Lightnin' Hopkins_ His Life and Blues - Alan Govenar [139]
“One time I was driving Lightnin’ to play at the Little Theatre in Carmel, California and I stopped at my mother’s house. She actually cooked a chicken for us—although she was not known to cook much at all! My sister Frances—who was working in Germany when I went with Lightnin’ with the AFBF in ‘64—remembered meeting us back stage in Frankfurt and when I introduced her to Lightnin’—he at once told her how our mother cooked a chicken for us when he played in Carmel!
“But by the 1970s, I didn’t see Lightnin’ as often. He became so busy and played extended gigs at bigger venues, like the Fillmore. And by then, he had recorded tons of stuff. The last time I saw him was in San Francisco a year before he died. He played so good—that electric box sounded like those sides he did for Herald—some of my favorites.”92
Strachwitz felt that Antoinette had essentially saved Lightnin’s life, and in his condolence letter to her, he wrote: “I … want to let you know how he admired and loved you…. He would always tell me how you got him off the wine and really saved him—I am sure Sam would have left us much earlier if you had not been with him over the years—but you had a strong influence on him in many ways.”93
In assessing Lightnin’s legacy, it is difficult to come to a definitive conclusion. John Corry, writing in the New York Times in 1980, wrote that “Sam ‘Lightnin’ Hopkins … may just possibly be the single greatest influence upon rock guitarists,” though this was clearly an overstatement.94 It’s not to say that he didn’t have an impact upon many blues and blues/folk/rock musicians. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmie Vaughan, Anson Funderburgh, and Billy Gibbons, among other white blues rockers, as well as singer/songwriters Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, John David Bartlett, and Bernie Pearl, have certainly acknowledged his influence, as did his cousin Albert Collins, Juke Boy Bonner, Johnny Copeland, Joe Hughes, Texas Johnny Brown, and Freddie King.
Moreover, Lightnin’ influenced blues players in not only Southern states, such as Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, but in other regions of the country and abroad. In Baton Rouge, for example, Lightnin’ Slim (a.k.a. Otis Hicks) even appeared to have taken his nickname from Hopkins. Lightnin’ was an effective songwriter, who had a fairly simple guitar style that could be readily grasped and imitated by beginning blues guitarists.95
“A lot of times you have people,” Benson remarked, “especially white musicians, who have used Lightnin’ as a way to push their own career. Everybody can go back and say Lightnin’ influenced them, and say ‘I played with Lightnin’ Hopkins,’ but Lightnin’ was the kind of guy who let anybody come up on the stage, not that they could stay now, because if they couldn’t play, or they pissed him off, he’d chase them off the stage as quick as he would let them on. So anybody could come to any show, and say, ‘Lightnin’, can I play with you tonight?’ And he’d say, ‘C’mon, get on up there.’ So when people come back and say, ‘I played with Lightnin’ Hopkins,’ they weren’t necessarily the people who were steady. For example, Rusty [Hill], a red-headed guy, was a bass player Lightnin’ preferred cause Rusty had a family. He would drive his own car to wherever Lightnin’ went, and Lightnin’ liked Rusty. So he would always get me to go find Rusty to play. Tommy Shannon, who played with Stevie Ray, was another one he liked. He played with Lightnin’ all the time. So he would tell me to find Tommy to play bass. Lightnin’ thought of Stevie [Ray Vaughan] the way he thought of all these other guys. And he knew Jimmie [Vaughan] before he knew Stevie because we played at the Texas Chitlin’ Cook-off at Manor Downs in Austin with the Thunderbirds. They were all just