Paul deLay Band
w/Hubert Sumlin

Waterfront Blues Festival
Portland, OR

July 5, 2004

RETRACKED EDITION

Recorded from KBOO radio, an FM all volunteer station in Portland.

This was recorded to a MD and transfered to HD, split with CEP and made into FLAC with TLH.

Additional lineage:
TLH > WAV > Cool Edit Pro 2.1 >
(correct DC offset, separate the two songs in original track 03 and 05, retrack,
pad end to remove sector misalignment)
> TLH (level 8, sectors aligned)

Enjoy the tunes, twofthrs

Set List:

01 instrumental (fades in)
02 brave woman > band intros
03 i got a baby >
04 pretty girls (?)
05 could we just shoot your husband
06 instumental walk on (hubert and horns)
07 shake for me
08 unknown
09 300 pounds of joy
10 just like i treat you
11 unknown
12 killin' floor

TT : approx 68:00

Paul deLay : harp, vocals
Dave Kahl : bass
Jeff Minnick : drums, vocals
Peter Dammann : guitar
David Vest : keys, vocals
Kaz Kazanoff : tenor sax
John Mills : baritone sax
Hubert Sumlin : guitar


additional lineage : Bombdiggity


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.”

"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.