Prestige Profiles

Product Description:

Personnel: Lightnin' Hopkins (vocals, guitar); Billy Bizor (vocals, harmonica); Sonny Terry (harmonica); Buster Pickens (piano); Leonard Gaskin, Donald Cooks (bass instrument); Belton Evans, Spider Kilpatrick, Herbie Lovelle (drums).

Recording information: ACA Studios, Houston, Texas; Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (1960 - 1964).

Although Prestige was primarily known as a jazz label, they did host some superb blues artists, including the brilliant, idiosyncratic Texas guitarist Lightnin' Hopkins. Hopkins was only with Prestige for a spell in the early 1960s, but this excellent 16-track collection skims the cream from his output for the label. Featured in both solo and group settings, Hopkins lays down his inimitable sparse, country-blues guitar style, not to mention his legendary ability to improvise wry, comic stories.