Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

This week, we’re celebrating Texas country blues musician Lightnin’ Hopkins. Born Samuel Hopkins on March 15, 1912, as a youngster he met influential blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic — and from that point forward, Hopkins was hooked on the blues.

While he was busking in Houston in his early 30s, Hopkins was heard by record-label rep Lola Anne Cullum, who invited Hopkins to travel to Los Angeles to record some songs for Aladdin Records in 1946. It was during that recording session in L.A. that a record executive gave Sam Hopkins the nickname “Lightnin’”.

Hopkins returned to Texas where he continued writing and performing, and was named Houston’s poet in residence, a title he held for 35 years. Hopkins was prolific in the studio, recording innumerable tracks. In a 2007 article in Texas Monthly, Michael Hall writes, “In thirty years of recording, [Hopkins] created a body of work as wide, deep, and maddening as anyone’s in American music history: some five hundred songs, or maybe six hundred, or maybe seven hundred.”

In 1959, Hopkins’ star rose concurrently with the folk revival. In 1960, Lightnin’ Hopkins performed at Carnegie Hall in New York. That same year, Hopkins signed with New York City record label Tradition, where he recorded his iconic album Mojo Hand. We’ll hear the title track from that record.

Hopkins would go on to record more albums than any blues musician to date, and he spent the rest of his career touring in the United States and internationally (although he apparently hated to fly). 

In Houston on January 30, 1982, Hopkins died of esophageal cancer at the age of 69. As Hall writes in Texas Monthly, “Until Beyoncé came along, Lightnin’ was Houston’s most famous musical celebrity.”

Classic Americana Playlist

External Link

Norman Blake – Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum