Lightnin' Hopkins
Samuel John "Lightnin'" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist from Centerville, Texas. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
The musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick opined that Hopkins is "the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act". He influenced Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Jr., and a generation of blues musicians such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, whose Grammy-nominated song "Rude Mood" was directly inspired by the Texan's song "Hopkins' Sky Hop". In his own lifetime, Hopkins was one of the initial inductees in 1980 to the Blues Hall of Fame.
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