Lightnin' Hopkins originally recorded the ten tracks that make up
Free Form Patterns on February 1, 1968, for the International Artists label. Also on that label's roster was the psychedelic group
13th Floor Elevators, which, by 1968, had basically disbanded. For this session, producer
Lelan Rogers (
Kenny's brother) teamed
Hopkins up with
Elevators drummer Danny Thomas and bassist Duke Davis. While not as revolutionary as
John Lee Hooker's sessions with
Canned Heat, Free Form Patterns steers clear of the late-'60s psychedelic trappings that screwed up such similar sessions as
Electric Mud. No one tried to bend
Hopkins to fit a foreign musical approach on
Free Form Patterns; he made the music bend to him. ~ Al Campbell