Back in the late 80s, I had several opportunities to meet my favorite blues player of all time, Hubert Sumlin, the highly influential guitarist who for nearly a quarter century had supplied the shrill, scintillating lead licks, which he projected above and beyond the complex rhythmical structures of the legendary Howlin’ Wolf’s band. Being a record collector, I was always fascinated by this gifted instrumentalist whose strident tones literally impelled Wolf’s numbers along. I consider myself lucky to have seen Hubert in the company of Sunnyland Slim (Albert Luandrew) behind the Wolf at the 1970 Howard University Blues Festival in Washington, D.C. Wolf, the headliner, came on last and, as usual, delivered the goods, all while writhing and moaning on the stage in front of his totally unfazed sidemen. After his electrifying set, it was if I thought I had survived a typhoon while strapped to a coconut palm, so powerful were the waves of music coming in my direction. And most of this audio onslaught was Hubert’s doing.

When next I saw him live in 1989, appearing at Giles Cook’s 8X10 club in Baltimore, he was nearly a decade removed from his last regular group, saxophonist Eddie Shaw and his Wolf Gang, which backed Wolf from 1972 until his death in 1976 and which featured pianist Detroit Jr. (Emery Williams). Wanting to forge a career of his own, and deservedly so, Hubert had left Shaw’s outfit(being replaced by Shaw’s son, Vaan) and began hitting the road in earnest. But not ever being a band leader, I don’t think Hubert ever really had a coherent plan of action as to how just to accomplish this end. So, characteristically he’d blow into town relatively unannounced and show up with different back-up groups or as part of “blues legends” aggregate showcase. Evidently, he always had the bad judgment to chose the bargain basement-type agents who would have no sense of distance and unwittingly subject any ensemble entrusted to their care to long and arduous drives in order to reach their next destination.

And this would all be understandable (and forgivable) if the band had decent transportation, not necessarily in the form of a luxury cruiser-type bus, for example, of noted sportscaster John Madden, who is afraid to fly, but even a super-stretch van would have been better. Instead, they traveled in a converted U-Haul truck, and a small one at that. With access to the driver’s seat, the rear compartment was a makeshift bedroom with retractable double bunks, like huge, folding out ironing boards, hanging from each wall. Peering into the back was like looking into the Dark Hole of Calcutta. I wondered to myself just how any one could ever live that way. But that was how Pinetop Perkins, Jimmy Rogers, Hubert, and whatever supporting cast, went from gig to gig in those days. No wonder then that they accepted any and all invitations to spend the night anywhere other than their cramped, stuffy, home-made “recreational vehicle.” For their accommodations, they literally depended on a network of friends in each major metropolis or the kindness of strangers, including myself.

The first time Hubert stayed with me it was during a record release tour after the success of his second U.S. album, Heart & Soul (Blind Pig 3389) in 1989 and in fact he went on the road with the same session men (excluding James Cotton), the New York-based Little Mike & the Tornadoes, and another time not long after Hubert came by with the other two aforementioned blues demigods.

Of all the guests I’ve had in my house over the years, Hubert (in stark contrast to his aggressive and demonstrative guitar pyrotechnics onstage) had to rank with one of the most shy and unobtrusive. A perfect gentleman, he was unassuming, warm, and actually quite a sweet and endearing individual. Indeed, he had an innocent, child-like demeanor about him but made few demands. I remember that he never seemed to eat much and only required a bowl of soup after the gig. But he’d never refuse a bottle of beer or any harder liquor on the premises. After all, there was always time to recover before the next night’s gig; that is, if he ever got to sleep. Invariably, he’d always be the last man standing and the first up in the morning, taking his constitutional in the neighborhood before any hung over creature was stirring. And when we awoke, there was Hubert on the sofa, seemingly refreshed, ready to greet the day by putting in an hour or so practice on his beloved guitar. “You know, Larry, I can’t do this at home in Milwaukee. My wife, Bea, won’t allow me to play this ‘devil’s music’ nor do any other kind of carousing,” he said. I got the impression that he went on the road just as much to establish a reputation as to escape the straight and narrow dictums of “Mama,” his moniker for his spouse (the niece of Sunnyland Slim), who is now deceased.

In short, though, Hubert was always a joy to accept into my home and I treasured his company whenever he came to town. During his stays, of course, I tried to sit him down long enough to write a biography, but I soon learned that this was a hopeless task, because as a raconteur, he was unparalleled as the author of tall tales. I call them blues stories. Although the framework of the story might be fact, the fabric was essentially fiction.

One such classic “whopper” he was wont to relate was when, as a child of ten, he first encountered Wolf’s band in his adopted hometown (he was born in Greenwood, MS, November 16, 1931) of Hughes, near West Memphis, AR. After being summarily ejected from a roadhouse because he was underage, he allegedly piled case upon case of wooden Coke containers upon each other so that he could climb them in order to spy his hero from the vantage point of a transom. But leaning forward to get a better view, he crashed through the window and landed next to the bandstand. Howlin’ Wolf (with Junior Parker on harmonica and Pat Hare on guitar), of course, smitten with the enthusiasm of this young disciple, interceded on his behalf and prevailed upon the management to let him stay.

Another round of fables revolved around his life as an undertaker in a mortuary in Memphis before he was “rescued” by the Wolf in 1954 and whisked off to Chicago, thereafter becoming a permanent fixture in his band. By the way, prior to this benevolent abduction, Hubert insisted that while a member of James Cotton’s quartet (1951-3), he recorded for Sam Phillips’s Memphis-based Sun label, although there is no record of him on either of the Tunica, MS, native’s singles for that venerable trademark. And as a member of Wolf’s band, Hubert claimed to have had “to cover for” a lot of studio material of Chuck Berry because of the latter’s inadequacy with the guitar. “Chuck was so bad that he had to tape letters of the chords to the neck as not to lose his place,” confessed Hubert. “And if you don’t believe me, listen to ‘School Days (Chess 1653).’ Chuck could never play that riff, not in a million years,” he added. And he probably was right. But don’t ask Chuck.

What took the proverbial cake, as far as yarn spinning was concerned, was his adventure behind the Iron Curtain in the fall of 1964. According to Hubert, Leonard Chess was contacted about sending a group of bluesmen (including Sunnyland Slim, bassist Willie Dixon, and drummer Clifton James) to Eastern Europe to act as goodwill ambassadors (under the auspices of the American Folk Blues series) in order to ease the Cold War tensions stemming from the construction of the Berlin Wall, then still fresh in everyone’s psyche. Landing in Hamburg in October, the combo there cut an LP (Fontana TL 5225) and then proceeded on into Poland, where they were warmly welcomed. Here, Hubert’s memory gets a little hazy. Evidently, on the way back to West Germany, the tour was diverted to East Berlin by the wealthy impresario, Horst Lippmann (the same who arranged all the former and subsequent American Folk Blues concerts), who was promising huge amounts of money if the group would record a clandestine, bootleg LP, since “decadent” American roots music - rock n’ roll, blues, and jazz, were verboten to not only be distributed and sold but also be heard in this territory (although nearly all the citizens routinely tuned into to the megawatt Armed Forces Network or Radio Free Europe).

Upon arrival, all the musicians were given luxurious “digs,” the whole royal treatment. After the LP was completed on November 1, each received the princely sum of 10,000 marks, but unfortunately, to their chagrin, they learned that the money could not be exchanged in the West (and besides that it was illegal to transport it anywhere across the Communist frontier). Anyway, Hubert asserted that, to make the best of a bad situation, he went on a massive spending spree - furs, jewelry, and watches - a veritable orgy of buying. And when departure loomed, he still had 1,000 marks remaining, which he disposed of into the apron of a stunned speechless housekeeper. Luckily, for Hubert, his generosity was to save his skin, since the border patrol, supposedly alerted to their reckless expenditures of cash, had the quartet strip-searched. “You know, Larry, when I got home, I couldn’t even get into my apartment because all those gifts I had bought were like a barricade around my door,” said Hubert, with a little wink.

Nobody on earth more relishes relating such mythical anecdotes and regaling any willing listeners with even further epic exploits. Don’t get him started. And I offer this caveat to any future chroniclers of Hubert. It might not be the truth, but it’s sure entertaining.

As much fun as he was to be around, I still worried about my friend, Hubert. It had been ten years on his own and he still was a relative unknown. There was no publicity machine in place. Furthermore, all these road escapades had to be taking a toll on his health. Pushing sixty, one can’t party each night without this reckless lifestyle ultimately exacting its revenge. And, at that time, he still didn’t have much to show, studio-wise, to call his very own. Without his own legacy of recordings, he would remain only a footnote in Howlin’ Wolf’s illustrious career.

I applauded Hammond Scott of the now sadly defunct, New Orleans Black Top label for taking a chance on him in 1986 with Hubert Sumlin’s Blues Party (BT 1036), but I thought the project, though well-intentioned, seemed more like a reunion vehicle for Roomful of Blues, since all the sidemen - guitarist Ronnie Earl, pianist Ron Levy, and tenor Greg Piccolo -were charter members of that much heralded jump blues band. Hubert’s Chicago style of picking never seemed to quite mesh and he was virtually shut out on vocals, as Mighty Sam McClain ably handled this component. So whose album was it anyway?

I have to say that at least my health fears were somewhat justified in that in late 2002 Hubert was diagnosed with lung cancer, and, in fact, had one of his removed. But this disease could have just as well have been caused by a lifetime of playing in smoky dives rather than blaming the all manner of cigarettes themselves that he consumed. I’m happy to report that he’s not only in remission now, but that he’s also decided to be clean and sober regarding his other chronic vices.

But I have to admit that I was dead wrong about my prognosis as far as his establishing his notoriety was concerned. There was no stopping him in the 90s and as far the new millennium is concerned, as the song goes by Timbuk Three, his “future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.”

As the 90s dawned it was almost as if Hammond Scott came to the same conclusion as mine and released a second Hubert Sumlin effort, Healing Feeling (BT 1053), this time with a more sympathetic nod to Hubert’s talents, including two vocals and a few of his original compositions. The other vocals were shared with James “Thunderbird” Davis and Darrell Nulisch, the same former front man for Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets, who, in his soulful approach, captured the mannerisms and inflections of Otis Rush, lending to the whole undertaking a more Chicago feel with which Hubert was a lot more comfortable.

Hubert, after this follow-up enterprise on Black Top, was beginning to attract the interest of all sorts of record producers. In 1994, Evidence records, a mainly reissue and, by the way, a great bargain label founded in 1991 and headquartered in Conshohocken, PA (Frank Frost, Lowell Fulson, Otis Rush, Luther Allison, etc.), perhaps to capitalize on Hubert’s new-found renown, acquired the rights to some of his out of print or import masters and released two albums almost simultaneously, a long forgotten 1975 domestic session which featured guitarist Lonnie Brooks, the Aces (Little Walter Jacobs’s trio), and pianist Willie Mabon - My Guitar & Me (26045) - and the long out-of-print and sought-after Amiga recordings completed in East Berlin by Horst Lippmann - Blues Anytime (26052). These are fine examples of Hubert’s earlier body of work and Evidence offers as well in its extensive catalogue (300+ titles) a boxed set of Lippmann’s American Folk Blues Festivals which can be obtained online through Evidence’s website - http://www.evidencemusic.com.

Next in 1997, Analogue Productions, an audiophile label based in Salinas, KS, and which still manufactures (as well as CDs) high-quality vinyl LPs recorded at 45 rpm, came calling and teamed Hubert with several veterans of the Chicago blues scene, including harp man Carey Bell, guitarist James D. Lane (the son of the late Jimmy Rogers), and Sam Lay on drums. For Hubert, I Know You(CAPO 2004) was a step in the right direction because, when finally surrounded by such familiar faces, who knew all the nuances of the Windy City’s contribution to America’s greatest indigenous musical genre, he acted and sounded like he was right in his element, his comfort zone.

And very close on the heels of this oeuvre appeared Hubert’s most recent homefront release, Wake Up Call, on the up-and-coming jazz and blues label, Blues Planet (BP 1116), which actually commenced operations with Hubert’s and Brooklyn-born harmonica great Paul Oscher’s inaugural releases in 1998. Wake Up Call is significant for two main reasons: firstly it reveals that Hubert had finally “arrived,” being discovered by mainstream audiences. In fact, his sidemen, including rhythm guitarist Jimmy Vivino, comprise nearly the whole house band of the late night Conan O’Brien TV talk show. Secondly, all the songs on the CD (recorded at Sorcerer Sound in New York) were penned by Hubert, himself, which indicated that he was wielding a little more clout in the studio, rather than at times in the past being manipulated by the producers. Undoubtedly, he had reached another plateau as a mature, well-rounded artist.

Maybe at this juncture John Stedman of London, England, who heads the JSP label, also noticed that Hubert’s career was snowballing. Stedman had always specialized in recording American artists, especially of the blues variety, when they traveled on tour through Great Britain and over the years had “hooked” such artists as zydeco accordion ace Fernest Arceneaux, Washington, D.C. harmonica wizard Charlie Sayles, and guitarist Louisiana Red (Iverson Minter), as well as a slew of others, while on their respective junkets abroad. However, Stedman confided to me that lately that his bread and butter has been to purchase the masters of or lease old timey jazz, blues, and country music classics of the U.S. which he then releases on his own logo, many in handsomely presented boxed sets. In fact, since dabbling in this “retrospective” market, he has also enjoyed a brisk mail order business via the internet. But in this particular instance, he took a gamble on Hubert’s relatively recent London sessions which had been in the can since 1990 and issued Blues Guitar Boss (JSP 2118) in 1999. It must be doing well sales-wise because it’s still in his inventory.

Hubert was still on a recording roll well into the 21st Century when things hit a snag. In the fall of 2000 and the early spring of 2001, Hubert was in a New York City studio creating what promised to be his most ambitious album ever, a glorious reprise of Muddy Waters’s greatest hits. And a huge array of musical celebrities volunteered their services to see the project through, including Levon Helm of The Band, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, James Cotton, Paul Oscher, pianist David Maxwell, and longtime Muddy band member, Bob Margolin, just to name a few.

For the two Brits involved, Clapton and Richards, it was like deja vu all over again, having held Hubert in the highest esteem since their first encounter in 1971 as part of the famous The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions, since reissued on MCA. But because all the principals were obligated by contracts to different labels, no agreement could be reached as to how to proceed without the usual litigation that accompanies such ventures, especially if there is a potential for a best seller. Although the taping and mixing was completed, everything at least temporarily had to be put on hold.

Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin was particularly miffed at the impasse, “business bullshit,” and decided to pay Hubert and others of his era a tribute on his own - cutting Bob Margolin All Star Blues Jam on Telarc (CD-83579) in 2003. And what a grand joining of blues giants it was with Pinetop Perkins on piano, Carey Bell on harp, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums, and Hubert and Bob trading leads.

But this aforementioned magnum opus of Hubert’s now moldering in the vaults still might see the light of day. As of this writing, negotiations are being held to actually release it in 2004. Provisionally titled, About Them Shoes, there are strong indications that a major, indeed, WEA/Warner is in the process of procuring the rights. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it comes into fruition. Another such conjunction of blues stars may never occur again.

But if Hubert was not only “getting out there” by his frequent visits to the studio, he was becoming more conspicuous by other projects in which he was involved. How about his own slick and professional website for starters? Just type in Hubert Sumlin on your trusty computer and you’ll find it against a backdrop of a few bars of “Killing Floor” to put you in the proper mood. For those maybe interested in following in Hubert’s footsteps there is an instructional video (recorded in 1999) currently available, The Blues Guitar of Hubert Sumlin from Homespun Tapes, which also showcases the vocal talents of David Johansen(a.k.a Buster Poindexter) along with the expert drumming of Levon Helm and the rhythm guitar of Jimmy Vivino. And how’s this for posterity; Hubert was recently the subject of a photographic portrait by the noted Annie Leibovitz, which first appeared in Vanity Fair in October 2003 and will again be a part of a forthcoming collection, a hefty coffee table tome, American Music.

I was able to talk to Hubert a little in his dressing room during his engagement (wherein he was most sensitively supported by the legendary Nighthawks) at the Funk Box (formerly the 8X10) in Baltimore this past November 28th, and we reminisced a little about his former visits to Charm City. As usual, I offered him lodgings but he politely declined, informing me that he had made mistakes in the past with bad agents and that now he was with Piedmont Talent, a first-class outfit. “Is that because they give out refrigerator magnets as cartes de visite?” I joked. He laughed but mentioned that his new agent, Toni Mamary, has made all the difference in the world. Not only does she keep him busy, selecting now only the prestigious venues(with the minimum of road stress), but also she makes sure that he’s paid very well for his services, as well as attending to all needs, including proper shelter.

“I feel like a new man,” he confessed. And why not? Any bluesman worth his mettle would be proud to assume his schedule of dates. Just last December he received, not one, but several dates at the Big Apple’s Bottom Line and then he’ll move on over to B.B. King’s Blues Club, also as a headliner, on January 30. On February 22, he’ll be in Seattle, WA, as part of a Jimi Hendrix homage spectacular - Experience Hendrix - and he’ll be sharing the stage of the hallowed Paramount Theatre with Buddy Guy, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Living Colour. When April 1st rolls around, Hubert will have top billing at the Savannah (GA) Blues Fest and two weeks later will be accorded the same status at the Cape May (NJ) Jazz Fest.

At 72 the man is indefatigable and shows no sign of letting up. I think that Baltimore Blues Society got a taste of his energy level when he was booked for its annual Alonzo’s Picnic jamboree on September 6, 1998. He was but a mere pup then at 67, but he certainly kept both Big Joe (Maher) and the Dynaflows and guitarist David Earl on their collective toes.

“Hubert, I was concerned there for a while. But you’ve come a long way since you hung out regularly at my place,” I said.

“Yeah, Larry, but I still got a long way to go,” said Hubert.

“But could you do me just one favor,” I said.

“Name it,” responded Hubert.

“How about one more blues story just for old time’s sake?”


..............................................................................................................................................................Larry Benicewicz
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