Hubert Sumlin, born on the Pillow plantation just west of this site on November 16, 1931, became one of the great guitarists of the blues through the sizzling, innovative playing that energized many of Howlin’ Wolf’s classic Chicago recordings in the 1950s and ’60s. Raised in Mississippi and Arkansas, he began playing guitar in church and, despite his mother’s warnings against “the devil’s music,” soon found that blues sounds could win her over. After performing blues as a teenager with his boyhood partner James Cotton, Sumlin was awestruck by Howlin’ Wolf at a local juke joint and later left Arkansas for a place in Wolf’s Chicago band. From 1954 to 1976, Wolf was both musical employer and father figure to Sumlin, whose years with him included groundbreaking recordings such as “Killing Floor,” “300 Pounds of Joy,” “Smokestack Lightning,” and “Shake For Me” for Chess. Though Wolf repeatedly fired and rehired him, Sumlin remained central to Wolf’s sound, while also playing at times with Muddy Waters and on records by Muddy, 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 in 1964 on the American Folk Blues Festival, he made his first recordings under his own name in Germany and England, including his only 45 rpm single and the first release on England’s Blue Horizon label, and later recorded albums for labels in France, Germany, Argentina, and the United States. Admired by musicians across blues and rock, he was cited by Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan as a favorite, shared stages with Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Santana, and Aerosmith, and appeared with Clapton, Keith Richards, Levon Helm, and James Cotton on the award-winning album About Them Shoes. After Howlin’ Wolf’s death in 1976, Sumlin’s reputation carried him into a celebrated career of his own, recognized in 2003 when Rolling Stone named him one of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” and in 2008 when he was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame.
