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his music. By the 1960s some of his records, like those on Arhoolie and Prestige, were not only earning royalties from record sales, but he was beginning to realize income from his compositions via their publishers. However, after Lightnin’s death the amount of his royalties increased exponentially. For example, between 1962 and 1982, Lightnin’s Prestige albums earned approximately $8,410 in artist royalties and $1,580 in songwriter royalties after fees and expenses were recouped. But since 1983, Antoinette, as Lightnin’s heir, has received (from Prestige and its subsequent owners Fantasy and the Concord Music Group) in excess of $47,000 in artist royalties and $245,000 in songwriter royalties from airplay and covers (most notably by Huey Lewis in 1994 and Van Morrison in 2003).89 By comparison, Lightnin’s artist royalties from Arhoolie sales, after fees and expenses were recouped, have been relatively low: about $3,900 between 1962 and 1982, and more than $42,000 from 1983 to the present. However, the songwriter royalties from Strachwitz’s publishing company Tradition Music have been significantly less: about $2,100 during Lightnin’s lifetime, and about $6,000 since his death. While these figures are illuminating, they provide a limited view of Lightnin’s earning power. It’s difficult to establish how much, if anything, Lightnin’ was paid in royalties from his other contracts, especially since he usually sold his songs outright and wanted to be paid a flat fee of $100 per song. But this was not always the case. Prestige agreed to pay Lightnin’ an advance of only $500 for each album with a 20-cents-per-LP royalty, and Arhoolie paid about the same.

Yet of all the white producers who recorded Lightnin’, Benson said Lightnin’ liked Chris Strachwitz the best. “He thought he was the most real, most genuine, and fair person. He thought that Chris genuinely had come through and tried to give what was due to the people who produced the music. He thought Chris was not up to no good, and that he had always proven out what he said. He didn’t have too much respect for anybody else in that business, but he never said anything about Chris.”90

For Strachwitz, his working relationship with Lightnin’ was an outgrowth of his personal response to the music. In a condolence letter to Antoinette, sent four days after Lightnin’ died, Strachwitz wrote: “Meeting him first in 1959 was really a pilgrimage on my part to visit the man I admired most in my life. His voice and music had haunted me since I first heard him sing on his records over the radio in Los Angeles. I think I bought every 78 that came out by him and when I had a chance to go to Houston in 1959 I went…. Once I heard Sam playing in the beer joints making up these songs about anything that happened that day and about the folks right there in front of him I just couldn’t believe my ears! I had never heard anything quite like it in my life and have never heard anyone since then who could do this with the intensity Lightning put into his singing. That’s what started me thinking about wanting to make records.”91

Over the years Strachwitz had a satisfying relationship with Lightnin’, even though he not only paid relatively small advances, but his recordings were never big sellers. Strachwitz said, “I liked being with Lightnin’, and I feel we were able to connect in a very personal way. From the first time I met him, I had a sense that he was impressed or moved by the fact that I was simply a fan of his music and was so enthusiastic about him that I came all the way from California just to meet him, because all the other white guys that came his way were simply there to record him. And this held true through our years of knowing each other and carried into my interest in recording him and trying to get him booked in California. It wasn’t just a business thing. We’d hang out with each other. I’d drive to Los Angeles to pick him up after he finished at the Ash Grove, and took him to Berkeley, where he stayed often, first in my apartment, and then at my house, sometimes with Antoinette.