*300 copies limited edition* A straight dose of Lightnin’ Hopkins, sounding like you are there in the studio with him, sipping from the same bottle. Lightnin’ recorded many songs for the Clarity Music Company at the ACA Recording Studio in Houston in April of 1969. These ranged from new originals to earlier classic hits such as the monumental ‘Mojo Hand.’ Some of these tracks have been released over the years in doctored form, with bass and drums mixed high, guitar leads mixed low, and reverb added. Here for the first time are the original four-track masters transferred and mixed without any tampering. 

While an abundance of information is available on the vast multitude of Light- nin’ Hopkins’ recordings, the dates for the Clarity Music sessions have never in the past been correctly identified. Based on the log sheet and contract included as part of this LP reissue story, the songs recorded for this particular 1969 session occurred on 11 April 1969. A special treat on this album is the smoking take of ‘Mojo Hand’ that Lightnin’ — an electrifying version of of one of Lightnin’s most revered compositions, the title track from his oft-reissued LP from 1962.

Lightnin’s guitar is indeed “shootin’ fire!” On a more serious note are the themes of impoverishment and degradation: ‘My Baby Ain’t Got No Shoes’ followed by ‘My Baby Was Crying For Bread.’ Lightnin’ also digs deep into a mother’s pain for his song about the horrors of the massacre at Pearl Harbor, in his ‘December 7, 1941.’ What might be called the romantic side of Lightnin’ is present in ‘My Little Darling’.