Lightnin' Hopkins_ His Life and Blues - Alan Govenar [128]
Funderburgh learned quickly what he needed to do. “He was very difficult to follow because he kind of changed chords whenever he wanted to change chords. It was a slow blues, so it was built around a three-chord slow blues thing, but he may play an extra measure of the one chord and then switch real quick down to the four, and then back to the one. The whole key to following Lightnin’ Hopkins was to really listen to where his vocals were going. He didn’t follow a hard pattern.”39
Doyle Bramhall concurs, “He [Lightnin’] was a tough bird. There weren’t any rehearsals or sound checks or anything like that. You just showed up, and you immediately jumped in the deep end. He made you pay attention, so my deal was to just stay in the groove, in the pocket. But he would stop the whole show with a packed show at the Granada and say, ‘Man, this bass player just got to get it together.’ He never did it to Anson, and he never did it to me. But he gave bass players a hard time. He used to say, ‘Lightnin’ change when Lightnin’ change,’ as far as his chord playing went.”40
After the first set, the band went backstage and Lightnin’ held court, Bramhall says. “When Lightnin’ came into a room, he was the center of attention, and he was that way without ever trying. Here we were, a bunch of white kids, just soaking up everything he had to say.”41
“He was like a hero,” Funderburgh adds, “I was just kind of hanging on to every word that he said. And we were all backstage, and he looked over at me, and I guess I had done a pretty good job because I felt like he kind of took to me somehow. I was surprised because he remembered my name. He said, ‘Anson, go get Lightnin’ a beer,’ And so I just hopped right up and ran over and got him a can of Pearl. And right when I leaned down to give it to him, I popped the top. And it was like I was froze in time. I’m sure it wasn’t very long, but it seemed like hours had gone by. I’m standing there holding this beer and he would never take it from me. And finally he looked up at me and goes, ‘Anson, don’t ever drink from something someone opened for you. Now, go get Lightnin’ a Pearl.’ So, I just jumped on over there and got him another Pearl and let him open it. And he drank it right down.”42
Funderburgh was needless to say a little embarrassed, but Lightnin’ didn’t rub it in. He just wanted his needs to be met on his terms. “Lightnin’ knew what he was doing,” Bramhall says, “Him being the teacher and all of us being his students. He would be backstage: Would you get ole Lightnin’ a cigarette, or would you get ole Lightnin’ his guitar or whatever. We didn’t mind doing it because he was Lightnin’.”43
Yet Lightnin’ and his sidemen were worlds apart, not only in terms of their musical backgrounds and worldview, but most noticeably in appearance. “We were hippies,” Funderburgh says. “I had hair down to probably the middle of my back and a feathered earring in my left ear with bell-bottom blue jeans and house slippers called Jiffy’s that I wore all the time. They [Bramhall, Benno, and Rogers] looked about the same.”44 And Hopkins wore suits: “He was a slick dresser with a lot of gold,” Bramhall adds, “and he was very articulate. He always had a tie. He always dressed really sharp. His shoes were shined so bright you could see your face in them.”45
Tim “Mit” Schuller in his Living Blues review of the Granada show was far more critical than the musicians themselves, describing the opening act as a “miserable four man aggregation introduced as the Lightnin’ Hopkins warm-up band. No more need be said about them except to point out that their rhythm guitarist was Marc Benno and their lead guitarist was of the type who have given white blues musicians a bad name.”46
According to Schuller, when Lightnin’ finally took the stage in a “highly theatrical walk-on,” he took “an absurdly long time