Lightnin' Hopkins_ His Life and Blues - Alan Govenar [109]
In 1966 it does not appear that Lightnin’ was recorded at all, aside from the live recordings that Chris Strachwitz made with him at the Second Annual Berkeley Blues Festival on April 15. He didn’t have another session until December 18, 1967, and when Strachwitz recorded him at his apartment in Houston, he was completely engaged: “Lightnin’ didn’t want to go to a studio, and he asked me to bring my stuff to his place. By that time, I had a two-channel Magnacord tape recorder and two mikes, one for his voice and one on the guitar amp. I made some suggestions, especially about ‘Bud Russell Blues.’ I had a copy of Lowell Fulson’s recording of ‘Penitentiary Blues,’ but I wanted Lightnin’ to do something like that. I also wanted him to do ‘Tom Moore’ because I had heard all of these different versions of it with lots of verses, by him on Gold Star and by Mance Lipscomb and Marcellus Thomas, who had been Big Joe Williams’s chauffeur back in 1960. ‘Tom Moore’ was the last song. He was getting ready to quit. But overall, there were no hassles during the sessions. He was at home and had no audience to act for.”17
After the session was completed, Strachwitz took him outside and photographed him in front of Johnnie Lee’s grocery store. Overall, the session was a great success and produced some of Lightnin’s finest recordings on Arhoolie, including the haunting “Slavery,” which was his ultimate statement on race in America and was never recorded again. In “Slavery,” Hopkins attacked the deference forced upon African Americans:
Thousands years my people was a slave
When I was born they teach me this way
One thousand years my people was a slave
When I was born they teach me this a way
Tip your hat to the peoples, be careful about what you say
As Lightnin’ sang, the counterpoint between the guitar and lyrics intensified:
I’m gonna get me a shotgun
And I won’t be a slave no more
“Slavery” may be Lightnin’s most powerful song in that it expressed the frustration and anger that he and his generation of African Americans must have felt, given the conditions of racism and discrimination they were subjected to. In addition to “Slavery,” Lightnin’s new versions of “Tim Moore’s Farm” (called on this LP “Tom Moore Blues”) and “Penitentiary Blues” (titled here “Bud Russell Blues”) had a freshness that underscored their strength.
“Bud Russell Blues” was a talking blues about a legendary lawman who worked as a transfer agent for the Texas prison system for thirty-nine years, beginning in 1905, and was known for his roughness and cruelty. When Russell retired in 1944, the Dallas Morning News reported that he had delivered 115,000 persons to prisons around the state and had handled many noted Texas criminals, including Clyde and Buck Barrow and Raymond Hamilton: “He told tough guys, ‘You’re just forty years too late if you think you’re tougher than I am.’”18
In “Bud Russell Blues” Lightnin’s voice was filled with the disdain of a convict sentenced to a prison farm in 1910. “Sure is hot out here,” he began, punctuating his words with a piercing guitar run, “Bud Russell don’t care…. You know, Bud Russell drove them pretty women just like he did them ugly men.” And in the end, he pleaded, “Please take care of my wife and child, I may not turn back to my home life,” warning, “You know, the next time the boss man hits me I’m gonna give him a big surprise, And I ain’t jokin’ neither.”
In contrast to the harshness of “Bud Russell Blues,” “Little Antoinette” was more sentimental as Lightnin’ expressed his deep affection for the woman he loved, but it was also tainted with a sense of remorse once she was gone from his bed.
You know, I looks over on the pillow where Little Antoinette used to lay
Felt on my pillow, yes pillow felt warm (x 2)
You know, you