Lightnin’ Hopkins – Lightnin’ Strikes

Here’s another really heavyweight reissue by Lightnin’ Hopkins – I mean, the cardboard has a weight not seen since the early ’60s. Very sturdy gatefold. Verve was always oriented toward quality production, and seems to be continuing that tradition.

Prior to these vinyl reissues, I actually only had one Lightnin’ Hopkins work, from the “Legacy of the Blues” series put out on CD by Sonet in the ’80s, which I think I picked up in the early ’90s.

Lightnin’ is something of a blues anomaly – super skilled, remarkable fingerstyle, but often also super slow. There’s a lot of space and pace in these songs, more of a country feel than most electric blues. And then, of course, there’s Lightnin’s voice.

Every time I listen to “Mojo Hand,” I feel the need to note that I do not endorse the singer’s attitude toward women. When he sings “wanna fix my woman so she can’t have no other man,” I do have to call out, “Not cool, Lightnin’, not cool.” Relationships can come to a natural end, and even bluesmen have to accept that and move on. Of course, if they did, there’d be a whole lot less blues music.

Anyway, great record from 1966 that I picked up just a few weeks ago at the end of January 2025.

And sometime when I’m worried about getting another duplicate – I need to remember that there’s another, earlier album by the same name on Vee-Jay.