Lightnin' Hopkins: Lightnin' Hopkins (clear vinyl) [DESTINATION MOON]

Why you'll love it

This numbered edition comes on clear vinyl. The album relaunched Hopkins's career at the start of the late 1950s blues revival, and AllMusic calls it one of that revival's landmarks.

This edition

• Clear vinyl
• Numbered
• Limited edition

About the album

On January 16, 1959, the writer and folklorist Samuel Charters tracked Lightnin' Hopkins down in Houston, rented a one-room apartment on Hadley Street and asked him to play. Hopkins sat down with his guitar and did exactly that, and Folkways put the results out that year, just as Charters's book The Country Blues was introducing a new audience to the music.

Nothing stands between you and the man. "Penitentiary Blues" opens the album, "Bad Luck and Trouble" and "Come Go Home With Me" were written with folklorist Mack McCormick, and "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and "Reminiscences of Blind Lemon" honour Blind Lemon Jefferson, whom Hopkins met at a church picnic when he was eight and later backed on guitar. "Trouble Stay 'Way from My Door" and "She's Mine" stretch out with that loose, conversational picking.

Hopkins was among the first inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and Rolling Stone later counted him among the 100 greatest guitarists. Charters captured the whole album with a single microphone, which tells you roughly how much equipment genius actually needs.

Also at Kops: more Lightnin' Hopkins on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On Destination Moon (cat# DMOO019), a reissue of the 1959 album.