Alan Govenar (40 page)

When Benson and Lightnin' traveled together, they generally shared the same room. “He didn't want me to sleep any place else,” Benson says, “but he was an old man, and he'd wake my ass up, two or three times a night, man. He'd make noises and clear his throat. He'd ask, ‘You asleep, baby, you asleep?' And I'd say, ‘Well, I was sleepin' until you woke me up.' And then we'd pick up guitars and he would think of some old song he hadn't sung in a long time and he'd say he was going to sing it that night or something, and we'd sit there and we'd play guitars. And he would tell me stories about all these things that went down when he was a younger man. Tricks they would play on people and all kinds of stuff like that.”
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Sometimes, however, Lightnin' and Benson would get into arguments with each other. Lightnin' didn't approve of Benson running around with girls he'd meet in the clubs, but that was what Benson looked forward to when they were traveling. “Me, being a young man … part and parcel of being in that business is to hook with somebody that night, mostly white girls. And he didn't like for me to leave him. So, we would get into little spats, I'd collect the money, take care of business, leave the money with him, and take off with some little girl, and then he would get upset, because I wouldn't come back. I might spend the night out.”
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One time, in Montreal, Benson bought some yogurt and Lightnin' said, “What in the fuck are you buying that shit for?” So, Benson put it in the refrigerator in the hotel room to save it for later, but then after the gig, he went out with “some little girl” and stayed too long. “I came back the next day, and he had eaten the yogurt…. And he'd started bitching, ‘You been gone and I had nothin' to eat, and I had to eat that shit in the refrigerator.”
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Sometimes, Lightnin' would push Benson too far, and Benson would get angry, and then back off. “He'd say something like, ‘You eat too goddamn much. If I had a goddamn dog, it would be better than you, because at least I could feed the dog when I want to, but you gonna eat when you want to.' And then the next day, he'd say, ‘I dreamed last night you and me had a fight,' and I'd say, ‘Yeah, it wasn't a dream. It was for real, and I kicked your ass.' And then he'd back out and say, ‘Oh, baby, you know I'm just kidding.'”
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Benson felt Lightnin' became cantankerous because he didn't like being away from Antoinette, and he wanted to be at home. But when he got home, Antoinette advised Benson to ‘give him a little room, and he'll look for you again.' She'd say, ‘Lightnin's the kind of guy that if he wants you and needs you first, he's going to treat you better than if he's got you under his thumb.'”
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Lightnin's mood swings bothered Benson, but in part he attributed his behavior to his drinking. Lightnin' often had a “nip” in the morning and continued drinking throughout the day, sipping Pearl beer, and consuming untold amounts of gin or whisky from his pocket flask. Whenever possible, Lightnin' avoided driving and preferred to have Benson and others take him to and from his gigs. But on October 8, 1977, Lightnin' was arrested for speeding, driving under the influence, and carrying a loaded gun in Centerville, Texas. “So, when his court date came up,” Benson says, “we went to this courthouse and it was a real throwback to the past. You could almost hear the ghosts of people [who] had gone through there and been tried. It was kind of an eerie thing. But everyone knew who he was of course, so the judge told him, ‘You had a weapon on you, from now on, leave your gun at home, and stop drinkin',” and they gave him probation and we went on back to Houston.”
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Times had really changed; had Lightnin' been arrested for the same offenses when he lived in Centerville in the 1930s, he would have been sentenced to a chain gang or prison.

Whenever anyone mentioned going to Europe, Lightnin' was skeptical, especially about the air travel. He preferred driving, but he liked the “idea of Europe,” Benson says. “He liked the reception that he got, because there was a tremendous reception. But he always complained there wasn't enough to eat.”

Norbert Hess, a German blues aficionado and concert promoter, contacted Harold about organizing a European tour for Lightnin' in the fall of 1977, but had some difficulty convincing him. However, when they agreed to pay him several thousand dollars, Lightnin' finally agreed. Benson wasn't able to go, but his friend Ron Wilson (the future Texas congressman) was available to travel with Lightnin'. They left Houston first for the Netherlands, where Lightnin' appeared at the Rotterdam Jazz Festival on November 12. From there they went to the Dortmund Jazz Festival, headlined a concert in Berlin with Duke Ellington's Orchestra and James Booker on the bill, and then traveled to Sweden, where he played four concerts at the Gothenburg University Students' House.

In Dortmund the concert was taped for television for a program called
Homage à Lightnin' Hopkins,
and according to Hess, “Several modern jazz groups paid tribute to the old master. James Booker played a short solo set and backed Hopkins for three numbers. Hopkins was accompanied by George Green on drums and Ewald Warning on bass, two black musicians who lived in Munich and had only ever played modern jazz. They knew nothing about Lightnin' Hopkins. So, as an homage, it was one of the worst concerts I'd ever attended. As road manager for Lightnin', I must say I enjoyed him very much but he was hampered by the bass player and drummer, who didn't really understand his blues.”
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In 1978, Benson traveled with Lightnin' to Japan and toured six cities in thirteen days, but once again he had some trouble persuading Lightnin' to go. “Some guy got in the car one day in the Third Ward,” Benson says, “and told him that they had dropped an atomic bomb in Japan and there was no food. So Lightnin' said he wouldn't go to Japan. So I told him that was during World War II; that was thirty years ago. They've rebuilt and everything since then.” But Lightnin' wouldn't listen. He was adamant about not going, and he and Harold had such a big falling out about him refusing to honor what was already an existing contract that Dr. Harold turned over all of Lightnin's records to Benson. “He said, ‘You're the manager now. You go do it. I'm tired of messing with him.' And I had to deal with it,” Benson remembers. “So around February, Miss Nette and Lightnin' came over to my house, and I received a call from [the promoter] J. J. Jackson in California who said Lightnin' had to go. He'd already signed the contract, and if he didn't go, he was going to be sued for breach of contract. So I told Lightnin' that and he said he didn't really care, because he wasn't going…. But then this Russian promoter and this woman showed up in the middle of the night in the rain over to Lightnin's place on Gray, and brought a substantial down payment for the trip, and Lightnin' just sat there when he saw the money. He didn't say anything, so I just proceeded to negotiate it as if he was going. This is probably a Tuesday or Wednesday night, and they said they wanted us to be in L.A. on Friday. So I took the guy and the woman to a nearby motel that night, met him the next day and went to the Japanese consulate, and he arranged for us to get a work permit and all the paperwork that needed to be done. I just proceeded to talk to Lightnin' as if we were going, and he gave in. He said he would go if I took three cases of Pearl beer and some sardines and some saltine crackers, so he could be assured that he would have at least something to eat while he was there.”
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Lightnin' was always careful about what he ate and how his food was served. Benson says that Lightnin' believed that his father had been poisoned, and throughout his life he worried that the same might happen to him.

The overall contract for the Japanese tour was for fifty thousand dollars, which was by far the most Lightnin' had ever been paid, and the organizers also provided first-class air travel and a fifty-dollar per diem. En route, Lightnin' asked Benson a very curious question about whether or not the world would end. Benson says, “I thought he was kind of waxing apocalyptic and answered, ‘You know, Lightnin', the Bible says, the world will end and Jesus will come back,' and he said, ‘No, if we keep flyin' in this motherfucka, will we go off the end of the earth.' And I said, ‘No, the earth is not flat. Wherever we take off from, if we keep going, we come back to where we started.' That was a real sweet moment [though it was also kind of sad that Lightnin' seemed to lack such basic knowledge].”
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Lightnin' and Benson left Houston on February 10, 1978, and arrived the next day in Tokyo, where they had a rehearsal at TOA Attractions studio. On February 13, Lightnin' performed in Tokyo, followed by Yokohama on February 15, Osaka on February 17, Nagoya on February 18, Sapporo on February 21, and Sendai on February 22. Also on the bill were Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, both of whom Lightnin' had known for nearly two decades.

Overall, the tour to Japan went well, but Benson says he always had to be on guard. “The language and the customs made it difficult to sort everything out. They'd want us to come to the studio. And they'd kind of play like they were just kind of rehearsing for the gig. And then, next thing you know, they got a couple of tracks out that he's recorded. So we decided that we didn't give them anything that they could use unless they really wanted to sit down and talk.”
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In Sapporo, Lightnin' ran out of sardines, crackers, and beer, and he had to go to the hotel restaurant. He was reluctant, but he had no choice, and when he got to the restaurant, he heard Sonny Terry complaining, “Can you see that waiter anywhere? I ordered some pancakes.” And Lightnin' was amused and chimed in, “Get your order, man!” Finally, the waiter came and brought Sonny his pancakes, and Benson says, “They were these little silver dollar pancakes and when Sonny felt them on his plate, he yelled out as loud as he could, ‘Hey, motherfucka! I ordered some pancakes, I didn't order no biscuits!' And Lightnin' kept eggin' him on to give the people hell. I was embarrassed as hell in that situation.”
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From then on, Benson either got Lightnin' room service or brought food to him. “Lightnin' pretty much stayed in the hotel. He didn't like Brownie, and Sonny and Brownie hadn't talked, other than on stage, for twenty-five years. Lightnin' was more on Sonny's side and they were better friends, and they hung together.”

On stage Lightnin' was accompanied by Donald Bailey, a drummer and studio musician who also worked with Sonny and Brownie. The other sidemen were Japanese, and according to Benson, “They were perfect mimics of Lightnin's sound.” The concert venues were huge and sat four to five thousand people and they were lined up around the block.

After Lightnin' got back to Texas, he didn't do too much traveling. He mainly played around Houston, where a new generation of white blues rockers connected with his music. Lightnin' would let just about anyone get up on stage and sit in, and if he didn't like what they were playing, he'd brush them off. As early as 1971, Jimmie Vaughan and his band Storm had appeared on the same bill with him at Liberty Hall and Fitzgerald's, and in the years that followed, he played numerous dates at Liberty Hall with musicians as diverse as Tracy Nelson and Jimmy Reed. He also went often to Austin, where he was booked with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble in 1978 at the Armadillo, and was even featured on the
Austin City Limits
television show in 1979 in a program that included the Neville Brothers and barrelhouse blues pianist Robert Shaw.
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Michael Hall, writing in
Texas Monthly,
described Hopkins's appearance on
Austin City Limits
as “one of the all-time great Lightnin' moments…. He was wearing a bright-blue leisure suit with rhinestones that sparkled in the TV lights and a beige fedora cocked at a 45-degree angle on the side of his head. He looked like a fabulous old pimp. He played a Fender Stratocaster in front of a rhythm section that included bass player Ron Wilson [who had been elected to the Texas House of Representatives].” While the performance was uneven, combining “flashes of brilliance competing with the age-related tendency toward sloth and crankiness,” Lightnin' was nonetheless captivating and halfway through his song “Ain't No Cadillac,” his soloing took an unexpected direction: “For some reason he had a wah-wah pedal, and he either stomped it too hard or it had been turned up way too high, because his amplifier let out a high-pitched squeal—a loud, intense, and not unpleasant sound that lasted about three seconds. At first he appeared taken aback, but he kept playing, and a satisfied smile crossed his face…. He may not have planned that particular outburst, but like all the other notes he played and noises he plucked, he was proud of it. ‘That's what I'm talkin' about,' he said, and jammed the pedal down again. Then he went on to craft a solo that began quietly and cascaded through a fall of bad notes, bringing the song to an early crashing end, dragging his rhythm section down with him, as he'd been doing for years.”
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As much as Lightnin' might have enjoyed the attention he got from his white fans, Benson felt he was always suspicious of their motives. “I think all of us Southern boys have inculcated into us a certain amount of cultural paranoia that I call the ‘Emmett Till complex.' And that is, white people will be straightforward with you as long as it behooves them, but they can turn on you in an instant. So if it comes down, especially, to white womanhood, then you had to be super-careful in terms of how you stepped. So all of these young guys who came along, who I felt were less prejudiced, he still saw them pretty much as being unpredictable; there was a possibility they could turn any minute and become very hateful. What he would say to me is that, ‘David, you're going to get killed. These white folks are going to kill you because you talk to these white folks like they're niggers.' I was part of a different generation. I didn't have any problem going haggling for his money or negotiating with [a] club owner.”
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