Description

From the time of his death in 1982, Mike “Lightnin’” Hopkins was probably the absolute most documented blues performer ever. This amazing new resource--the very first book ever discussed him--illuminates the numerous contradictions of the person and his myth.            Created in 1912 to some bad sharecropping family in the cotton region between Dallas and Houston, Hopkins left home when he was just eight yrs old with a guitar his brother had given him. His living was made by him nevertheless he might, when money was limited getting odd-jobs, playing the blues, and sticking with the open-road. This resource goes into Hopkins’s early decades, researching the myths surrounding his conferences with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Florida Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his interactions with girls, and his ongoing hunger for betting and drinking.            Hopkins didn’t start saving until 1946, when he was named “Lightnin’” during his first program, and he quickly joined Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker on the national R & B charts.