Hubert Sumlin grew up in Mississippi and Arkansas, where his churchgoing mother warned him against playing the blues, but he discovered that blues sounds on his guitar could win over even her. He began playing guitar in church and, after his family moved from Greenwood to Hughes, Arkansas, he was performing blues with his boyhood partner James Cotton while they were still in their teens. Awestruck by Howlin’ Wolf at a local juke joint, Sumlin later joined Wolf’s band in Chicago, leaving Cotton and his family in Arkansas behind. From 1954 to 1976, Wolf was both a musical employer and a father figure to him, and their years together included groundbreaking Chess recordings such as “Killing Floor,” “300 Pounds of Joy,” “Smokestack Lightning,” and “Shake For Me.” Though Wolf repeatedly fired and rehired him, Sumlin remained closely tied to Wolf’s music, while also spending time with Muddy Waters’s band and playing guitar on records by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, Eddie Taylor, Sunnyland Slim, Carey Bell, Eddie Shaw, James Cotton, and many others. Touring Europe with Wolf on the 1964 American Folk Blues Festival, he made his first recordings under his own name in Germany and England, including his only 45 rpm single from an acoustic blues session that also marked the first release on England’s Blue Horizon label. In later years he recorded albums for labels in France, Germany, Argentina, and the United States, and his innovative musicianship and endearing nature won wide admiration from musicians, club owners, promoters, producers, and audiences. Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan counted him as a favorite, he shared stages with Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Santana, Aerosmith, and many others, and on the album About Them Shoes he was joined by Clapton, Keith Richards, Levon Helm, and James Cotton. On May 7, 2008, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame.