Lightnin' Hopkins - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, USA 24-4-1974 | Albums That Should Exist

Lightnin' Hopkins - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 4-24-1974

Paul says: The range of musical acts who performed at the Ebbets Field venue, which held about 250 people, was impressive. For instance, I wouldn't have imagined a recording like this from Lightnin' Hopkins in 1974. But here it is.

I tend to think of Hopkins as someone from decades earlier. But he was still very musically active in 1974. He was about 61 years old, which isn't really old for a blues musician. For instance, B.B. King lived to be 89 years old, and was still performing right up until the end. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry intro about him: "[Hopkins] was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist, and occasional pianist from Centerville, Texas. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. The musicologist Robert 'Mack' McCormick opined that Hopkins is 'the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act.' He influenced Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Jr., and a generation of blues musicians such as Stevie Ray Vaughan... In his own lifetime, Hopkins was one of the initial inductees in 1980 to the Blues Hall of Fame." 

Here's the rest of the entry:

Lightnin' Hopkins - Wikipedia

I'll add a bit more to that. His recording career began in the 1940s, when he was already in his 30s. He grew popular with Black audiences in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s, his career got a boost when his music was discovered by the folk revival, mostly made up of White audiences. That started in 1960, when he performed at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City with Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. From that point on, he often played at folk festivals and colleges, and even toured internationally. He died of cancer in 1982, at the age of 69.

This is a solo acoustic concert, with a lot of banter between songs. The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 talk 
02 Nothing I Can Do 
03 talk 
04 Lord Have Mercy 
05 talk 
06 Lazy Woman Do 
07 talk 
08 I Got My Hook in Your Water 
09 talk
10 Can You Tell Who's Coming In 
11 talk 
12 Cook My Breakfast
13 talk 
14 Key to the Highway 
15 talk 
16 It's Time for You to Change Your Way 
17 talk
18 Instrumental 
19 talk 
20 Rock Me Baby 
21 talk
22 Ain't It Crazy [The Rub]
23 talk 
24 70 Miles from Nowhere 

all tracks Lightning Hopkins