Lightnin' Hopkins_ His Life and Blues - Alan Govenar [133]
Lightnin’ then traveled to Montreal, where he was recorded live at the Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club on July 22, 1980, by Doudou Boicel, the Canadian impresario who had also recorded him at the same venue on June 23, 1977. Clifford Antone then invited Lightnin’ to play at his club in Austin as part of a benefit for Clifton Chenier. While in Austin, Antone recalled, Lightnin’ liked to go fishing on Town Lake. “It was actually just an excuse to get out there and drink some beer,” Antone said. “He played at my club three or four times.”
Lightnin’ returned to New York City to play at Tramps on August 8, and again from September 16 to 18, October 31, and November 1. Benson says that Tramps was owned by a Texan, who was able to pay well and take good care of him and Lightnin’ while they were there. Robert Palmer in an article in the New York Times prior to the October 31 show at Tramps, however, recounted an interaction he observed between Lightnin’ and an unnamed club owner, in which Lightnin’ demanded payment before playing. “He was flashing a gleaming, gold-toothed smile,” Palmer said, “and his powder blue suit was the brightest thing in the dingy nightclub basement, but his eyes were hidden behind dark sun glasses and it was impossible to read what was in them. He took a swallow of whisky, shook his head slowly from side to side, and looked up at the club owner, who was standing in the doorway of the dressing room. ‘You’ve got one more show to do, Lightnin’,” he said. Mr. Hopkins tapped a bulge in his hip pocket significantly; it could have been a wallet or a flask, but on the other hand … ‘If you want it now, Lightnin’, that’s no problem,’ said the club owner. Mr. Hopkins smiled even more broadly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I want it now.’ The club owner disappeared and Mr. Hopkins leaned back in his chair, emitting a short, dry laugh.”65
Lightnin’ made his last trip out of the country to appear at the fourth annual Festival de Blues en México on October 15, 16, and 18, 1980. He had never been to Mexico City and Antoinette traveled with him. Lightnin’ was a headliner on a bill that included his old friend Willie Dixon, as well as Carey Bell, Eddie Clearwater, and Edwin Helfer. Jim O’Neal, who was then editor of Living Blues magazine, put the lineup together, and for Lightnin’, he hired Aaron Burton on bass and Steve Cushing on drums, both of whom were from Chicago. Cushing says he didn’t have much trouble following Lightnin’, though Burton had a little more difficulty because Lightnin’ changed his tempo unpredicatably. “When he came on stage, which was about the only time we saw him, he already had his guitar out of the case and he was carrying his guitar, it was a hollow body, by the neck, and he was wearing these beautiful cowboy boots and he had a bottle, I think it was Jack Daniels in the other hand. And he was with the most beautiful black woman [Antoinette] I had ever seen in my life. And she was over sixty years old. She was really statuesque. She made a real impression. I don’t remember if she was light-skinned or dark, but I do remember she had silver highlights in her hair.”66
As Lightnin’ walked past Cushing and Burton, he said hi, but “that’s basically all he said,” Cushing recalls. “He never told us what to play or anything to do. He just expected that we’d be together enough to follow him. God, the guy had been playing for decades, so he’d probably been in every situation you could imagine. And the fact that we weren’t lost was probably a relief to him. He wasn’t hard to play behind. For a drummer, especially if you play a double shuffle, you’re always on the beat. The people who have problems are the melody instruments because they have to be in a certain key at a certain time. So it was much