Free Form Patterns

A 3CD digibook edition of Texas blues legend Sam Lightnin' Hopkins' solitary album for the Psychedelic imprint, International Artists.

Recorded in January 1968, Free Form Patterns stands out in Hopkins' discography due to the unusual line-up on the sessions, with the veteran bluesman - fuelled by homemade moonshine - supported by a young, hip rhythm section, comprising Danny Thomas and Duke Davis from The 13th Floor Elevators (both high on acid at the time).

Free Form Patterns, is no failed hippy/blues hybrid, however, just a straightforward, honest blues album with the great man backed by fans, who happened to be members of a legendary Psychedelic band. Its significance lies in how the music cut across the generation and racial boundaries within the segregated and repressive atmosphere of late 1960s Texas.

Alongside recording the album for International Artists, producer Lelan Rogers set out to generate a definitive interview with the great bluesman and so left the tapes running in the studio as the album was cut. These recordings have sat in a series of dump tapes for 44 years but have now been put back together as unique documentation of one of the 20th century's most revered bluesmen.

Presented here is a coherent combination of songs, studio chatter and candid conversations with Lightnin' about his life and times. On the two additional discs the songs are as the band played them in the studio, live and unmixed and the conversations are as they were with only unintelligible chatter left out.

All of this material is previously unreleased except the final versions of the songs and a brief excerpt of conversation included on the 1980 compilation Epitaph for a Legend.

A fascinating and unique insight into Lightnin' Hopkins, the man and the musician.