Ernie Hawkins: the Guitar of Lightnin' Hopkins [DVD] [Region 1] [NTSC]

Of the 40 odd 'How to Play Guitar' videos I own, this is my favorite and the one I go back to every month. I've worked with this video now for about four years and have been making real headway with it for about 18 months. I'm still a ways from improvising blues lines the way Lightnin' does. Like all of Ernie Hawkins' videos, this is not for someone who does not really play guitar. If you are an advanced jazz player, rock player or blues player you will likely get a lot out of this video quickly. I bought it shortly after I took up the instrument with the idea that this was the style I wanted to specialize in. It won't work like that. Lightnin' Hopkins was a very idiosyncratic player. He had a bag full of tricks, which he strung together in different recipes, which enabled him to create his own arrangement of most any song on the spot. He was also adept at playing what he called 'air songs,' songs that he could make up on the spur of the moment. His guitar style is much more formidable than it appears to the untrained guitar player. Lightnin' Hopkins might easily be seen as the father of Rock and Roll guitar playing. It's easy to hear that players like Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, and Scotty Moore owe a considerable debt to Lightnin' Hopkins' style which is what attracted me to this video in the first place. Apart from being a blues guitar virtuoso, Ernie Hawkins is the foremost guitar style imitator of all the blues giants. His two volume expose on Mance Lipscomb is the natural next step after mastering Lightnin' but I have to confess, I'm still working hard on Lightnin' and hope I advance enough to tackle Mance before the end of 2006. If you do not consider yourself an advanced guitar player and want a bridge to study the Lightnin' style of guitar, consider "Beginning Rockabilly Guitar" by Fred Sokolow. This is a much easier lesson and covers most of the skills one need to approach Lightnin' Hopkins' guitar style. One caveat, Sokolow's video, too, is not for someone who has NO knowledge of how to play guitar. It expects that you know basic chords forms and how to read guitar tablature. These are not very great demands, but if you are an absolute beginner you should get something easier. Happy Traum offers a video called "Yes You Can Play Guitar" that will probably work for someone who knows nothing about playing the instrument.

Ernie Hawkins does a fantastic job of breaking down the style of Lightnin' Hopkins in a clear and concise style that makes it easy for a relative beginner to understand. I have purchased a few teach yourself books in the past and have had minimal success in picking up the material and didn't have time for lessons. Ernie's DVD puts the instructor right in front of you and walks you through Lightnin's trademark shuffle beats, turn arounds and runs and will have you playing it in no time. Ernie intuitively understands which parts may be more difficult and repeats the instruction as necessary helping you avoid the rewind button. The video quality is excellent and the split screen feature which allows you to see both fret hand and picking hand is invaluable. Also included are some excellent videos of Lightnin' playing the songs himself. I am a huge Lighnin' Hopkins fan and would love to see more of his songs broken down like this in DVD format. (Ernie, are you listening?) :)

If you're really serious about trying to learn Lightnin' Hopkins style of guitar, this is your video bible. 100% agree with the other review that this is in no way intended for anybody who could be considered a beginner; it actually humbled me a bit in that i found myself having to go back and learn more elementary things from other sources just to be able to keep up with the dvd. Uninformed listeners might hear Lightnin's music and think "he's recycling the same three riffs" but that's missing the entire subtle genius of it; it's almost always similar but it's never, ever the same. Ernie Hawkins does a fantastic job teaching this principle and teaches you many subtle variations so you can tweak the 5 songs you learn here to sound like other Lightnin' tunes pretty easily. You will likely have to develop your hand strength just to physically be able to do some of the bending and sliding that happens here, and forget everything you know about bass rhythm because Lightnin's thumb had a mind of its own. This will be hard, and this will be frustrating, but if you stick with it you'll learn a rich and rewarding style of Texas blues guitar that sounds great and is a blast to play.