{"id":28572,"date":"2024-12-14T05:30:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T10:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28572"},"modified":"2024-11-19T18:02:28","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T23:02:28","slug":"album-review-lightnin-hopkins-live-from-the-ash-grove-plus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/14\/album-review-lightnin-hopkins-live-from-the-ash-grove-plus\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Lightnin\u2019 Hopkins \u2013 Live from the Ash Grove\u2026 Plus!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"One of the missions of boutique label Liberation Hall is to rescue from obscurity critically-acclaimed and\/or otherwise important recordings. That means that the label is always on the hunt for previously-unreleased tapes by legendary figures in music. Along those lines, a release of a live performance featuring Lightnin\u2019 Hopkins live onstage at Los Angeles\u2019 famed Ash Grove makes perfect sense. The first fourteen tracks on this collection document a November 1970 set; accompanied only by his guitar and a microphone, Hopkins runs through a delightful selection of tunes from his deep repertoire.<\/p>\n

As fine as the high-fidelity recordings are, what makes them truly special is the intimate character of the set. Hopkins is captured performing in front of a small and respectful audience; they\u2019re quiet during the songs, and enthusiastic in their applause at the conclusion of each. And in addition to playing the songs with passion and authenticity, between songs the master regales the crowd with spoken introductions to many of the tunes. His warm and genuine demeanor shines through the entire time. Hopkins\u2019 humor makes tunes like \u201cAin\u2019t it Crazy\u201d even better than they\u2019d already be.<\/p>\n

Hopkins pulls out a few tunes that the audience might not have expected. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s gonna sound right to y\u2019all,\u201d he warns before launching into a solo reading of Ray Charles\u2019 classic \u201cWhat\u2019d I Say.\u201d He tears through the melody at high speed, pauses to observe that he\u2019s been playing it too fast, and then launches into a more measured voice-and-guitar reading. He truly makes the song his own; Hopkins\u2019 playing often sounds like two acoustic guitars \u2013 lead and rhythm \u2013 going at once.<\/p>\n

Lightnin\u2019 Hopkins\u2019 skills as an engaging storyteller are as impressive as his musical abilities, and Live from the Ash Grove\u2026 Plus!<\/i> is proof positive of that fact. The primary recording that takes up most of the disc has an unmistakable you-are-there quality, and that only adds to its enjoyment.<\/p>\n

The \u201cplus\u201d part of the album title refers to a clutch of bonus tracks, six in all. Those are an assortment of recordings featuring Hopkins onstage at the Ash Grove and another Los Angeles venue, dating from 1965 and 1971. And making this collection even more special, the four tunes from In Your Ear in \u201871 feature Hopkins on electric guitar, backed by a band. Said band is (to put it mildly) quite loose \u2013 they lose their place in the songs more than once \u2013 but the aplomb with which Hopkins approaches the material more than makes up for any instrumental shortcomings on their part. It\u2019s clear Hopkins is having fun, and when you listen, you will too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the missions of boutique label Liberation Hall is to rescue from obscurity critically-acclaimed and\/or otherwise important recordings. That means that the label is always on the hunt for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[4391,5565],"class_list":["post-28572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-liberation-hall","tag-lightnin-hopkins","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28572"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28575,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28572\/revisions\/28575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}