Lightnin' Hopkins

thumb|300px|right''During the day I listened to the pop stations KLIF and KBOX, as did, it seemed, almost everyone in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Apart from the occasional terrible novelty record....KLIF and KBOX played wonderful music, with KBOX seeming perhaps a little more juvenile, a little more downmarket. As a guide to how good the music was, Lightnin' Hopkins had a number-one chart hit on KLIF with "Mojo Hand". If that means nothing to you, it's time to make some serious adjustments to your life .'' (John Peel in Margrave of the Marches, p.151)

Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins (1912-1982) was a blues singer, songwriter and guitarist from Houston, Texas. His long career began in the country blues era (in his youtth he worked as an accompanist to the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson) and flourished in the post-World War Two period when urban blues was popular with black audiences, with a succession of R&B hits. His music still retained a rural flavour, and he had the country bluesman's ability to be a self-sufficient solo performer, improvising on guitar and composing new songs based on old blues structures. Because of ths, he was discovered by the predominantly white public of the 1960s folk and blues revival and this further increased his renown. He continued to record prolifically and toured both in the USA and overseas.

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