The original Candid label lasted a mere four years, from 1960 to 1964, but its 30-some LPs played a worthy role in fusing the period's music, mainly modern jazz but also blues, with the burgeoning civil rights movement. Candid achieved legendary status, the series was born in 1960 when Archie Bleyer decided to indulge his love of jazz and blues and create his own releases, produced by Nat Hentoff.

• All Analog Mastering
• Mastered by Bernie Grundman
• Cut Directly From The Original Master Tapes
• Deluxe tip-on cover
• 180 Gram Vinyl
• Plating at RTI, USA
• Liner notes by Nat Hentoff
• Made in USA

The original Candid record label lasted a mere four years, from 1960 to '64, and its 30-some LPs played a worthy role in fusing the period's music — mainly modern jazz but also blues — with the burgeoning civil rights movement.

The American Candid label has achieved a near legendary status among the critics and the International jazz and blues public. The series was born in 1960 when Archie Bleyer, owner of the Cadence label decided to indulge his love of jazz and blues and create his own line — called Candid. Bleyer recruited Hentoff to produce the series.

Lightnin' Hopkins's audience, like Spann's, was then expanding to include White northeasterners, a transition beyond his fellow Black Texans that he seems to have been navigating with quiet grace on Lightnin' In New York, an eight-track, 43-minute studio disc recorded on his first trip of any length to New York.

He was so happy with this Nov. 15, 1960, session that he proposed extending it to allow him to play the studio's piano - an infrequent instrument on his discs - even managing to do both piano and acoustic guitar (no overdubs) on "Take It Easy," which is resequenced to begin the album. "Lightnin's Piano Boogie"is exactly that. Hentoff's candid liner notes and elements of Hopkins's tales may raise some eyebrows 62 years after the fact, but they're rock solid.

Recorded November 15, 1960 at the Nola Penthouse Sound Studios in New York, Lightnin’ In New York captures the legendary bluesman in classic form, including some rare solos on the piano.

Produced by Candid Records label co-founder, famed music critic and social activist, Nat Hentoff, and recorded at a time when Hopkins was being “rediscovered” by white audiences, the bluesman was reluctant in accepting his new role as an “artist” before predominantly white audiences.

It was only a month earlier in October of 1960 that Hopkins had made his Carnegie Hall debut alongside folk luminaries Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. Before that, he had rarely ventured outside of his native Texas.

“In this album,” writes Hentoff in the extraordinary liner notes that accompany the LP, “Lightnin’ has continued to illustrate how fresh, personal and surprising the blues still can be when they are molded by so strong and confident a source as this man from Houston.”

Musicians:

Vocals, Guitar, Piano – Sam Lightnin' Hopkins

Track Listing:

1. Take It Easy
2. Mighty Crazy
3. Your Own Fault, Baby, to Treat Me the Way You Do
4. The Trouble Blues
5. Lightnin's Piano Boogie
6. Wonder Why
7. Mister Charlie

Click here to listen to samples on YouTube.com ♫