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of Lightnin’s 1950s recordings, wrote, “Our finances were completed at the end of every session.”65 Moreover, he said that Hopkins “would carry his money in his shoes or some hidden pocket,” and when he came to New York “once to do some sessions, he left the same night for home as the big city scared the devil out of him.” At that point in his life, Lightnin’ didn’t know anyone in New York, and the city was no doubt overwhelming.

Shad, like his contemporaries—the Mesners at Aladdin, the Chesses at Chess, and the Biharis at Modern—marketed his records exclusively for an African American audience, and the competition among them was fierce. For a brief period in the early 1950s, down-home blues was steadily selling on the Billboard charts, prompting columnist Hal Webman, on February 2, 1952, to write: “For the first time in many months, the down-home Southern-style blues appears to have taken a solid hold in the current market. Down-home blues had been taking a back seat to the big city blues, good rocking novelties and vocal quartet ballads for quite a good while. However, the Southern blues appears to have opened up to its widest extent in some time, and the lowdown stuff has been cropping up as bestselling of late…. Such artists as … Sonny Boy Williamson, Lightnin’ Hopkins … Muddy Waters, etc., have taken fast hold in such market areas as New Orleans, Dallas, Los Angeles, etc. Even the sophisticated big towns, like New York and Chicago, have felt the Southern blues influence in wax tastes.”66

Within weeks of Webman’s “Rhythm and Blues Notes” column, Bobby Shad released Lightnin’s “Give Me Central 209” on his Sittin’ In With label, and it quickly rose to the Billboard charts, where it stayed for six weeks and peaked at #6. “Give Me Central 209” expressed the down-home message of longing and despair that was also found in the music of John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, among others, but Lightnin’s performance style was distinctive in the marketplace. The words rung out with a deep sincerity that underscored the resonance of his country-tinged electric guitar and that pathos at that moment had great appeal.

“Give Me Central 209” had its origins in “Hello Central, Give Me Heaven,” which, according to McCormick, dated back to 1901 and was a sentimental song that “represented a child innocently trying to reach her deceased father.” McCormick pointed out that by 1909 Leadbelly was singing ‘Hello, Central, Give Me Long Distance ‘Phone” around Tell, Texas, and “the telephone idea was becoming a traditional opening gambit with which to link various leavingblues verses. (Tin Pan Alley returned during World War I with ‘Hello, Central, Give Me No Man’s Land’ and King Oliver produced ‘Hello, Central, Give Me Doctor Jazz.’) The number most often called is 209, just as in train-blues it is most often 219 that figures.”67 In Lightnin’s version, he was trying to reach out to his “baby,” but to no avail.

Hello Central, please give me 209 (x2)

You know, I want to talk to my baby, oh Lord, she’s way on down the line

Seems like the buses done stop runnin’, the trains don’t allow me to ride no more (x2)

Ticket agent say my ticket played out, he’ll see that I don’t ride for sure

What was not said was amplified in the emotions of the stinging call and response he evoked in the plucking of the strings of his amplified guitar with his bare index finger.

Five weeks after “Give Me Central 209” hit the Billboard charts, Bobby Shad released Lightnin’s “Coffee Blues,” which also made it to #6, but was only on the chart for two weeks. The strength of “Coffee Blues” was that it characterized the mundane tension of the day-to-day life of the average worker. It was at once ironic and caustic in the way it described “papa” being mad at “mama” because she didn’t bring any coffee home. But the song was probably also helped by the popular familiarity of the chorus, which Lightnin’ lifted from the Buddy Johnson Orchestra’s early hit “I Ain’t Mad With You.”

Texas Johnny Brown recalled that after he returned from military service in 1953, he spent more time