⬇️ HUBERT SUMLIN ⬇️
DISCOGRAPHY 1964-2013 (34CD/DVD)
BIOGRAPHY
He was best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in
Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing was characterized by "wrenched,
shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring
rhythmic suspensions".
Sumlin was listed as number 43 in the Rolling Stone 100 Greatest
Guitarists of All Time. Sumlin favored a Louis Electric Model HS M12
amplifier and a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop guitar.
Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, United States, Sumlin was raised in Hughes,
Arkansas. When he was six years old, he got his first guitar. As a boy,
Sumlin first met Howlin' Wolf by sneaking into a performance.
When Howlin' Wolf relocated from Memphis to Chicago in 1953, his long-time
guitarist Willie Johnson chose not to join him. Upon his arrival in Chicago,
Wolf first hired Chicago guitarist Jody Williams, and in 1954 Wolf invited
Sumlin to relocate to Chicago to play second guitar in his Chicago-based
band.
Williams left the band in 1955, leaving Sumlin as the primary guitarist in
Wolf's band, a position he held almost continuously (except for a brief
spell playing with Muddy Waters around 1956) for the remainder of Wolf's
career.
Hubert Sumlin is best known as the ultimate Chicago blues guitarist, the
driving force behind Muddy Waters's band, but he's had a distinguished
career of his own as well. His BLUES PARTY is a 1986 affair where he's
joined by some talented bluesmen of a younger generation, including Ronnie
Earl and Mighty Sam McClain. Sumlin and his pals tear it up Chicago-style
with all the fire you'd expect from this blues master.
He died on December 4, 2011, in a hospital in Wayne, New Jersey, of heart
failure at the age of 80. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards paid Sumlin's
funeral costs.