nds of Heavenly Joy",
" Spoonful ", "Smokestack Lightining" and many more. After a "dark " period
Hubert is back with a terrific album and more words to tell us....

HPI-Flatline: Welcome to Blues Chat! I'm Geof Rogers, your host this evening. Please join me in welcoming tonight's special guest, Blues Planet Recording Artist Hubert Sumlin! Welcome, Hubert!

Hubert Sumlin: It's an overwhelming thing to be here - now it seems to me like I got somethin' to live for! All these fans I got now!

HPI-Flatline: Congratulations on your latest CD, "Wake Up Call!"

Hubert Sumlin: Yes! Yes! Yes! You know I got a lot of confidence in this recording! I think this is gonna be the best of me! I believe that's what it is! You know you can be out here a lotta years and never have a hit or anything, but I'm lookin' for just something what the people can understand what the blues is all about!

HPI-Flatline: Hubert, are you talking with us tonight from home, or are you on the road?

Hubert Sumlin: I'm at home...at home!

HPI-Flatline: We have a lot of questions from your fans waiting for you, so we're gonna turn it right to the audience, OK?

Hubert Sumlin: That's great! OK!

JoyceBlues: How did you first meet Howlin' Wolf?

Hubert Sumlin: Oh, my! I met the guy in Arkansas. 1948? Yeah, 1948. I was small, little ole' somebody at that time, and the guy got up under my skin, and I got under his, and we just started working together for what 23 years? And what a guy he were...what a guy!

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: What was special with Wolf that led you two to stay together so long?

Hubert Sumlin: His attitude... his attitude and the way he do things. He had what you call a followin', you know what I mean? Some of the young folks didn't get to know this fella, but some of them did, and they got to pass this on to people! I tell you, the man was my idol!

BlueByU: It is said that Wolf was hard to follow. Did you find that to be true?

Hubert Sumlin: I tell you what, there was those that didn't know how to follow him! You had to almost be in this man's mind! Hehe! If we had it down it was just like one and one, I don't know what to call it, but it was like one person. I was thinkin' like him, he was thinkin' like me, that's the way it was, Y'know?



Steve007: People always talk about the rivalry between Muddy and Wolf. In your experience, was it that big?

Hubert Sumlin: Oh boooooy! Hehe!! Sometimes things was just like rivalries.
Like one was gonna take over things, "I'm the best, I'm the best'! These were the only two I saw could NEVER get along! Till the end! Through the '60s and '70s -- then they finally got together at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival. It was the last festival. They ran both bands away so they could talk. Man, we come back, cuz they stay so long, waitin' 'til we gotta go to
work, and we open the door and these two is huggin' each other!

Hubert Sumlin: I said 'Thanks God, Thanks Jesus, ooooh, Thanks God!' Both bands, was glad these fellas got together and then soon after they both passed, you know? I'm glad I got to see it though!

BeeGirl: Why did you quit music in the late 70's, and what led you to return when you did?

Hubert Sumlin: Well, you know, after Wolf passed, it's really what got me. We had a job to do in Europe, and me and him was scheduled to go, but we didn't get a chance to, well, he didn't because the day we was supposed to go, he checked himself into the hospital. I had two weeks in Paris cuz he told me to go and keep our names going. I did about two days finishing up in the studio, and I got a phone call, 2:00 AM, sayin' if you wanna see the Wolf, you better come home. I came home and called my wife and went to see him and they only let us be there for one minute. I knew it was too late then. His body laid in state for I don't know how long, so the people could view the body and that man looked so alive to me, and I had to stand there for 3 days. He looked so alive but I see d he wasn't moving, so I knew he was gone 'cause he taught me so much when I was with him, about this business; and sho nuf everything he taught me was true. So that's when I quit, I decided to stay away 3 months. Child, I couldn't stand it no more.
You know what I mean? This music is a thing; you love it, well... I ain't seen nobody get out of it yet! Hehe!! You ever? Hehe!! I sho haven't! It's something that'll be with you forever! You know, I figured that Wolf wouldn't want me to stay away - I said, this is it, this is where I'm gonna be, this is where I am! The only thing I'm gonna try to do is take it a little further! And like I say, there's not so many left.

Mudster: Hubert, I love your CD "Hubert Sumlin's Blues Party," one of the top 25 of all time in my opinion. How did you meet Ronnie Earl and come to record with him?

Hubert Sumlin: Oh boy, that's plain as daylight! I used to go to Boston so much, and when Wolf was alive we used to have this place in Cambridge called "Joe's." We played for this guy so long, and every time we goed to Boston I wouldn't stay at no hotel, I'd stay at Ronnie Earl's! He's a very fine musician!

HPI-Flatline: Steve Balkin asks, "Hubert, did you ever play or sit in on Maxwell Street?"

Hubert Sumlin: Oh Lord have mercy, let me tell you something!! I used to get down with those guys on Maxwell, that's where everything started, that's where everything WAS! Musicians from everywhere, you could buy anything, it was just a lot of fun! I hate to see those past times go, but things change, they've got to change!

HPI-Flatline: Who did you consider some of the better players on Maxwell Street?

Hubert Sumlin: I don't know! They have so many, we all know that Wolf and Muddy, folks from the South, but they was all these guys, Robert Nighthawk, those guys all on Maxwell! Little Walter, everybody used to play there, blow they harp and play they music right there on Maxwell Street! Just before they made that part of the Chicago campus. Those days is gone, it looks beautiful down there now. I live in Milwaukee, but I go there all the time, played there last night, and it was beautiful!

HPI-Flatline: Gaylon Swift asks, "Hubert, do you remember doing a gig with Sunnyland, Mike Henderson, and Bonnie Lee (in Santa Cruz) and, if so, can you tell us about it?

Hubert Sumlin: I don't remember - I can't get it! I'm sure I was there - I played out there a lot of times, but I don't know about that one!

HPI-Flatline: We have a message from the mailbag for Hubert - Mike Henderson and Harry Dunkin say "Hello."

Hubert Sumlin: Oh, bless them, thank you!

Mudster: What is your favorite memory of Stevie Ray Vaughan?

Hubert Sumlin: My favorite memory of Stevie Ray Vaughan is the time he gave me that guitar! Hehe!! No, really, my best memories of him and his brother, I was in Texas so much I used to stay there. I met the kids --him and Jimmie -- when they played at this place Clifford Antone owned, and they didn't drink alcohol 'cause nobody would serve them alcohol! They used to be the band, and there, playing behind everyone at Antone's. That was the best times of my life, playin' with them boys!

WangDangPoodle: Eddie Vaan Shaw has said that he grew up around you and Wolf. Did you teach him some guitar?

Hubert Sumlin: Yes, yes. He got it there! Eddie Vaan Shaw, Eddie's son, I been knowin' him since he was just a little thing. I used to work with his daddy, and we stayed together 4 or 5 years but they still playing; I just saw them, and I got to play with them at Buddy Guy's!

TxBluzFan: You lived next door to Magic Sam for a while. Did you ever play with him?

Hubert Sumlin: Sure! SURE! Magic Sam got his first lessons in guitar in my basement! He didn't play no guitar! I been knowing him before he went in the Army! He went AWOL so many times...hehe!!...'til they got tired of lookin' for him! Sho'nuff they didn't catch up with him, they was still lookin' for him 'til he died! There was a record he made "All Your Love," I think. We used to practice in my basement, on my guitar, 'cause he didn't have one! What a guy he was - we don't know what he'd have been in this business!

WangDangPoodle: It sounds like there was a close-knit group of musicians you were associated with when you were coming up in Chicago. Are there any you have maintained a relationship with?

Hubert Sumlin: You know, only somebody that I see that I'm kinda close right now from Chicago is gotta be Pinetop Perkins. In the days all of us were close, oh, and James Cotton. Very close. Cotton was the first somebody I played with before I got with Wolf! Don't nobody know but me and Cotton go back a looooong time! We growed up together! That was the group of people and then to Chicago. When I first got to Chicago, Wolf didn't have a permanent job, then Muddy gave him the job with him at the Zanzibar. That place was crowded 7 nights a week and then we moved Muddy out! Hehe! And that's when the feudin' really started and they feuded all the way up!
Hehe! I quit Wolf for a while and went to Muddy, and that was back in the days. What we did, I'm gonna tell you, I learned soooo much! I love it, I love it, I wouldn't give this up for the world! If I can, before I leave here, there's gonna be a whole lot here about me! Hehe!

MistyBlue: Who were the other members of Muddy Waters' band when you played with him?

Hubert Sumlin: All the group but Jimmy Rogers, and Little Walter, but he had the rest of the group. He had all these old guys that he'd had in the band, because they quit, and he had to get a harmonica player named Potts and he had to replace Otis Spann and he used Pinetop for a while. When I got with him we had Junior Wells, Cotton in Little Walter's place. Elgin was the drummer then too.

Hippielady: Hubert, it's such an honor and privilege to have you with us tonight! Thank you for taking time out of your schedule. I've heard Stevie Ray thought the world of you. Do you recall how you two met, and did you ever jam together, at Antone's perhaps?

Hubert Sumlin: Yes, that was the club what I was talking about before; I met those boys at Antone's! These little ole boys playin' - Jimmie was about 18. The other ones was big boys, but they could play everybody. Both of them happened to have different styles, but they was some nice guys, you couldn't find two better kids, better people! And great musicians, some of the best!

Hippielady: Do you plan to do some touring over the summer in support of your great new CD, and where can fans like myself get info on your tour dates?

Hubert Sumlin: I'm gonna tell you the truth - I'm lookin' to do a whole LOTTA touring! I believe this record's gonna send a message to people - all around the world! They know what I'm talkin' about, but I'm beginning to see things CLEAR - I see things changing, just like lookin' in a book!
That's why I'm gonna pass this on to somebody, and I know I can! So before I leave here this is gonna happen! And boy, y'all are gonna have some blues y'all never heard before! People can contact Blues Planet Records (http://www.bluesplanet.com) to find out about tour dates. All things Hubert will be posted! You better look for a Grammy THIS year - the first time in my life! Hehe!! I believe, no kidding!

HPI-Flatline: Hubert, thank you so much for being with us tonight. Do you have any closing comments for your online fans?

Hubert Sumlin: I love all of you and hope you get to listen to this new CD I have! I'll be seein' you - probably millions of you, but all those youngsters out there heard of this old man, I'm gonna see them this year!
So long til next time! Thank you!

HPI-Flatline: Thanks to Hubert, and our great audience for coming out tonight, and special thanks to Dan and Jeff at Blues Planet Records for assisting us in coordinating tonight's visit with Hubert.

HPI-Flatline: Be sure to join Margaret Denes and Madeline Mackinnon tomorrow night at 10 PM Eastern for Blues Trivia, and yours truly on Tuesday night for Chicago Blues Chat, also at 10 PM Eastern; this weeks topic will be "Chess Records." Goodnight!

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