Lightnin’ Hopkins ft Sonny Terry - Last Night Blues (Bluesville Series)

Last Night Blues catches Lightnin' Hopkins and Sonny Terry meeting halfway between Texas grit and Piedmont holler, now pressed to 180-gram vinyl by QRP through Acoustic Sounds.

It was the second of three records the pair cut together for Bluesville in the early 1960s, and the one where the pairing clicks hardest. Hopkins was already blues royalty, a Houston guitarist who could turn one chord into a confession, while Terry had built a career turning a harmonica into a second voice, whooping behind Brownie McGhee on countless Piedmont sides. On paper it's an odd match. On record, cut at Rudy Van Gelder's studio, it's two players listening instead of leading.

The record leans stripped-down by design: guitar, harmonica, bass, nothing to hide behind. Rocky Mountain opens with Hopkins' guitar circling before the vocal drops in, Conversation Blues does exactly what its title promises, call and response with no daylight between them, and Last Night Blues slows to a late-night crawl, Terry's harmonica moaning under Hopkins' half-spoken lines.

Hard to Love a Woman is the rawest nerve on either side, closer to confession than song, exactly what a good blues record should give up: no polish, no filler, just two men trading truth. For anyone chasing that feeling on wax, this reissue gets you close to being in the room.