Review: Lightnin Hopkins 'Going Down Slow'

Subject: RE: Review: Lightnin Hopkins 'Going Down Slow'
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Dec 08 - 11:01 AM

Mark thaT IS the QUOTE FOR CLASSICAL/FOLK COLLISIONS! doTS/NO DOTS, THE whole thing is right there.

(Sorry for the capslock! Today is "Fun with eye drops" day!)

~S~

Subject: RE: Review: Lightnin Hopkins 'Going Down Slow'
From: Mark Ross
Date: 16 Dec 08 - 10:46 AM

I heard John Sebastian tell about the time that the Friends of Old Tiime Music brought Lightnin' up to NYC for a concert. It was arranged to get him into the studio while he was in town. The services of a stand up bass player(a student frum Julliard, I believe)were arranged. After the session was over, the young bass player turned to Lightnin' and said, "Mr. Hopkins, I don't believe there is anything like a 15 bar blues." To which Lightnin' Sam re;lied, "Now where do it say that?"


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Review: Lightnin Hopkins 'Going Down Slow'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 08 - 10:35 AM

Lightnin' Hopkins was the guitarist I played air guitar to, when I was a teenager. Him and Brownie McGhee.

Lightnin' should be a compulsory part of any guitarists syllabus.

What we can all take from him is the freedom of expression that lies within three or four chords and the various inversions of the same. I never heard a line of LH's guitar playing that had an ending which failed to surpise and delight the careful listener.

Really the only chance of maintaining the rhythmic integrity of a folk piece is to keep it within that structure. And that goes for blues , flamenco (I should imagine), folksongs.

When you get a song with ten different chords in. That (really) is when it stops being a folksong outside of our traditions. Really its damn all to do with what accent you sing in, or where you come from.

It comes down to musical structure.

Subject: RE: Review: Lightnin Hopkins 'Going Down Slow'
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 Dec 08 - 02:02 AM

Lightnin's is good. But I'll always connect this song with the amazing Howlin' Wolf who I used to see every Tuesday at Big John's on Wells St. in Chicago's Old Town---mid 1960s. (Every Monday was Muddy Waters--Wednesday was Little Walter for a while.)

Art Thieme

Subject: Review: Lightnin Hopkins 'Going Down Slow'
From: olddude
Date: 15 Dec 08 - 09:32 PM

An absolute treasure, a really nice video on youtube

Going Down Slow