Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin' Hopkins

by Timothy J. O'Brien, David Ensminger

In a career that took him from the cotton fields of East Texas to the concert stage at Carnegie Hall and beyond, Lightnin' Hopkins became one of America's greatest bluesmen, renowned for songs whose topics effortlessly ranged from his African American roots to space exploration, the Vietnam War, and lesbianism, performed in a unique, eccentric, and spontaneous style of guitar playing that inspired a whole generation of rock guitarists. Hopkins's music directly and indirectly influenced an amazing range of artists, including Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan, as well as bands such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and ZZ Top, with whom Hopkins performed.

Mojo Hand follows Lightin' Hopkins's life and music from the acoustic country blues that he began performing in childhood, through the rise of 1950s rock 'n' roll, which nearly derailed his career, to his reinvention and international success as a pioneer of electric folk blues from the 1960s to the 1980s. The authors draw on 130 vivid oral histories, as well as extensive archival and secondary sources, to provide the fullest account available of the development of Hopkins's music; his idiosyncratic business practices, such as shunning professional bookers, managers, and publicists; and his durable and indelible influence on modern roots, blues, rock 'n' roll, singer-songwriter, and folk music. Mojo Hand celebrates the spirit and style, intelligence and wit, and confounding musical mystique of a bluesman who shaped modern American music like no one else.

Genres: Music, Biography

294 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2013

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

With the publication of "Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin' Hopkins," we have two biographies of the great bluesman published in three years. After this and 2010's "Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues," by Alan Govenar (four stars), we still don't have a definitive, exhaustive biography of Hopkins, but this latest effort is another valuable, interesting book, despite some unprofessional mistakes.

(Bear with me; because I've read both books and they're both so recent, I think comparing them might be valuable, so I'll touch on Govenar's book, which I've previously reviewed, as well.)

"Mojo Hand" has about the same number of actual pages of biography as Govenar's book (241 pages to 236), but in actuality would be a good 40 pages longer considering more lines to the page and smaller print. They're staking out similar territory, but Timothy O'Brien's book (David Ensminger is listed as co-author) provides far more lengthy quotes. This is generally a very good thing but can be a bad thing. I like that he allows sources to go on at length, but sometimes rambling quotes — particularly those from Lightnin,' who definitely could be aimless and rambling in his speech — could have been cut down with no harm done.

I find "Mojo Hand" a little deeper and more exhaustive in finding out-of-the-way sources than the earlier book. The book is particularly fascinating in presenting hefty quotes from those who played with, booked and listened to Hopkins during his touring in the 1960s and 1970s, and in reprinting portions of contemporary reviews. O'Brien, who lived in Hopkins' area (the bluesman was born in rural Texas and lived in Houston most of his life) interviewed a lot of people for this work, going so far as to quote a man in the housekeeping department at the hospital where Lightnin' died.

Unfortunately, "Mojo Hand" is even skimpier on Hopkins' most consistently fruitful musical period — his early years of recording from 1946-54 — than was Govenar, and I objected to its short shrift in the earlier biography. Sure, there's little documentation of Hopkins' gigging and personal life during this period, but how about probing the historical relevance of these great songs, quoting some music historians and blues experts; how about dissecting some of these fantastic blues tunes?

Ensminger's preface tells us how he helped finish O'Brien's book as O'Brien was dying of cancer. Perhaps the fact that O'Brien died before there was a finished product can explain a few of the howling errors in "Mojo Hand," but frankly, I can't forgive them. Incredibly, about 70 pages into the book, while chronicling Hopkins' rocking Herald recordings, the book says he was now playing an electric guitar when he recorded, implying he had played only acoustic guitar until then. Hopkins was amplified almost since the beginning, in 1946, until the folk boom turned him mostly to acoustic (with a few exceptions). To be unaware that the vast majority of Hopkins' Gold Star and Aladdin recordings were with electric guitar seems incredible. Elsewhere, a Billboard review of the single "Mojo Hand" appears on page 105 and is repeated verbatim TWO PAGES LATER. Was anyone involved in editing this thing? Much later, the book relates a Hopkins tour of Japan with blues duo Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, near the end of Hopkins' life. O'Brien tells of Hopkins watching the Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks fight on TV while in Osaka and giving a blow-by-blow to McGhee, "who was blind." This would have been news to McGhee and to Terry, too; it was Terry who was blind.

The two biographies both are good, and I wanted to like "Mojo Hand" more than Govenar's book; it seems to rely less on obvious sources than "Lightnin' Hopkins." But the aforementioned mistakes, and the book's presentation, knock it down a star for me. In "Mojo Hand," photos are skimpy (Govenar's book had many more), there is no discography, as there is in the earlier book, which had 50-some pages of it, and the index is laughably incomplete. Looking at the index in "Mojo Hand," you'd think O'Brien's sources and subjects were few, when that is not the case.

In addition, some of the chapter titles in "Mojo Hand" are just odd. One is titled "Vietnam War Blues." The period chronicled there did take place during the Vietnam War, but the conflict is barely mentioned. And the book's back cover description puts strange emphasis on a certain song topic Lightnin' tackled, from "...space exploration to lesbianism." Lesbianism? If it was mentioned, I missed it (and Lord knows I wouldn't want to miss that). What song is he referring to ("Mighty Crazy," perhaps; if the index were worth a damn I could look it up)?

Govenar's book also is much better at chronicling Hopkins' love life, including an entire chapter about a woman who wrote a thinly veiled novel based on her experiences as Hopkins' lover. She gets barely a mention in "Mojo Hand," the same with Hopkins' common-law wife. I wonder whether O'Brien intentionally avoided some of the topics Govenar tackled in his book, though most of "Mojo Hand" had to have been completed before Govenar's book was published.

While I've been sort of attacking certain portions of the O'Brien/Ensminger book, I want to stress that I enjoyed it very much. It certainly goes deep into Hopkins' touring and concert performances, with an amazing number of great sources. I particularly enjoyed the anecdote about blues belter Big Mama Thornton pushing Lightnin' on his ass during a backstage tiff. "Mojo Hand" also is strong in documenting the racial, social and political climate around Houston (and in the nation) during Lightnin's life. O'Brien takes great pains to put Hopkins' attitudes into the context of his environment.

So, in closing (finally, you say!) I consider the biographies virtually equal, but Govenar's is a bit more professional enterprise, especially as far as the book itself is concerned. But, hell, if you love Lightnin', read them both.

I just wish someone had written an exhaustive, 500-page biography of my favorite bluesman. Third try, anyone?

(AND ... YES!! FIRST TIME I'VE HAD A FIRST REVIEW OF A BOOK ON GOODREADS?)

[elissa]

Written by the husband/dad of two friends of mine. EXCELLENT primary source research. I've never read a book before that was written using anywhere near this many interviews.

[Donovan Foote · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ended up reading Mojo Hand because the book I intended to check out of the library wasn’t there and this was the next call number. So, I didn’t pick this up because I’m a huge Lightnin’ fan. Because of that, it took a little while for me to get invested in the book—at times it feels like a catalog of shows and recording sessions and certainly the extended quotes could use some editing. Despite those faults or because of them, some nice little stories emerge. As a fan of the blues and especially the origins and early history of the blues, this book was well worth the read.

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving this biography of a great American bluesman the benefit of the doubt with my four-star rating. As others have noted, it could have used some better editing. There are awkwardly-worded passages, flat-out grammatical errors, and annoying repetitions, as well as a few minor factual errors. But while this is not a particularly well-written biography, it's a well-researched one, and it gives us as clear a picture of the life of Sam Hopkins as we are likely to get.

[Jeff Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost more of a travelogue of Hopkins tours, concerts, and recording dates than a deep biography, but still a detailed look at a fascinating life and entertainer.