Lightning Hopkins

Lightning Hopkins was born in Crockett, Texas. He could strum a guitar like no one else. He came down to Houston and began performing in the Third Ward. He was sucked into a deal to go to the West Coast. When he found out he had been screwed he became bitter and also suspicious of all white agents. I persuaded Lightning to play for a movie I was making at the Institute of Texan Cultures. This led to performances at Rice University and the University of Houston. His wife was only five feet tall. She had long hair. She became jealous when Lightning began getting calls from other women. In order to keep her happy, Lightning had the phone disconnected. To reach him you had to go down into the Fifth Ward in person. I remember watching Lightning perform at Rice University. He gave a noisy performance which was unique. There was no one quite like Lightning. His material was home grown, peculiar to him.

Mance Lipscomb

Mance was living on a plantation in Central Texas and not getting ahead. His wife suggested he ought to try the real world. Mance decided to do so and he began playing and singing everywhere, including the East Coast festival. Mance made enough money to buy a house in Navasota. I brought Mance to the Texas Pavilion in San Antonio during Hemisphere. He had a distinctive style and he played songs that went way back. We put Mance up at the Texas Pavilion because he did not want to rent a hotel room. Mance really enjoyed strumming his guitar and singing old songs. There was no musician in Texas quite like Mance. When he came to Hemisphere he was wearing an overcoat. Someone made fun of the coat and he replied: "You are just jealous because you don't have an overcoat. Actually, he was getting old and the coat kept him warm. Mance would play for hours. He lived for music.

Robert Shaw

Robert Shaw had settled down into a bourgeois existence in the Austin area, but after talking to him for a while he agreed to show me some videos. In his youth he had been on the whorehouse circuit, playing the piano in the lobby where visitors came to pick out one of the girls. After the doors were closed and it was time for the music to stop two or more of the girls would fight over who got to sleep with Robert for the rest of the night. He asked me to be careful about what I wrote because he was now living a respected life. I told him we would send him to Washington, D.C. to represent a part of Texas life on the mall there. It was Shaw who told me about night life in Kansas City. "This would be an eight story building," he said. On the first floor you could walk in and buy a beer and look around for a girl." As you went higher up you had to be recommended in order to enter. The top floor was really exclusive. Shaw played me some of his music. It was not at all rowdy, it was sort of dreamy. Shaw went on up the circuit, from Texas to Chicago, paying his way by playing the piano. Finally he came back to Austin and settled down. He was the only man I ever met who really did play the piano in a whorehouse.

Los Angeles Hustlers

One of the first things we did was to cancel the contract that some Los Angeles hustlers had negotiated to handle the black exhibit at Hemisphere. Shuffler had told the governor he was going to fire these people, and it was part of his deal. Shuffler sent me and George Washington Jr. to California to fire them in person. George and I checked into a downtown hotel and went to see the hustlers. Right away I realized that George was on tranquilizers. He took several pills when he first woke up in the morning and was agreeable all day long. It was like he was floating on a cloud. We met with these people and they started entertaining us royally. One morning Shuffler called me and asked for a progress report. I told him I would take care of it. I did something that was highly irregular. While George was asleep I stole his pills and threw them down the fire escape. When he woke up he could not find them. I asked him what was the matter and he said "nothing." We went to meet with these people. George was cold sober and business like. I notified the group that they were terminated and then called on George. He pulled out a document and said that he had studied this from a legal point of view and that the contract was invalid. One of the hustlers called him an Uncle Tom. I told them the meeting was over and if they wanted to sue us they would need to consult the Secretary of State in Texas as he was our legal representative. Then we went out and hailed a taxi. George began breathing heavily and I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack. The taxi driver became nervous, so I told him to pull over to the nearest tavern. We went inside and I had a bourbon and bought one for the driver, and a double bourbon for George. After a second bourbon, George recovered. We went back to the hotel and began packing for our return trip. I called Shuffler and told him that everything had been accomplished.

Hemisphere

Henderson Shuffler came to see me. He had been appointed director of the Texas exhibit at Hemisphere in San Antonio in the Sixties and he needed to build a staff in a hurry. There would be 26 different categories. I agreed and accepted the black exhibit plus four others. Money was available and time was short. I went to Dallas and recruited George Washington Jr., the first black man to graduate from the University of Texas law school. Then I went to Austin and talked to Barbara Jordan, who had been elected to the senate of the Texas Legislature. Then I went to Prairie View A&M in Waller County, the black branch of A&M University. It was a time of change in race relations. To give you an example, I was in Dr. E. B. Evans office at Prairie View and asked to use the rest room. He sent for a freshman to escort me to the white restroom on the other side of the campus. After that I just helped myself to the rest room in the administration building. There was opposition from some white groups but on the whole the state was being integrated. The people we chose were what you would call bourgeois, blacks who had a college degree and were either teaching school or practicing law or appearing in public ventures such as sports.

There will always be an England

While I was in England I decided to fade into the crowd and listen to the talk around me, so I went into a pub and lowered my voice and ordered a beer. While I was sipping this beer I noticed that most of the people around me were looking at me. Finally a man nearby said to me: "Hello Yank, what part of the States are you from." I told him Texas and then I asked him: "How did you know I was from the United States?" He laughed and said: "It's your four-in-hand tie, mate." I looked around and noticed that some people did not have a tie and others had a bow tie. But no one else had on a tie like mine.

Fancy Dress in England

While I was in England I was invited to a formal gathering in Manchester, which is a primative society. I had a tux, but it was a bit oldfashioned compared to some of the guests. We were joined by some government representatives from London. I was chatting with one of the government men, who was quite proper, when a gushy and overdressed matron from Manchester approached our group and addressed us. "We are so happy that you are here from the States," she gushed. The gentleman from London flushed up. "Madam," he replied frostily, "I am an Englishman." The woman disappeared in the crowd.