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The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins
Directed by Les Blank • 1968 • United States
Les Blank creates a vivid portrait of bluesman Lightin’ Hopkins through a vital collection of musical performances and oral histories.
Extras
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Ethan Hawke on THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS
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The Sun’s Gonna Shine
Filmed in 1968, while Les Blank was shooting THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS, THE SUN’S GONNA SHINE is the director’s lyrical re-creation of a memory from Hopkins’s youth, when he decided, at age eight, to stop chopping cotton and start singing for a living. This ten-minute film features...
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THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS Outtake
This seven-minute outtake from THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS features the bluesman singing the classic song “Mr. Charlie, Your Rollin’ Mill is Burnin’ Down.”
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"Lightnin’ Les"
Lightnin’ Hopkins initially resisted Les Blank’s attempts to film him, but he softened after a long night the two spent playing cards together. This footage shows Hopkins performing a song he wrote in honor of the filmmaker’s futile efforts at the table.
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Making LIGHTNIN’
This short piece, produced in 2014, features an interview with Skip Gerson, director Les Blank’s collaborator on THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS.
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An Appreciation by Taylor Hackford
In this interview, conducted in September 2013, filmmaker Taylor Hackford, a lifelong admirer of the work of Les Blank, discusses THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS, the film that galvanized Blank’s career.
