Milton Hopkins, 84, poses for a portrait, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Houston. Hopkins is one of Houston's last living ties to its regal blues history, having played around the city for parts of seven decades. He played with BB King, and backed Little Richard, Sam Cooke and many others. Hopkins was also at City Auditorium in Houston on Christmas 1954 when R&B star Johnny Ace lost a game of Russian Roulette.
“He never needed to be the frontman,” Wood said. “He didn’t do crazy guitar solos, playing behind his head. People loved playing with him because he brought this quiet dignity to the profession. He was a consummate professional who could work with anybody.”Hopkins spent so much of his life lending his gift to this city. He got his start here, playing sessions for the Duke and Peacock labels in the 1950s.
For much of the past four decades, Hopkins was a beloved figure at home, with standing club gigs at the Ready Room and Etta’s, and later at the Big Easy and McGonigel’s Mucky Duck. He was in demand for blues festivals and private bookings, where his guitar playing was always — as he put it — mellow and smooth.
The years that followed were full of music, with Hopkins — cousin of blues great Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins — a fixture on the scene in Houston. He would bring a six-to-eight-piece band with him to the Ready Room. And he coaxed Grady Gaines into taking Hopkins’ standing gig at Etta’s, which offered a stage to dozens of Houston musicians with long and storied pasts. Wood called it “a renaissance, with all these musicians coming back to the stage.
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