Johnny Winter: Our 1982 Interview About Lightnin’ Hopkins

Remembering a Texas Bluesman

Like his peer John Lee Hooker, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins had an uncanny ability to create deeply personal blues on the spur of the moment. With a catalog of over 600 songs, the outspoken, hard-drinking Texan was among the most recorded bluesmen in history. Despite his widespread acclaim and travels, Lightnin’ loved Houston and remained essentially a local bluesman there throughout his career.

On January 30, 1982, Hopkins passed away from pneumonia at St. Joseph Hospital in Houston. His death hit me hard, as he’s been among my favorite three blues artists for as long as I can remember. I convinced Guitar Player’s editor, Tom Wheeler, to let me put together a tribute called “Requiem for a Bluesman: Lightnin Hopkins” for the June issue. Rather than put it all in my own words, I asked three musicians who knew Lightnin’ to share their feelings him: B.B. King, Johnny Winter, and Billy Gibbons.

I interviewed each of them by phone on April 6, 1982. Parts of the following conversation with Johnny Winter, who also hailed from Texas, have a stream-of-consciousness feel as he circles back to various themes and speaks of Lightnin’ in both past and present tenses. Midway through our conversation, he picked up a 12-string acoustic guitar and performed verses from several Hopkins songs. Here’s our complete conversation.

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Did you know Lightnin’?

Yeah. We played shows together, and he was always one of my idols. He was real unique and I liked to see him as much as I could. He never did anything to me, but he was one of those kind of people where you never can tell what he was gonna be like. So I just kind of never bothered him.

Was he moody?

Well, I recorded “Back Door Friend” on the first album, and that pissed him off. All the good Lightnin’ Hopkins stories have been told to me by people that knew him. If he was in one kind of mood, he’d say, “Yeah, that boy’s real good. He plays real good.” Sometimes he’d say, “Well, man, that ‘Back Door Friend’–that’s my song!” It really depended on what he was drinking and how much of it he had to drink, it seemed like. I know a lot of people who’d hang out with him, and I’ve heard he said fantastic things about me and the exact opposite.

Did you ever jam with him?

Not really. I was really wanting to do an album with him. My first drummer, right before I made it, we were doing a show with Lightnin’ at the Matrix in San Francisco, and he played with my drummer backing him up. Just him and drums. That’s the way I liked him best. I heard him real recently on a TV show where he had a bass player and a drummer that were a lot hotter. In fact, it really reminded me of a lot of the stuff that I do. It really turned me on. Too many instruments kind of mess it up, because he changed when he wants to. He does what he wants. And a lot of times if the guys aren’t good enough or if they’re the kind of guys who feel like, “Well, I’m gonna change right even if he messes up,” then it’s a mess. You had to know Lightnin’ and follow him. I guess he had played a lot by himself, and he didn’t worry about changes. And it didn’t hurt a damn thing either.