Alan Govenar (10 page)

The record Lightnin' made was “Short Haired Woman” backed with (b/w) “Big Mama Jump,” for which Quinn gave the catalog number 3131, reversing the numbers 1313. “Short Haired Woman” immediately staked a presence on the jukebox with its unexpectedly bold and direct opening riff—barely amplified by modern standards, but commanding enough at the time when heard through large jukebox speakers. It was basically the same riff he had used on “Rocky Mountain Blues” and “Katie Mae Blues,” and had probably been playing for years. But amplification and the absence of a distracting piano now brought it starkly into focus.

Lightnin' cut his usual twelve-to-sixteen bar introduction in half so he could declare:

As a white producer with little familiarity with African American slang or diction, Quinn had no idea what Lightnin' was singing about, but black record buyers immediately appreciated the sly humor and directness of “Short Haired Woman”: a vain woman, familiar in the black community and a subject of its ridicule, she was liable to spend so much time and money forcing her man to purchase “rats” (artificial hair pieces) and wigs as to make her essentially “nothin' but trouble.”

“Few people outside (Lightnin's) race … readily grasp the song's deep significance for Negroes,” McCormick wrote years later. “A glance at the popular Negro magazines advertising hair straighteners, hair grease, wigs, rats, hair pads, and so on, gives some idea of the energy devoted to overcoming the characteristics of short, kinky hair … the pampering attention to hair becomes a ritual in which the men are inevitably caught up and yet manage to regard with disdain. It is a touchy subject, and Lightnin's song has become, for the race itself, the classic comment. The private humor and mockery of ‘Short Haired Woman' speaks to the Negro as intimately as does ‘Go Down Moses.'”
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“Short Haired Woman” must have been a strong regional seller. The Bihari brothers at Modern Records (who had helped make “Jole Blon” a national hit) were quick to reissue it through their better distribution network, but it didn't make the
Billboard
“race” charts (a catchall for African American recordings) on either label. It certainly sold well enough to convince Quinn that he could tap into the market for blues, and while the record was still hot, he started what he called his new 600 series that would be devoted to black music (separate numerical series for different genres—and races—being a then-common habit of the record business). He immediately called Lightnin' back into the studio to record a couple follow-ups: “Shining Moon” and “Mercy.” Lightnin' was soon selling enough records to establish a flat fee for the songs he recorded for Quinn, either seventy-five or one hundred dollars (the equivalent value of about seven to eight hundred dollars today), setting a precedent that continued into the late 1960s. The fee was based on expected jukebox and retail sales alone. Neither he nor Quinn had any understanding of the importance of copyrighting a song, which would damage both of them financially. But for the time being, it secured financial independence and local fame for Lightnin'.

The record probably set another, less creditable, precedent in Lightnin's career as well: his refusal to honor exclusive contracts may have started here. No paperwork remains to prove what kind of contract, if any, he had signed with Aladdin the previous November, but it would have been highly unusual if the Mesners had given him anything less than the industry standard, one-to-two-year exclusive contract. His Gold Star session, probably occurring around May 1947, would have been in blatant violation of such an agreement. Eddie Mesner, shocked to find a contracted artist of his with a regional hit on a different label, moved swiftly into action, demanding that Lightnin' return to Los Angeles immediately to rerecord both sides of the Gold Star single for Aladdin. Which is why, on August 15, 1947, Lightnin' found himself back in California, covering his own record as closely as possible for Aladdin.
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When the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), beginning on December 31, 1947, barred its member musicians from making recordings until a settlement concerning rights and payments could be hammered out with the recording industry, Lightnin's ability to record was not impeded. It has often been assumed that sessions dating from 1948, like those Lightnin' recorded that year, must have been bootleg sessions. But there was no union that Lightnin' could have joined at that time, even if he'd wanted to. The Houston local was largely comprised of classical and orchestral musicians—white, well-connected professionals. But this actually worked to the advantage of the small independent labels like Gold Star, for they could pay blues and country musicians whatever they could afford—usually pocket change—rather than the AFM standard scale of $82.50 for leaders and $41.25 for sidemen.
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Ultimately, the ban on recording union musicians benefited Lightnin' and over the course of several days in February 1948, he made more than a dozen sides for Aladdin, including an update of Sonny Boy Williamson's 1937 hit “Sugar Mama.” He also recorded “Shotgun Blues,” which became one of his biggest hits when it was released two years later. “Howling Wolf Blues,” a version of J. T. “Funny Paper” Smith's 1931 “Howling Wolf Blues Part 3”; “Moonrise Blues”; and “Abilene” were also recorded. And Hopkins came up with “Whiskey Headed Woman,” which was a spoof on “Short Haired Woman”:

Only one or two singles from Hopkins's February 1948 session were actually released in 1948 and had little impact upon Quinn, who continued to record Lightnin' because “Short Haired Woman” had sold so well on Gold Star. Lightnin' was starting to make real money from his music. On May 7, 1948, he signed an “Option on Contract for Unique Services” with Quinn's Gold Star label that referenced an earlier contract (now lost) that was due to end on May 21. This contract could have been with Aladdin, but it's more likely that it had been with Quinn (who recorded “Short Haired Woman” in spring 1947). In either event, upon signing the new agreement with Quinn, Lightnin' was paid $150, to “perform and make recordings … as stipulated in the regular artist's contract,” which gave Quinn “sole and exclusive” rights. Apparently, Lightnin's contract with Aladdin had already expired, as Aladdin never challenged Quinn and there are no records of lawsuits ever being filed. Aladdin did, however, continue to release Lightnin's records into the early 1950s.

After Lightnin's last recording for Aladdin on February 25, 1948, Quinn produced as many records with him as he could. However, unbeknownst to Quinn, Lightnin' frequently claimed to have written songs that were in fact covers, such as “Baby, Please Don't Go” by Big Joe Williams, who recorded it twice (1935 and 1945) prior to Lightnin's Gold Star release.
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Quinn never seemed to question the origins of Lightnin's songs, but instead focused on producing the best possible recordings. According to Texas Johnny Brown, who went to a couple of sessions, “Quinn knew that studio A&R part. He didn't have too many people working with him. Matter of fact, he did most of that set up part himself in his own place. Lightnin' would sing a whole song with all sort of things without you ever knowing what the title of it was…. If he come up with a word that matched pretty good and it sound like he could do something with it, he'd start playing and make a song out of it. There was no reworking or rehearsing. Turn your machine on and let him go.”
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Lightnin' played amplified guitar for all his sessions with Quinn, except on Gold Star 634—the guitar in both “Walking Blues” and “Lightnin' Blues,” recorded in March 1948, sounds acoustic.

During Lightnin's sessions for Quinn in 1949 and 1950, he recorded more than twenty sides. Of these, “Unsuccessful Blues (Can't Be Successful)” and “Zolo Go” were standouts. “Unsuccessful Blues,” Quinn told Chris Strachwitz, was not planned as part of the session, but was made after Lightnin' found out that his wife had already collected money from Quinn as an advance payment for recording it. So, as an afterthought, he went back into the studio and made up this song on the spot, accompanied by the jazz band that was assembling for the next session.
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In the curiously titled song “Zolo Go,” Lightnin' made it clear that he was aware of the music of the growing Louisiana Creole population in Houston's Fifth Ward. The word
zologo
was apparently Quinn's misunderstanding of Lightnin's pronunciation of the word
zydeco,
because in his introduction, which was omitted from the 78 rpm record but was included on the original acetate (and appears on the Arhoolie reissue of the song), Lightnin' explained: “Let's zydeco a little while for you folk / You know, young and old likes that.” “Zolo Go” is the only recording in which Lightnin' mimicked the sound of the accordion, as he accompanied himself on an electric Hammond organ.

Quinn's recordings of Lightnin' were remarkably well done, given the limitations of recording technology and duplication. Andy Bradley, a recording engineer and co-owner of SugarHill Studios
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(the current incarnation of Gold Star) speculates, “With the case of Lightnin', Quinn parked one … omni-directional microphone in front of him to capture both the guitar and his voice. Probably a foot away from his mouth, and probably a few inches below it that would capture enough of the guitar.”
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In 1947, “There was no reverb,” Bradley points out. “Quinn was recording direct to disk, cutting a master on a lacquer-coated metal disk. And the cutter had a cutting needle that cut grooves in the master acetate. After he cut one song at a time on the acetate disk, the acetate disk went into an electrolyte bath from which would emerge the stamper, which was a negative image of that acetate. [In order to get protection, many places would offer three-step processing, which included not only the master, which could be used as a stamper, but also a “mother” that could then produce any number of stampers.] And he made a stamper plate for each side, and each plate was then placed on either side of a record pressing machine, and a glob of a warm compound that included shellac [which was generally known as “biscuits”] and that would be placed between the two metal sheets together with the two labels. Basically, the press stamped out the disk and when it was removed, it was put on a turntable and the rough edges were trimmed before it was put in a sleeve.”
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Quinn frequently did not use full three-step protection because it was costly. The complicated part of the process was not the stamping of the actual disks, and he told Chris Strachwitz that several times the acetate master was destroyed in the electrolyte bath. “That accounts for some missing catalogue numbers,” Strachwitz explains, “though Quinn said that he sometimes forgot the last release number and for safety would just jump a few numbers ahead.”
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Quinn struggled to keep his business going, and by the late 1940s the competition between independent record labels in Houston was growing. Eddie's, Macy's, Freedom, and Peacock were all involved in recording local and regional blues musicians, such as Gatemouth Brown, Little Willie Littlefield, L. C. Williams, Goree Carter, Lester Williams, Peppermint Harris, and Big Walter Price.
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Of these, Don Robey's Peacock label emerged as the most successful, and in time Robey acquired the Duke label and started the Back Beat and Songbird

labels.
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The differences between the Duke/Peacock sound and the music of Lightnin' Hopkins not only underscored the breadth and complexity of the Houston black music scene, but was also indicative of the social stratification within the African American communities of Houston. Robey favored gospel music and the big band rhythm and blues sound that was popular among an upwardly mobile African American audience, who participated in the social scene of venues like the El Dorado Ballroom and the Club Matinee. For Robey, Lightnin's blues lacked sophistication; there were no orchestrated arrangements. Lightnin' played a gritty, improvised style of blues in the low-income dives of the Third Ward, and many of the people who listened to his music were poor rural blacks looking for work and trying to get a foothold in Houston—the factory workers and day laborers who struggled to support themselves and their families. Although there are no demographic studies about who bought Hopkins's records, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that his blues did also appeal to some African American professionals, who had either moved to Houston from East Texas or who just simply liked Lightnin's country flair. Dr. Cecil Harold, a respected surgeon in Houston who years later became Hopkins's manager, says that he “always appreciated the way Lightnin' could put into words the mood of the black community—especially a black community that was hit especially hard by the Great Depression.”
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Lightnin's records were stacked into jukeboxes in cafes and bars in the Third Ward and the low-income black neighborhoods of Houston, but he did also get some airplay. Black groups had been broadcast in Houston since at least the mid 1930s, when Joe Pullum had a program on KTLC. Moreover, on February 3, 1935, a
Houston Chronicle
radio log dated showed both Red Calhoun and Giles Mitchell broadcasting on KXYZ that day. In 1941, the
Informer
mentioned that the gospel quartet the Dixie Four were featured on a local station, and in 1945 the Eddie Taylor Orchestra appeared regularly on KTHT. Lonnie Rochon was the first black disc jockey in Houston (on KNUZ in February 1948). By 1950, there were several black disc jockeys on the air in Texas: Dr. Hepcat on KVET in Austin, Trummie Cain on KLEE in Houston, Bill Harris on KRIC in Beaumont, among others, but white deejays were also starting to play blues and other styles of black music.