Texas Blues Giant

2010 three CD collection from the Blues legend. There was nobody quite like Lightnin’ Hopkins. He and his vast repertoire represented the epitome of Texas Country Blues. His guitar both underscored and complemented the songs he drew from his own life and the lives of those around him. His recording career began in 1946 and hardly paused for the next three decades. In that time, he created an amazing miscellany of original Blues, starting with ‘Katie Mae Blues’, through ‘Shotgun Blues’, ‘Automobile Blues’, ‘Long Way from Texas’, ‘Dirty House Blues’, ‘Sad News from Korea’ and ‘Ain’t It a Shame’ to his last major commercial sessions for the New York-based Herald label in April 1954, which make up the entire third disc here. Songs like ‘Don’t Think ‘Cause You’re Pretty’, ‘Nothin’ But the Blues’, ‘Lonesome in Your Home’, ‘Sittin’ Down Thinkin’ and ‘Lightnin’ Don’t Feel Well’ showed that the wellspring of his inspiration hadn’t dried up. Nor was he always serious, as ‘Lightnin’s Boogie’, ‘Grandma’s Boogie’ and ‘Hopkins Sky Hop’ proved.