Paul deLay Band
Featuring Hubert Sumlin
Waterfront Blues Festival
Portland, OR.
7/5/04

Recorded from KBOO FM. An all volunteer radio station in Portland, OR. This is a graet set from a local blues band backing up Hubert Sumlin.

Enjoy the tunes, twofthrs



Hubert Sumlin with the Paul deLay Band
"Hubert is the heaviest, most original guitar player I've ever heard in my life, and that's the truth." — Stevie Ray Vaughan

"My favorite guitarist."—Jimi Hendrix

One of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. — Rolling Stone Magazine

Quiet and unassuming off the bandstand, Hubert Sumlin developed an incendiary guitar style that provided the perfect foil for the legendary Howlin’ Wolf. The Wolf was Sumlin's imposing mentor for more than two decades, and it proved a mutually beneficial relationship. Sumlin's twisting, darting, unpredictable guitar lines energized the Wolf's 1960s Chess sides, including such classics as “Wang Dang Doodle,” “Howlin’ for My Darlin,’” “The Red Rooster," "Backdoor Man," "Shake for Me," "Killing Floor," "Smokestack Lightnin" and "Sittin' on Top of the World."

The youngest of 13 children, Sumlin was born in 1931 in Greenwood, Miss., and grew up near West Memphis, Ark. When he was 8 years old, Hubert's mother invested an entire week's pay—$5—on Hubert’s first guitar. In his teens, Sumlin briefly hooked up with another young blues musician with a promising future, harmonica ace James Cotton. But he soon got the offer to join Howlin’ Wolf’s band in Chicago in 1954. Then began what was to become one the longest and most legendary partnerships in the blues world. Although theirs was a sometimes tempestuous relationship, Sumlin remained loyal to the Wolf until the big man’s death in 1976. In the interim, Wolf and Sumlin changed the sound of American music and helped create rock and roll.

Sumlin’s pioneering electric blues guitar influenced such modern players as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Bob Weir, Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana and many others. Clapton proved his respect by refusing to do the Chess Records London Howlin' Wolf Sessions unless Sumlin was present. Sumlin’s recordings with Wolf of "The Red Rooster," "Backdoor Man," "Shake for Me," "Killing Floor," "Smokestack Lightnin" and "Sittin' on Top of the World" inspired cover versions by Cream, the Doors, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones.

Sumlin recently completed a recording, due out this year on Rykodisc with Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Paul Oscher and Levon Helm.

At his Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival appearance, the PAUL DELAY BAND will back Sumlin. In the late 1970s, Portland harmonica ace deLay played in a band with Sumlin, backing the late Chicago pianist Sunnyland Slim on a West Coast tour. The two have remained friends and admirers. DeLay considers Sumlin the greatest of the Chicago blues guitarists, while Sumlin has said of deLay, “For my money, he’s the best harp player on the planet.”