I just got off the phone talkin' to Jerry, and that always makes me feel happy whether I'm up or down.

About Lightnin' Hopkins: He has always been my favorite blues poet. His lyrics told real stories coming from a deep well of intellectual sensitivity in this man. The songs were topical in nature like the best ballads and they didn't shy away from highlighting human emotions and interactions. This rather incoherent song, HAPPY BLUES FOR JOHN GLENN, was probably done off the top of his head in a rural Texas studio somewhere. He wasn't singing only about the L-word--Love, with double and triple entendres. Listen to his blues called MAMA AND PAPA HOPKINS. In it he comes home to find his parents really pissed off at each other and not communicating very well at all. Lightnin' becomes the mediator and points out that they've been together a long time and ought to make an effort to learn a better way and not toss it all away because of a few ego-driven angry words.

It ends with everyone seeing, pretty much, that it'd be better to chill out and not come to blows. At the end, they're all rather happy for having used their heads for once.

One album of his I've always loved was called AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN BLUES.   Give it a listen...

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