📍Third Ward, Houston, TX, USA
1946 – 1982“I was born Sam John Hopkins in Centerville, Texas, in March 1912, and as a boy I met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic and played with him, and I knew I had to play the blues. After years of travelling, working farms and playing in the East Texas countryside, I came to Houston in 1946 and made my home in the Third Ward, the heart of Black Houston, around Dowling Street, with its bars, cafés, barbershops and churches. Dowling Street became my home base. I would walk up and down a few blocks of it, stopping to play my guitar and draw a crowd and collect coins, and singing in the bars and clubs at night. I made up my songs as I went, about whatever was happening around me, the people on the street, the news, my troubles. In 1946 Lola Anne Cullum of Aladdin Records heard me singing on Dowling Street and took me to Los Angeles to record, and they called me Lightnin', and my records sold well across the South. I recorded for many labels, always for cash, and I stayed in the Third Ward, playing for my people. In 1959 the folklorist Mack McCormick and the writer Sam Charters found me in the Third Ward, and recorded me at my home on Hadley Street, and suddenly the folk music fans and college students wanted to hear me. By 1960 I was playing Carnegie Hall with Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, and I toured the world, but I always came home to Houston. The Third Ward honours me with a historical marker on Dowling Street, now named Emancipation Avenue.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today