A first pressing of the 1964 Lightnin’ Hopkins album Live at the Bird Lounge on the Guest Star label, from the legendary collection of Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman.

Bill Wyman is legendary as a musician, a blues historian, an author and for his world-class collection of Rolling Stones memorabilia.  This album was sold by him at the Bill Wyman and his Rolling Stones Archive sale at Julien’s Auctions (if you haven’t already seen the Wyman documentary The Quiet One, we enthusiastically recommend it.)

This album has “Not For Sale” and “WING Library Copy” on the back in blue pen, which are very likely clues to some additional provenance.  Wyman famously shopped for records while on tour, and was occasionally was given records that interested him when visiting radio stations.  WING is a pop radio station in Dayton, Ohio.  This album was released in 1964, and the Stones played that city’s Hara Arena on November 13, 1964.  As this was a promo copy from WING, which probably played few if any blues records, and it’s very possible that Wyman visited the station and was given the album during his time there.

The Stones 1964 visit to Dayton was controversial; a more recent article in the Dayton Daily News noted “Gee Mitchell of the Dayton Daily News wrote in his column the next day that “The Rolling Stones gathered neither moss nor customers in Dayton last night.” Here are three more lines from Mitchell’s blistering critique:

1. “They were on stage less than 20 minutes, did eight numbers — or whatever designation is given the component parts of their brand of noise.” 2. “There was scarcely a squeal as the unkempt quartet skipped through the entrance.” 3. “The difference in popularity on this side between the Stones and The Beatles indicates that there are after all, some things even teenagers won’t buy.” 

For those interested, we’ve added scans of the reviews (these clippings were found online and are not included with the record).

The cover is VG+, the disc is VG++.

With a copy of the original auction house descriptive card, and Recordmecca’s written lifetime guarantee of authenticity, signed by Jeff Gold, who has consulted for Bill Wyman.

An extraordinary opportunity to own a Lightnin’ Hopkins album from the collection of a Rolling Stone.

Read Recordmecca owner Jeff Gold’s blog post on collecting artist-owned records here.