Saturday morning, a crowd that overflowed the tent erected due to the inclement weather (though it never actually rained) showed up to witness the dedication of a state historical marker honoring Sam ...

Lightnin’ Hopkins embodied the blues. His singing, guitar playing, his physical appearance, personality, and demeanor, were the blues. One of the most recognizable bluesmen to come out of Texas, ...

Yes, you read that headline correctly. Today the Texas Historical Commission announced that Eric Davis’ petition to honor Houston blues icon Sam “Lightnin'” Hopkins with an official state historical ...

More than 60 years after he made his first recordings, Houston's Sam "Lightnin' " Hopkins will be honored this week by the Recording Academy, the organization that stages the annual Grammy Awards. The ...

Eric Davis was unpacking a large state historical marker when he noticed the misspelled name scrawled on the packaging: "Sam (Lighting) Hopkins." Cast aluminum doesn't lend itself to corrections.

He is - with all apologies to ZZ Top, who would probably agree - Houston's greatest musical export. A man whose often simple country blues songs, laconic delivery and instantly identifiable guitar ...

Mississippi possesses the blues mythology, with tales of murder and mystery, crossroads and pacts with the devil. And while nobody can say with any certainty that the blues sprang like the devil from ...

This article appears in the May/June 2015 “Blues Issue,” now available on newsstands. Listen, if you will, to the first 30 seconds of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Moanin’ Blues.” Listen to what happens when ...

Country, big band, R&B, blues and pop music all find their way into "Battleground Korea: Songs and Sounds of America's Forgotten War," a new anthology of music and spoken-word recordings from the ...

Intimate portrait of a legendary bluesman... If you were a blues enthusiast in California in the middle 1960s, your university was the Ash Grove. Part music venue, part instrument shop, coffee bar and ...

Texas blues singer/guitarist Sam "Lightnin'' Hopkins could lay claim to the authentic blues, having worked in the cotton fields for years. He turned electric in the 1950s, and toggled between acoustic ...