musicians to follow. With a few exceptions, his recordings with hired bands later in his life become hopelessly entangled - to quote a Hopkins song - “like a ball of twine.”

Hopkins didn’t do much of in the way of recording after 1974. He died in Houston on January 30, 1982.

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 BVLP 1019   Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin'

Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Leonard Gaskin (b) Belton Evans (d)

Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 9, 1960

Recorded for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary in 1960 and reissued on CD for Fantasy's Original Blues Classics (OBC) series in 1990, Lightnin' is among the rewarding acoustic dates Lightnin' Hopkins delivered in the early '60s. The session has an informal, relaxed quality, and this approach serves a 48-year-old Hopkins impressively well on both originals like "Thinkin' 'Bout an Old Friend" and the familiar "Katie Mae" and enjoyable interpretations of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee's "Back to New Orleans" and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "Mean Old Frisco." Hopkins' only accompaniment consists of bassist Leonard Gaskin and drummer Belton Evans, both of whom play in an understated fashion and do their part to make this intimate setting successful. From the remorseful "Come Back Baby" to more lighthearted, fun numbers like "You Better Watch Yourself" and "Automobile Blues," Lightnin' is a lot like being in a small club with Hopkins as he shares his experiences, insights and humor with you.  - Alex Henderson/AMG

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BVLP 1029   Lightnin' Hopkins With Sonny Terry - Last Night Blues

Sonny Terry (hca) Lightnin' Hopkins (g, vo) Leonard Gaskin (b) Belton Evans (d)

Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 26, 1960

Outside of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin' Hopkins may be Texas's most distinctive and influential blues export. His easy, fluid fingerpicking and witty, extemporaneous storytelling are always a delight, and his performances on LAST NIGHT BLUES are no exception. The album is spare and acoustic, with Hopkins's voice and guitar accompanied by minimal percussion and Sonny Terry's harmonica.

Terry's contributions really add a lot to these tunes, threading a high, lonesome whine on the downtempo tunes and a chugging, propulsive shuffle on the faster ones. Hopkins is, of course, one of the kings of the blues boogie, but he's equally compelling on the slow blues, and he never missteps throughout this fine set. All told, this dynamite disc represents what the blues should be: stripped-down, soulful, and full of truth. - Rovi/AMG