Chords for Lightnin' Hopkins - I Growed Up With The Blues

Well, my family, we come up Leon County, Centerville, Texas.
It's [E] kind of [Eb] just a little old country where they [Db] farm, you know, and raise [D] cotton and corn and peas [C] and peanuts and things like that.
So that's where I [Db] grew up and know myself [D] was back out from Centerville, _ [B] about [Bb] 12 miles back in the [D] country.
And that's [B] where we were farming at, you know.
[Bb] And before that I was _ large [D] enough to go to the field, you know, while I was being [B] around the house.
So [D] I heard my brother playing a guitar.
_ So it was the first one I ever [N] seen.
So he wouldn't let me play his guitar.
So I wanted to play it.
So the last one day they come in and caught me with the guitar and I couldn't hang it back up.
See, I had to get in a chair to get it down.
And so they caught me fast.
So he said, boy, I done told you don't fool with this guitar.
He said, can you play this guitar?
I said, yeah, I can play some.
He said, well, go ahead and let's see what you can do.
And I went ahead and played my little tune and he liked it.
So he said, yeah, he can play some.
I said, where you learn that from?
I said, well, I just learn it.
So from then on, I went ahead and made me a guitar.
I got me a cigar box.
I cut me a hole in the round hole in the middle of it.
Take me a little piece of plank, nail it on to that cigar box.
And I got me some screen wire and I made me a bridge back there and raised it up high enough that it could sound inside the little box.
And I got me a tune out of it.
And from that, I kept my tune.
And I played from then on.
I just come on and on.
So I got me a guitar of my own when I got to be eight years old.
And so I went to the Buffalo Association with my guitar.
And [F] I run up on Blind Lemon [Dm] Jefferson.
He had a crowd of people surrounding him.
And I was standing there looking at him play and I just went to playing my guitar just what he was playing.
So he said, who's that playing that guitar?
So they said, oh, that's this little boy here [Gb] knocking on the guitar.
So he said, no, he's playing that guitar.
I said, where he at?
He said, come here, boy.
And I went on over there where he was and he was feeding for me.
And I was [A] so low, he rushed down and said, this here was picking that guitar?
I said, yeah. _
So he said, do that again.
So I did it, a little note again, the same one he'd done.
He said, well, that's my note.
It's that same thing.
I said, boy, you keep that up, you're going to be a good guitar player.
_ So he went on and then he come to playing.
So I went to playing right on with him.
So I was so little and low that people couldn't see me.
We were standing by a truck.
They put me up on top of the truck.
And Blind Lemon was standing down by the truck.
And me and him, man, we carried it on.
And the excitement was me because I was so little.
And I was just picking what he was.
I wasn't singing, but I was playing what he was playing.
That's right. _ _ _ _
My brothers and sisters, they played guitar too, [E] you know.
At one time they called it a Hopkins band.
But we all split up, you know, some drift off.
So we busted up in that way.
But [D] organ used to be the real family, you know.
We'd play on Sundays.
If we didn't go to church, we'd have church at home.
[C] And I was the organ player.
I [Eb] sang them good old Christian songs.
And Mama, she'd never get [N] happy, you know.
And I'd have to be playing it because that's what she wanted us to do, you know.
She wanted to raise us in church.
Fact of the business, she did, you [Db] know.
_ [Gb] My mother, she's Christian yet.
She never did care anything about the blues, but I don't know.
She couldn't play no music.
And she could play a little old hymn on the accordion.
I don't know what [D] it was named.
[Eb] But my daddy, he used to promp.
You know what's called promp is
_ _ when you go out and the old folk dance, you know, that old set.
You swing mine and I swing yours.
Put the bird in the key.
Yeah.
Then when it's wrapped up, they take it to the bar.
That mean get a nickel worth of candy or something.
They didn't [D] spend no time for that set.
[Db] So they had the name of the set, dancing on the head, foot, and [Eb] like that, you know.
And [Bb] man, it was all right, you know, because I enjoyed it.
So after I grew up, I just grew up with the blues.
And I left on my own [Eb] and I've been [B] on it ever since.
And that's what I've been doing, [Db] playing the blues.
[B] Ever since I've had some hard days traveling.
But after I would stop in places and they'd find out I play that guitar like I do,
they'd warm me up, feed me, and make me a paper sack of food
and tell me I can make it. _