Lightnin' Hopkins_ His Life and Blues - Alan Govenar [108]
The English blues writer Mike Leadbitter happened to be in Houston at the time of the filming and wrote vividly about his impressions. He appeared for a second in the film, sitting behind Lightnin’ at the rodeo, and recalled: “We pulled in to the rodeo, which was an exclusively Negro affair, and were pleased to see the imposing figure of John Lomax Jr., standing by the arena. Clutching beer cans we climbed up to the very familiar sight of Lightnin’ sitting behind dark glasses high in the stands. After much hand shaking and cries of recognition, we sat to watch the show and talk. I was introduced to Skipper and Les, the Flower Films men, who were busy shooting the rodeo and Lightnin’ from every conceivable position…. To a lad from Sussex, the whole scene was almost too fascinating to keep up with. I have a vivid recollection of a thrown rider lying in a wheelbarrow with a broken ankle, a game of Georgia Skin behind the toilets, endless cans of beer being passed around and the steady stream of jive between Lightnin’ and just about everyone.”14
Particularly striking in The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins is the cinematography and the roving camera that provides a visual bed for Lightnin’s stories and excerpts from his songs that are performed by him, accompanied by Bizor, and in one scene by rub board player Cleveland Chenier. The blues is rough and headstrong, and some of the most powerful moments are intercut with wild harmonica solos by Billy Bizor, who, at one point, breaks down and falls to his knees. As Roger Greenspun pointed out in his review of the film in the New York Times, “Hopkins himself controls the film’s moods. Not so much in his exposition of the meaning of the blues as in what he makes of them when he sings and plays his guitar. In this he is very fine—with wit, virtuosity, and the immersion in his medium that is a music maker’s true exemplary magic.”15 While The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins is in the end a romanticized portrait, it is at once poetic and poignant, which is remarkable, given the experience Blank and Gerson had with Lightnin’ in the making of the film.
Soon after Blank and Gerson completed production of the film, the Houston Chronicle published the longest article about Lightnin’ to run in a local paper in his lifetime. Titled “The Day Lightnin’ Hopkins Went Home” and featured as the cover story of the Chronicle Sunday magazine on July 30, 1967, writer Jeff Millar, after recounting an overview of Lightnin’s career, commented: “An astounding number of people in Houston, Hopkins’ adopted city, haven’t the slightest idea who he is or why we’re devoting a considerable amount of energy to telling you about him. It’s one of the quiet ironies of Hopkins’ life that he’s uncelebrated, except by a few, in his hometown [Houston] and rather a famous person in areas of the West Coast and in New York City. His celebrity is such that a team of California filmmakers, Les Blank and Skip Gerson, followed him around for a couple of weeks during the spring.” While Millar pointed out the irony of Lightnin’s “uncelebrated” life in Houston, Leadbitter had a completely different perception and wrote that in the Third Ward, Lightnin’ “called himself ‘The King of Dowling Street’ and got away with it.”16
In 1969, Blank finished a short sequel to The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins titled The Sun’s Gonna Shine, which combines some of the same footage with new material, featuring the young Wendell Anderson to recreate Lightnin’s decision at age eight to stop chopping cotton and start singing for a living. Years later, Blank also edited together his outtakes into a short piece, in which Lightnin’ sings a version of “Mr. Charlie, Your Rollin’ Mill is Burnin’ Down.”
The difficulties that Blank and Gerson encountered struggling to film Lightnin’ were in part a result of the fact that in the mid-1960s his career was going full tilt. Lightnin’ could pick and choose what he wanted to do. When it came to recording and performing outside the Third Ward, he would only work if