Lightnin' Hopkins_ His Life and Blues - Alan Govenar [13]
For a man who claimed to be in and out of jail a lot during the 1930s, Sam sang remarkably few, if any, original lyrics about his incarceration. Songs about prison experiences or run-ins with the law were fairly common in prewar blues, and were means for blues singers to present themselves as victims. While Sam may have exaggerated his jail time, he did indeed have tangible proof of his experiences, and when he started touring to festivals, folk clubs, and the white college circuit, he liked to show off the scars around his ankles.55 Back stage, he sometimes rolled up his pant leg and asked whomever he was talking to if they knew what those scars were from. Ultimately, what we know about Sam’s jail and chain-gang time is limited by what he decided to tell about those experiences, which actually isn’t very much. However, the large blank spots in his biography from 1930 to 1946 suggest the possibility of more jail time than Sam would later care to admit in the very selective interviews he gave. One has to wonder what got Sam sentenced to two hundred days on a bridge gang. Clearly he had a vicious temper and was prone to violence and aggravated assault during this period of his life, though it would not have taken much to land him in jail. Even a rather minor crime could have gotten a harsh sentence from a racist judge, and many completely innocent blacks served long sentences for things they didn’t do.
In his songs and in interviews, Sam usually shifted the focus from the crime to the punishment. He realized that it was in his best interest to portray himself as a victim who was able to triumph over his adversity. For example, in discussing one of his chain gang experiences, he began by asking, “You drive up around Crockett on them roads?” He then elaborated, “Well, I built roads by myself with a chain locked around this ankle. See the scar there, festering and scabby, ain’t it? Back in ‘37 or so. That judge came and says to turn me loose after I’d sung him a song about ‘How bad and how sad to be a fool.’”56 Here, Sam was in effect demonstrating his ability to adapt the Leadbelly prison release legend to his own purpose, as had Texas Alexander before him.57 Jail and the chain gang were integral to the persona he wanted to project and to the myth he built for himself. Hardship and suffering engaged the listener, and the ironic humor with which he articulated his plight in his lyrics boosted his stature as a man of words. Certainly, Sam did his best to stay out of jail, but the hardheaded recklessness that got him there also energized his music.
Perhaps Sam’s physical appearance played a role in the way he presented himself. He was of average height, but he was frail and skinny and could have easily been overcome in a fistfight. Maybe he adopted his knife-and gun-toting persona as a defense mechanism and as a means to establish that he could take care of himself if he needed to in the rough and violent worlds of the juke joints that were the lifeblood of his music.
Hopkins grew up fast, and by the time he was a teenager, he was ostensibly an adult; he had served jail time, worked as a farm worker, played music on the streets for tips, and traveled around East and Central Texas as a hobo. On September 21, 1928, at age sixteen, he married Elamer Lacy, also known as “Noona.” A year later, on August 29, his daughter Anna Mae was born.58 “My dad was a person that everybody liked that knew him,” Anna Mae recalled. “He’d sit there with his leg crossed and look out the window. And they’d come by and holler at him. He was a joyful person.”59 But he hated working in the fields. “It was hard times,” Sam said. “I was working in the fields, trying to take care of my wife, me, and my mother. Six bits a day. And that was top price. And I swear, I’d come in the evening, and look like I’d be so weak till my knees would be clucking like a wagon wheel. I’d go to bed, I’d say, ‘Baby, well I just can’t continue like this.’”60
But it wasn’t only the farm work that was a problem for Sam. “Me and my first wife were together