As the story goes, back in 1935, 11-year-old Linda Hopkins set about to arrange a benefit concert for her father’s church and brazenly invited fellow New Orleanian Mahalia Jackson to headline. Mahalia accepted, and was so taken with her wee fireball of a host that she affectionately dubbed Linda “the kid.” Now, more than seven decades later, Hopkins, one of the most underappreciated jazz-blues stylists of the past century, is still exhibiting that same youthful vigor. Working through an 11-song playlist, combining two live dates captured at Hollywood’s Catalina Bar & Grill last spring, Hopkins progresses from rollicking (“Let the Good Times Roll”) to racy (“Black Drawers”), sinful (“Evil Gal”) to solemn (“Georgia on My Mind”), proving herself worthy of her idol, Bessie Smith. Great artist, great album, ’nuff said.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro