Untitled Document

Hubert Sumlin's career is well documented in various books and magazines; also his own excellent website www.hubertsumlinblues.com contains a brief biography and a few wonderful interviews too. My mission was to find out a bit more, and I had a thoroughly great time doing it. An almost impossible task would be to convey the amount of laughter Hubert created as certain recollections tickled him, quite often accompanied with a slap to my knee, but perhaps you can experience through assimilation; the joy I felt when Hubert hugged me, as we said our goodbyes. What I found was a very charming man, still with a glint in his eye which acted as a window to his rakish past. Though his handshake and voice may lack strength his guitar playing can be likened to a great old vintage Chateau Margaux; his delicate elegance has heightened as his power has waned (not so much fire in the belly as satisfying warm embers). In his eyes the audience aren't punters, but people he can interact with and entertain. Read on and meet the man who impressed everyone from Hendrix to Clapton.

N.B. I have deliberately used little grammatical correction in order to preserve the originality, and flavour of the interview.

BH: You were born in Greenwood , Mississippi on Nov. 16 th 1931 , but how long did you live there?

HS: I left when I was eight years old. I was born right outside of Greenwood on a plantation called Bar Pillars, right down side the river. The plantation was so large about 5,000 people, ‘cause now half of it is Greenwood now you know. I left there and moved to Arkansas , grew up in Arkansas !

BH: Can we stay with your time in Greenwood for a while? How much can you remember about your time in Greenwood ?

HS: I can remember when I was eight. I can remember before I was eight, I can remember when I was five! My people farmed you know, picked cotton. So I couldn't pick cotton…the fact of the matter is I didn't like cotton, I didn't love any part of the workin' man. Choppin' or pickin' it, I wasn't good at one of those. My thing then was what led up to this, “guitar”! At eight years old I had my first guitar. My brother had a string upside the wall, he's 82 now the oldest one livin'. I broke the string man; well actually it was bailin' wire. Well it came off the nail he had ‘cause he had a bottle under this one string. The thing just came loose, and I knowed I was goin' to get it. My brother he tall, big and mean you know what I'm talkin' ‘bout. Schoo… boy he slapped me man, he knocked me bottom up. I dun ached man, but I was hot with him man. This old stone was layin' down there in the yard, and I picked the stone up, but that stone was taking me all the way back. If I could have raised that stone and hit him he would have been sown (laughs). I wasn't going to try and kill him, but I was gonna to knock him out man (laughs). By the time I got the stone off me he had run off, ‘cause he knew I was goin' to meet Mama from town with this guitar. Well he knowed I was goin' to get this guitar, but he knowed I was goin' to tell Mama what happened. I met her man she walked four miles from where we lived in the country to Greenwood where she worked. She walked that every day to Greenwood to the funeral home where she worked. She made $8 a week, she bought me a guitar for $8….a whole weeks work; we didn't know how we was gonna to eat the next week. She was the only one that was providing my Daddy he was gone; you know what I'm talkin' about.

HS: Yeah that's right! So my mother got me that guitar, and my brother his eyes got that big ‘cause he had never played on a guitar, one with six strings, – period! It was an acoustic guitar, but it did not have no name, but it sounded so beautiful. I saw what he had done with that one string, so I had learned from that one string to two strings. When I got my guitar – shoot, man it took me a week what I had heard from old guys that I ain't seen before, how to play. It was already in me anyway to play, and I heard this old warped record that I got out the garbage from Charlie Patton. The people that Wolf and them saw, and Muddy Waters and Johnny Shines and all these guys got to see and play with. So I got this warped record, and we had one of those wind up vendors…err one of those phonographs. I put it on and I heard errrrrrrrrrr! “I'm goin' to do I”, that's all I heard man, and I said “That's it”, then the record just shattered man.

So I came up and started to play guitar, and my brother, Oh man he can play he can tear my bootie up man, and a gang of more people. I'm the onliest one left home man, the only one in the music business; I couldn't get him to lead man. I've down there about a thousand times, looka he's 82 years old now, same place, same house….down there, got rice. This is his place you know what I'm talkin' about, no more cotton, but we got eight acres, we own eight acres. My brother runs the whole thing, but he won't go anywhere, but that porch. Set up there on that porch and play, you can hear for five miles. I carried him about 20 guitars and amps down there to try, and get him motivated, but no….

HS: That's right, people have been down there, and have tried to get him, out man to record. He won't do it, he won't do it!

HS: A.D. ….A.D Smith, he's a Smith I'm a Sumlin, but that's my half-brother. So I got up and started to play guitar, and me and James Cotton got together. He was young like me, he says he's younger than me, but I say he ain't (laughs). So we started a little band together, then Wolf came along and said “Hey I'd like for you guys to come to New Orleans with me, seeing as you haven't anything on tonight, and listen to me & my band”. See he was putting his band down, and moving to Chicago , and forming another band which he did. He said “I want you to hear these guys, and don't mind if you don't mind playing ‘cause I want you to show these guys somethin'”. He knowed I was already playin', but I wasn't up to par with his stuff like these other old guys that I'd heard. I hadn't heard Wolf, but I thought there wasn't nothing to learn in my book, but when I got with him I found there was more than what I thought. It didn't take me long because I got fired so many times, sometimes five minutes, sometimes ten minutes; I got tired of being fired. He said “Put the pick down Hubert, use the fingers”. He said “I'm telling you ma don't come back till you get it right”, and in front of about 500 people man.

BH: Howlin' Wolf had himself some fine guitarists. What's your opinion on Willie Johnson & Jody Williams?

HS: Great! Willie was a great guitar player with Wolf before I got with him. Jody he's still alive today, and has put out a good album too. We joined about at the same time, they called us brothers, they thought we was brothers.

BH: From what I've read it seems as though Muddy & the Wolf went from being bitter rivals to a much mellower situation. Is that how you saw it?

HS: It was just guy stuff, you know you think you're the best, one thinks they are better than the other at this, that kind of thing. Those guys did that for a couple of years then they got alright.

BH: Musicians hanging around in the clubs & bars so much where the scene was at became heavy drinkers. How did this affect you?

HS: Most of the musicians were like that, most of the musicians are now dead too. When I got with Wolf he very nearly tested the water that I was drinking. Hey man I was guided until I almost got thirty.

BH: He'd had previous experience with Willie Johnson drinking heavily didn't he?

HS: All those guys were heavy drinker's man, even Howlin' Wolf. Yes very heavy, but he was very strict with his musicians. That man could drink and you couldn't tell he was drinking. He didn't change, in other words he got sharper.

BH: Is it true you once went toe to toe with the mighty frame of Howlin' Wolf?

HS: Oh yes twice, around two or three years. It's right about the teeth flying too!

BH: You're a braver man than me; I doubt I would have lost it against a bear of a man like Wolf.

HS: Oh he was just like a baby man if you just know – big man three hundred and twenty!

BH: What are the differences you find in the Chicago blues scene today, as opposed to when you ran with the Wolf?

HS: Things have changed in the fact that a lot of the guys today haven't really got it you know. They are getting better, I think they can get close, but I don't think they will ever get to where things were back then. The beat the words ain't changed, it's just jacked up. They got rap today, we got all this, but it's the beat & you can put any words to it you want to.

BH: If you could bring back just one of the many Chicago clubs that folded, which would it be and why?

HS: Silvio's, a place called Silvio's. That was the first club that really put this stuff together in Chicago from the South, 24 hours, music 24 hours. He didn't just have one blues band, he had Wolf, Muddy, every band, Elmore James, Magic Sam, he had all of ‘em. He had 24 hours music it didn't stop for four years.

BH: Your name kept cropping up on those great American Blues Festivals that came over to Europe .

HS: It was nice; I used to come over year after year for about five years. I had to drop my schedule down because I used to play long hours over many days. In this life you have to look after yourself if you want to live, and I didn't used to do that. I used to be a wild guy! (laughs). I'm not kidding you some of this stuff is accurate (laughs).

BH: You made an album a while ago for an interesting outfit, Acoustic Sounds. Tell us about their set-up?

HS: It was very good I enjoyed it; I made “I Know You”. It's based in a church, and they have festivals every year. It's so beautiful & big, you can't get it over in a day. You've got studios & ballrooms, and James Rogers's son, Jimmy Lane is heavily involved with it too.

BH: Are you an old instrument guy or are you happy with the ones they make today?

HS: Sure I am they got some good instruments now, you don't have nothing else to do but play ‘em, they almost play by themselves. I play Gibson's & Strat's; I've got one givin' to me by Jimmy Vivino who plays on the Jim O'Connor show. He gave me a Les Paul which I had a long time ago, and which somebody stole it; and somebody stole this one. I never found any of them, so he gave me this one. He wrote a ballad on the back of the guitar, you ought to see the name he wrote on it. I can't even try to describe what he wrote on it, he put it up to the public with the spotlight on it, it really told ‘em you know what I mean (laughs).

HS: You know what….sure, but I didn't want to take ‘em. I had no idea that this was to happen to me, but as long as Wolf was livin' that's all I wanted. I was always in the background all of my life, I never did want the spotlight. The guys tried to get me to record, I could have recorded. Back when Jimmy Rogers, and all them was doing it; but I knew that at that time if it had been a hit they wouldn't have put it out unless Wolf had said “Put it out”. If they said “Stop it”, then that's how it went. They tried to stop Jimmy Rogers & Little Walter, but finally they broke, and they couldn't do nothing about. That's what happened; guy's quit, and went on their own. You can be pinned down, they can pin you down if they don't want you to go nowhere.

HS: Sure I do I would have loved to have recorded, and Wolf tried to get me to, but I know he would have done exactly the same thing as Muddy did to Jimmy. Guys come up like that, and you are the sideman… it don't matter who you is; but if you are good they want to keep you till you die man (laughs).

HS: No I'm in Milwaukee , Wisconsin . After Wolf died they said I was dead, they wouldn't hire me in Chicago . They I never would get a job I never would play no more, they said “Wolf dead you dead”. So I left and went to Texas , this is where they hired me all the year round. When I left and went back to Chicago two years later I had a book of telephone calls, I bet about a thousand names trying to get in touch with me. They wanted me to work, to raise the money; they wanted to give me what Wolf was getting and everyone else. So when I got back I named my price when I got back, but I did get back.

BH: Tell me about the Muddy tribute album, and why it's taking so long to be released?

HS: You know I got Keith Richards to sit down. Me and him got four numbers by ourselves on the acoustic guitars. Then I got two numbers by myself on this new CD when it comes out. It will come out don't worry, they're having problems with the politics and legal matters, but I'm pretty sure it will be out this year; and the title will now be “About Them Shoes”. Levon Helm is on it, Eric Clapton, a couple of guys from the Rolling Stones – the drummer and one of the other guys.

HS: Yes, I got some youngsters coming to me right now. I've had them coming to me for a long time ever before Wolf passed. Hey man I ain't gonna to tell you no lie here, these guys are 100% pure, and they are doin' something's I didn't do – I couldn't do because I didn't have that kind of sense, and what they learnt from Muddy, Wolf and all these blues musicians, it's intense man. ( Hubert gets real riled up & excited) I got two youngsters man I'd put them up against anybody!! They said they're ready to go now, I said “No not yet”…. wait till I turn ‘em loose you goin' to hear somethin'.

HS: No, no, no, no (laughs). I going to let the world know eventually, they are some of the best musicians, and they know their stuff. They play with soul, which is what you got to have in this business. I like B.B., I like Albert King, I still do, but like what I told my youngsters, “You can play all of the music, but you have to have your own thing” – just like they got. Play it right, follow the book, follow your mind, your passion, you're with the music man. Have mercy it gets so good to me sometimes man people don't know man, but they can feel it ‘cause I feels it. I learned something a long time ago when I was with Wolf. He knew if he started a song, and the people didn't like it, even if there were a thousand people in the building he could tell. He could tell he could feel ya; he would get to the right song, the right words and everything, with the voice and with the soul. I remember one time it snowed so bad, we had to ride 300 miles from Chicago to Michigan to do this gig. You couldn't see the road, and when we got there they had a padlock on the door. People couldn't get out ‘cause of the weather, but these two old ladies come out and unlocked the door who were putting on the dance. They said you know you got a reputation Mr. Wolf, and we thought we were all going to have to drive straight back home; but she said “You are all going to play tonight because we are going to be your audience”. I couldn't believe it, we started to play a couple of numbers, and they started to clap like this; then their feet started to tapping. I said to myself the Wolf is feeling these people just like there was a thousand people in this house, then they started to dancing with one another. They did it all night till they stopped us and said,” Come on we had a good night, come on, come and get paid, and you are coming back” and we stayed coming back too. He knew how to please the people, and that's where I learned that.

BH: When I read about the Wolf crawling along the stage howling and everything, I draw comparisons with the likes of James Brown.

HS: Sure but the Wolf had a different approach with people than James Brown. James Brown before he made his first record he came to see us, him and Little Richard. We were on our way to the Apollo theatre, and Wolf let him up to sing, and the first thing he sang was “Please, Please”. He started crawling on the floor under these woman, and their dresses. Wolf said “That's the only thing that'll get you killed son, do the opposite pretend you are going to do it, but no contact you don't know who you are messin' with you could get killed”. We didn't know who these guys were, then two weeks later James Brown had “Please, Please” out, and four weeks later Little Richard had “Tootie Fruitie”. It just goes to show man what can happen, it's nice to have the people, the youngsters coming up to us wanting to know how to get a start.

HS: Well you know I'm livin' day by day, but I will buy one minute by one minute, but I will enjoy all of it man. Just because Wolf and Muddy are gone they wouldn't want me to quit doing what I'm doing, they'd know I was here for something. I'm going to be here doing what I got to do, I know I'll never get through paying dues like they didn't. They paid dues, but they didn't get through, but God ended. ‘Cause he said you have done, done enough, but they didn't think they had. They still think they owe the world, but hey their music still lives on. Anytime I go to the bandstand here or anywhere in the world I am, I see Wolf. Oh man I see just as plain as can be, his presence, he's everywhere, he's in my fingers, he's in my music both him & Muddy. I remember when I recorded with Wolf, and all the other guys, those guys sang the way they lived, and the way they saw it.