Listening to Prestige 409: Lightnin' Hopkins

Lightnin' Hopkins is back, this time without Sonny Terry, although again with the rhythm section of Leonard Gaskin and Belton Evans is still there;

With Ozzie Cadena producing the session and Rudy Van Gelder at the controls, this is one of the best of the myriad recordings Hopkins produced in his lifetime. The material is familiar--songs by Hopkins, and three blues standards by others which Hopkins had performed often and recorded not infrequently--but here they're heard to their best advantage, and the reason why Hopkins lasted so long, and recorded so often, is that he was very good. This is the blues the way you want to hear it.

The originals are all good. The covers are songs that have become blues standards. "Mean Old Frisco" was written by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and first recorded by him in 1942. It was covered in the 1940s by Brownie McGhee and Champion Jack Dupree, in the 1950s by Snooks Eaglin and B. B. King (both in 1959). Since then, it's become not only a blues standard, but a jazz tune, recorded by both Richard "Groove" Holmes and Junior Mance.

The others have more confused provenances. "Come Back Baby" was written and first performed in 1940 by Walter Davis. It was hit for him on the race records charts, and then became a hit again in 1950 with Lowell Fulson's version. That began its ascent to standard status, but it was really locked into the consciousness of the blues audience and blues performers with the Ray Charles version in 1954, the flip side of his big hit "I Got a Woman." Charles' version was brilliant, inspired, and...with composer credit somehow slid over to Charles.

Since then it's had a double life. It's been recorded by B. B. King, Mance Lipscomb, Snooks Eaglin, James Cotton and others as a straight ahead blues. By white blues revivalists like Dave Van Ronk, Danny Kalb and Charlie Musselwhite. By folkies like Carolyn Hester (with Bob Dylan on

Harmonica), Bert Jansch and Fred Neil. By rockers like Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane. Even by present-day rockers like the Lords of Altamont and the Black Sorrows...all as "Come Back Baby" by Walter Davis. It has also been recorded by Stevie Wonder, Junior Parker, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Etta James,and many others, with jazz versions by Les McCann and George Benson...all as "Come Back" by Ray Charles.

"Back to New Orleans" is credited on Hopkins' Bluesville disc to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, who were Bluesville artists at the time, but where it comes from is anyone's guess. It's more often called "Baby Please Don't Go," and was probably first recorded in 1934 by Big Joe Williams. Hiw often it's been recorded since, and under what titles...pretty close to impossible to guess. French blues historian Gérard Herzhaft (quoted in Wikipedia) reckons that it is "one of the most played, arranged, and rearranged pieces in blues history." It's essentially a traditional blues with origins lost in the past. Williams gets composer credit on his original Bluebird release.

Taken all together, this is a seriously satisfying immersion in the blues. The Bluesville release was called Lightnin', and a Prestige re-release was The Blues of Lightnin' Hopkins.One 45 was released on Prestige -- Mojo Hand" / "Automobile Blues," and three more on Bluesville:

The Walkin' Blues / Last Night Blues

Hard To Love A Woman / Back To New Orleans

My Baby Don't Stand No Cheating / Katie Mae