Lightnin' Hopkins - Texas Blues Giant (the 1946-1954 recordings, 3xCD set, 2010)

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Po' Lightnin'

Samuel John Hopkins recorded between 800 and 1000 songs in his career! Though famous for his sunglasses he wasn't blind contrary to the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893-1929) that he met around 1920. This encounter impressed the young Sam so much that he built his first guitar using a wood box and making the strings from a chicken house wire screen! He learned how to play it from his older brother Joel.

Hopkins left school and started an itinerant life, working from farm to farm, and also occasionally accompanying Jefferson on guitar at  religious gatherings, Jefferson who reputedly never let anyone play with him except Hopkins. In the late 1920s he teamed up with country blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander, who was supposedly his distant older cousin, playing for tips at street corners and gigging in some low down blues joints.