LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS Vinyl & CDs

Review: Last Night Blues is Texas blues guitarist and songwriter Lightnin' Hopkins' 1961 album, featuring avant-harmonicist Sonny Terry. The second of three album collaborations, this record flaunts Hopkins and Terry's different yet complementary styles, creating a well-rounded listening experience in pristine stereo. From the title track to the ending 'Conversation Blues', we're served vibes of a quiet recording space, in which Hopkins is provided ample room to muse on his various disappointments and dissatisfactions, both in romance and life. Though this is done in a manner that is convincingly purgatory, putting across the feel of Hopkins "getting on with it", despite the quibbles of life, in a manner that only the best blues music does. Terry's harmonica is like a vague but striking apparition, gliding it at just the right moments yet with just the right dose of when-to-play sensitivity.