Lightnin' Hopkins/Sonny Terry: Last Night Blues [CONCORD JAZZ INC.]

Why you'll love it

This Bluesville Acoustic Sounds series edition is pressed on 180g vinyl in the USA, in a tip-on jacket with an obi strip. AllMusic called it a dynamite disc that represents what the blues should be.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Bluesville Acoustic Sounds series
• Tip-on jacket
• Obi strip
• Pressed in the USA
• Stereo mix

About the album

Lightnin' Hopkins learned his trade the old-fashioned way, at eight years old, from Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas. On October 26, 1960, he sat down at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with harmonica great Sonny Terry.

It's a stripped-back session, Hopkins' guitar and voice with Terry's harp and barely any percussion, and the two fit together like old friends on a porch. "Rocky Mountain" and "Got To Move You Baby" get things moving, the title track is slow and aching, and "Lightnin's Stroke" lets Hopkins show off his fingers. "Conversation Blues" closes with the pair trading lines, and The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings praised Terry's playing as entirely and discreetly responsive. All eight songs are credited to Hopkins, a Centerville, Texas native who made his name on Dowling Street in Houston's Third Ward.

Hopkins was one of the first inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and Rolling Stone later ranked him among the 100 greatest guitarists. Hopkins could fill a room on his own; with Terry beside him, it's a fuller room.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Bluesville / Craft Recordings (cat# CR00746), a reissue of the 1961 album.