Lightnin' Hopkins - Nothin' But the Blues: The Decca & Herald Years 1953-58

Lightnin' Hopkins could make a single guitar sound like a full band, and Nothin' But the Blues: The Decca & Herald Years 1953-58 catches him in raw, electrifying form across sixteen tracks.

Born in Texas in 1912, Sam Hopkins absorbed the blues as a boy, crossing paths with Blind Lemon Jefferson, and spent years playing streets, juke joints and Houston bars before records made him one of the most prolific bluesmen of his era. The sides gathered here come from his time with Decca and the New York label Herald, a stretch when his electric playing grew wilder and more urgent while his songs stayed as personal as ever.

The instrumentals are a thrill. "Lightnin's Boogie," "Hopkins Sky Hop" and "Grandma's Boogie" race along on stinging riffs and relentless rhythm. The slower numbers dig just as deep, with "Cemetery Blues" a mournful lament and "Evil Hearted Woman" turning heartbreak into blunt, plainspoken storytelling.

There's no polish here, just that voice, that guitar and the loose, conversational feel that made him impossible to imitate.

For blues collectors, it's a vivid snapshot of a Texas giant in his prime, and a perfect companion to the folk-revival recordings that brought him to a whole new audience later on.