Hubert Sumlin 1931 – 2011
By Hunter60
“He always played the right thing at the right time …”
Jimmy Page on Hubert Sumlin
Thin, dressed to the nines with a clear eyes and an impish grin, Hubert Sumlin was arguably one of the finest blues riffs masters to have rolled out of Mississippi and straight into the heart of the blues. When he passed away on December 4th, 2011, the world of the music lost one of its last links to the youthful heyday of the blues. As both a legendary sideman to Howlin’ Wolf (and for a brief time, Muddy Waters) and later in his career, a solo artist, Sumlin truly was the master of the groove and has left his legacy in some scorching guitar licks that will play on through out time.
He has been lauded as a true genius by other legends, namely Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield and Jimi Hendrix. Keith Richards was so fond of Sumlin that he assisted with the elder blues statesman’s medical bills over the last few years of his life and both Richards and Mick Jagger paid for his funeral expenses. Tributes have been written by literally hundreds of musicians both on-line and in print over the last few weeks, each one noting that aside from his incredible playing style, Hubert Sumlin was humble and easy going man who always made time for anyone who asked.
Sumlin was born in Greenwood, Mississippi on November 16th, 1931. His family relocated to Hughes, Arkansas shortly thereafter. As a child he was captivated by the music of Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Blind Willie McTell and the man who would become a huge figure in his life, Howlin’ Wolf. After playing with a diddley-bow that his brother A.D. had built and attached to the side of the family home, Hubert pestered his mother for a guitar. She eventually relented and spent her entire weekly paycheck of $5 to purchase the instrument for the boy.
At the age of 10, according to guitarist and writer Bob Margolin, Sumlin snuck out of his family home to go to a local juke joint to see Howlin’ Wolf. Standing on a few Coca-Cola crates to peek into the windows, Sumlin lost his balance and fell through the window landing on the stage. The owner wanted to throw the boy out of the club but Wolf intervened and had Sumlin sit right on the stage for the remainder of the performance. Later, Wolf took Sumlin back home and asked that Sumlins mother not punish the boy. It was a curious incident considering how the two’s paths would cross again later and quite literally alter the course of the blues.
A few years later Sumlin and another local talent, James Cotton, formed a band and began to play local joints in West Memphis. News of the partnership reached Wolf of the boy guitarist with his own unique, hard edged sound and he sent for Sumlin to come to Chicago to join him in his band. Sumlin stepped up to the stage with Wolf’s other powerful guitarists, Willie Johnson and Jody Williams. But it was Sumlin’s guitar that truly altered Wolf’s overall sound.
According to Margolin, early on Wolf angrily told Sumlin to get off the stage because he was playing over his vocals. Later he suggested that Sumlin lose the guitar picks and play with just his fingers. The result was that it allowed Sumlin to play softer behind the big mans vocals but it also gave him more expression in his playing. Once he had mastered the style, he returned to Wolf’s band and the results are undeniable.
Make no mistake about it though; Sumlin and Wolf made tremendous music together but the partnership was anything but smooth the entire time. Sumlin related a story that drives the point home regarding his relationship with the Wolf. Once, in the mid-50’s, Sumlin showed up after a gig had ended in Little Rock, Arkansas. Sumlin jumped into the car with the other band members to head to the next gig. Shortly after, Wolf stopped the car, dragged Sumlin from the car and shoved the guitarist down a hill that cost Sumlin his two front teeth.
“He was a big man,” Sumlin said in an interview earlier this year, “and he scared me half to death.”
Sumlin showed up a few days later at a Chicago club where he confronted Wolf. “I hit him!” Sumlin laughed recounting the story. “I knocked his teeth out too. And afterward, he laughed … I hated I did it. I apologized. But you know what the guy did? We went back to work.”
It was this sort of wild and passionate energy that was the foundation for the blues and remains in the acetate grooves of those early recordings.
After two years, the relationship hit a crescendo and Sumlin left Wolf and joined up with Wolf’s biggest rival, Muddy Waters. Waters ‘bought’ Sumlin by tripling his pay. In ‘Can’t Be Satisfied,’ Sumlin said “Man, I cried a-a-all the way over there.” The heavy touring schedule wore on Sumlin quickly. By the time the band hit the 708 Club in Chicago, tensions with Sumlin hit a high note. He recounted that Muddy was drinking heavily, chatting up the young ladies in the club and didn’t take the stage until the last few numbers before an intermission. Sumlin leaned against an electric fan and sustained a heavy shock from the faulty fan. “So I told Muddy I couldn’t play out the night. He got mad at me, called me all kinds of things, and raised his foot to kick me. I grabbed him. Here comes (Otis) Spann with a chain, gonna whip me about Muddy. I had a hold of Muddy, and every time Spann tried to get me with that chain, he hit Muddy. I said ‘Man, when you get right, I’ll turn him loose…’
Sumlin called Wolf and said he was coming back to the band. Wolf met with Waters at Muddy’s home to iron it out. Before leaving, Wolf told Muddy ‘Next time you do that, man, I’ll kill you over him.’ Sumlin remained with Howl’ Wolf until the Big Man’s death in 1976. Sumlin’s genius can be heard loud and clear on some of Wolf’s biggest and most enduring hits like ‘Smokestack Lightning’, ‘300 Pounds Of Joy’, ‘Backdoor Man’, ‘Wang Dang Doodle’, ‘Spoonful’ and ‘Going Down Slow’.
After Wolf passed away, Sumlin emerged as a band leader, keeping the core group together and continuing to tour as The Wolf Band until 1980 when he left for a solo career. He recorded a solo effort with the French label, Black and Blue but it wasn’t until 1986’s Hubert Sumlin’s Blues Party on Black Top Records that he began to gain some momentum in the United States. He recorded regularly on a variety of record labels until 2003. In 2002, Sumlin was diagnosed with lung cancer and had one lung removed. But even ill, Sumlin continued to tour when he could and recorded 2003’s About Them Shoes with guests Eric Clapton, Keith Richards Levon Helm, David Johansen and an old friend, James Cotton. In 2007, Sumlin recorded his final album, Treblemaker for V2 Records.
Even to the last, Sumlin would often be brought on stage to play at Clapton’s Crossroads Festival and to sit in with the Rolling Stones or as a guest at B.B. Kings club in New York or Buddy Guys Legends in Chicago.
He was nominated for 7 Grammy’s (though he never won) and was elected into the Blues Hall Of Fame in 2008. Sumlin passed away from heart failure in Wayne, New Jersey on December 4th, 2011 at the age of 80.
[FONT=Tahoma]"All I can do is be me ... whoever that is". Bob Dylan [/FONT]
