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with Strachwitz, insulted that he was called a “boy” by the black promoter. When he went to play at the Savoy Club, he was even more warmly received; one woman going in the front door at the same time as him looked over and asked, “Are you the real Lightnin’ Hopkins?” And he replied, “You better believe it, baby.” Lightnin’s presence made people gravitate to him, though he could rebuff them in an instant. “He never seemed to lose his cool,” Strachwitz says, “and moving around the black world of the Bay Area, he was amused that he was still so well known. He’d been selling records for all these years. But no one had ever seen him, because he wouldn’t travel behind his records, and as much as he liked the black club scene, he was starting to realize he could make more money playing for white folkies.”88

To finish his first LP with Lightnin’, Strachwitz recorded him performing the song “California Showers” in his apartment in Berkeley, but he still needed more to round out the release. So after Lightnin’ returned to Houston, Strachwitz asked him to go with his drummer Spider Kilpatrick to Bill Holford’s ACA studio to record four more songs.89 Lightnin’ was used to going over to ACA Studio, and Holford sent Strachwitz the tapes.

ACA Studio was highly regarded, not only because of Holford’s technical expertise but because he could work well with Lightnin’. In 1962, McCormick supervised the recordings at ACA Studio of three more of Lightnin’s LPs for Prestige/Bluesville: Walkin’ This Road by Myself, Lightnin’ and Co., and Smokes Like Lightning. For these LPs, McCormick wanted a bigger band sound, probably because he or his producers thought it might sell better, and he brought in Billy Bizor on harmonica, Buster Pickens on piano, Donald Cooks on bass, and Spider Kilpatrick on drums. They were all friends of Lightnin’s who had played with him at different times over the years. Walkin’ This Road by Myself contained one of Lightnin’s most well-known songs, “Happy Blues for John Glenn,” which, according to McCormick, he composed after watching John Glenn make the first American orbital space flight on his landlady’s TV on February 20, 1962. In his session notes, McCormick wrote, “He arrived at the studio an hour early, in itself a rare event presaging things to come. As members of his entourage unloaded instruments and ran his errands, he sat out back in his car. At one point he asked for a piece of paper, and with a nod at the Gettysburg address legend, a torn envelope was provided. His making notes for the song was essentially a symbolic act, for a half-hour later the envelope contained only three marks resembling hex signs.” But when he sat down to record, he “insisted on propping it up in front of him as he took his place beneath the microphone. In some way the cryptic marks identified for him the incidents he wished to touch upon, and with it in place he was ready to extemporize. He called for a last-minute reference to confirm Glenn’s first name and whispered his question because, child-like, he intended to surprise those present (including the musicians who accompany him) with his song’s subject.”90

Despite all the preparations, a short in the guitar amplifier ruined the first take. “It had been a moody blues set to the same tune as the bitter protest ‘Tim Moore’s Farm,’” McCormick said, but while the repairs were being made to the amplifier, Lightnin’ saw a newspaper account of Glenn’s flight and changed his tone: “some detail there seems to have altered his concept, for when he launched into the song again it was definitely a happy blues.”91

In the song “Happy Blues for John Glenn,” Lightnin’ played a melodic pattern that was less familiar than what he usually did, and while performing he apparently couldn’t remember the chord sequence and the band got confused, but in the end were able move into a strong, grooving rhythm. And while the lyrics were some of Lightnin’s most imaginative, they bordered on nonsense.

People all was sittin’ this morning with this on their minds

There ain’t no man living can go around the world