Having done a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in Paraguay during his youth, Rich Hopkins returned to meet the family he had been involved with in the 1990s. That resulted in his album “Paraguay”, which doesn’t feature the song of the same name, which waited until his “Enchanted Rock” to appear on record.
Hopkins’s career kicked off in the 80s with The Sidewinders, who had to rename themselves Sand Rubies under pain of legal action. They produced some fine albums, including “Cuacha!” “Witchdoctor” and “Release the Hounds” before disbanding in 2011. He had run a parallel band, which became the focus after Sand Rubies’ demise. Their name appears on album sleeves as Luminarios, but on their Facebook and elsewhere as The Luminarios.
The quality of his work, whatever name he is trading under, is never less than interesting and often stellar. Ljubinko Zivkovic featured Sand Rubies/Sidewinders in our A-Z strand in 2020, and you can look there for guidance on what to listen to from that group. The Luminarios is an extension of his Sand Rubies work, with the songs being on the whole more personal, and the dusty desert rock sound of his Tucson, AZ home increased.
In the studio on “Enchanted Rock”, ‘Paraguay’ was an acoustic guitar and piano ballad. On stage, it becomes a Neil Young-style epic. On the 2011 Live At Rockpalast, it stretched to 13 minutes, with the dense noise backing of Crazy Horse over extended Young-esque solos.
On this later version of the band, on this occasion, a four-piece with Hopkins’ wife and musical partner, Lisa Novak, absent. Slightly shorter, at just under 12 minutes, it flies past in a whirl of solos from Damon Barnaby and Hopkins. This has all the anthemic qualities of ‘Like a Hurricane’ and ‘Powderfinger’ from the heyday of Young and the Horse.
If Crazy Horse are drifting to a conclusion, then Hopkins and Luminarios may well be somewhere to go for a fix of guitar noise, big solos and occasionally wobbly vocals. As a recent discovery, I’ve listened in fairly short succession to a lot of his 20-plus albums; Hopkins says he has lost count. With recent work heading back towards garage rock and longer jamming on record as well as live, Rich Hopkins is working at the height of his powers.
Fantastic track & performance.
Neil who?? …. this is better, much much better!!