Lightnin' Hopkins_ His Life and Blues - Alan Govenar [79]
For the filming, Lightnin’ played “Lonesome Road” and “Lightnin’s Blues,” which was actually a version of “Green Onions,” the recent hit by Booker T. and the MGs.7 For “Lonesome Road” he accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and was shown outside sitting on a chair in the middle of a sidewalk. He was wearing a plaid shirt, creased slacks, a Mexican chaleco [blanket vest], sunglasses, and a pork-pie hat, and had a towel slung over his shoulder. The footage was intercut with four domino players sitting at a table in a beer joint that was apparently the setting for “Lightnin’s Blues,” an instrumental on a Harmony guitar with an electric pickup. Lightnin’ was sitting in a chair with a group of men, sipping beers, looking on, listening, but very much aware of the camera.
In 1963 the enthusiasm for Lightnin’s music continued to grow, and he began touring more than he had ever before, returning to the Second Fret, and working the Retort Club in Detroit, the Cabale in Berkeley, the Continental Club in Oakland, and Ash Grove in Los Angeles. He became a regular at the Village Gate, and was invited back from May 14 to May 31, playing on the same bill as Valentine Pringle, as well as the great Herbie Mann (May 28 to 30) and the Jimmie Smith Trio.
On June 4, 1963, Lightnin’ recorded again for Prestige/Bluesville for an album titled Goin’ Away. Once again Lightnin’ recorded his tracks at Gold Star in Houston. They were then overdubbed with bass and drums at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, under the supervision of jazz and gospel producer Ozzie Cadena, who had considerable experience recording blues artists such as Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry.
Dan Morgenstern, who was then the editor of Jazz Magazine, wrote the liner notes, and instead of defining Lightnin’ simply as an artifice of the musical past, he saw him in the context of jazz history. Morgenstern had seen Lightnin’ perform live a couple of times at the Village Gate. “Lightnin’ Hopkins would come in between acts,” Morgenstern says. “There he was, just a guy with a guitar, sometimes he’d have a rhythm section [bass and drums] with him, but most of the time, he was by himself. And he was able to engage that audience which was not necessarily a blues audience. He was there and he would grab them. He was so direct. One of the things about Lightnin’ that was not true of all blues performers was that although he had a very natural diction, it was very clear. It was easy to understand what he was singing about…. He had a great sense of humor. Some of his stuff is very funny. It’s sarcastic…. He was an engaging performer and human being. He seemed to be very much at ease with different people. Lightnin’s thing was much more intimate than say Muddy Waters, because Muddy would have a band.”8
At the Village Gate, Lightnin’ appeared at ease. “It was a very ecumenical club that was an epicenter for blues and other styles of music,” Morgenstern recalls. “Art D’Lugoff was a real village guy in the sense that he liked a lot of different stuff. He would have jazz, different kinds of jazz, and you had blues, and at the time, political stuff. It was like a cabaret. It was a big cavernous place. It was downstairs, and there were long tables. It was like what you had in a cafeteria or something. It was congenial.”9 At the Village