The Great Electric Show and Dance

The concept of loyalty to a record company was a foreign one to Lightnin' Hopkins. He preferred to be paid up front at recording sessions, and once he had money in hand, he would roll out his stock set of boogie and shuffle rhythms and proceed to half improvise over the top of them until he had delivered the allotted number of songs, then he was gone, money in pocket, into the night. Hopkins had a somewhat more lasting association with Stan Lewis' Louisiana-based Jewel Records, though, and he provided Lewis with several albums worth of material in the '60s, including this odd set from 1969. Rumour has it that the sessions for The Great Electric Show and Dance took place in Muscle Shoals, AL (Hopkins generally preferred to record closer to home in Texas) with a crack soul band of Eddie Hinton on guitar, Barry Beckett on keyboards, David Hood on bass and Roger Hawkins on drums (an unnamed harmonica player was also obviously present). These guys had been part of some of the biggest soul hits of the '60s, so there was every reason to expect something special from the Hopkins session.