Hubert Sumlin, American blues guitarist, died from heart failure he was 80.

Hubert Charles Sumlin  was a Chicago blues guitarist and singer,^[1] best known for his "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic suspensions" as a member of Howlin' Wolf's band  died from heart failure he was 80..^[2] Sumlin was listed as number 43 in the Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.^[3]
Sumlin played a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop guitar and a Louis Electric Model HS M12 amplifier.

(November 16, 1931 – December 4, 2011)

Biography

Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, Sumlin was raised in Hughes, Arkansas. He got his first guitar when he was eight years old.^[4] As a boy, Sumlin first met Howlin' Wolf by sneaking into a performance. When Wolf relocated from Memphis to Chicago in 1953, his long-time guitarist Willie Johnson chose not to join him. Upon his arrival in Chicago, Wolf first hired Chicago guitarist Jody Williams, and in 1954 Wolf invited Sumlin to relocate to Chicago to play second guitar in his Chicago-based band. Williams left the band in 1955, leaving Sumlin as the primary guitarist, a position he held almost continuously (except for a brief spell playing with Muddy Waters around 1956) for the remainder of Wolf's career. According to Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf sent Sumlin to a classical guitar instructor at the Chicago Conservatory of Music for a while to learn the keyboards and scales.^[5] Sumlin played on the album Howlin' Wolf, also called The Rockin' Chair Album, which was named the third greatest guitar album of all time by Mojo magazine in 2004.^[6][7]

Sumlin performing in France on December 17, 1975

Upon Wolf's death in 1976, Sumlin continued on with several other members of Wolf's band under the name "The Wolf Pack" until about 1980. Sumlin also recorded under his own name, beginning with a session from a tour of Europe with Wolf in 1964. His final solo effort was About Them Shoes, released in 2004 by Tone-Cool Records. He underwent lung removal surgery the same year, yet continued performing until just before his death.
Sumlin was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 2008.^[8] He was nominated for four Grammy Awards: in 1999 for the album Tribute to Howlin' Wolf with Henry Gray, Calvin Jones, Sam Lay, and Colin Linden, in 2000 for Legends with Pinetop Perkins, in 2006 for his solo project About Them Shoes (which featured performances by Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Levon Helm, David Johansen and James Cotton) and in 2010 for his participation on Kenny Wayne Shepherd's Live! in Chicago. He won multiple Blues Music Awards, and was a judge for the fifth annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.^[9]
He died on December 4, 2011, in a hospital in Wayne, New Jersey, of heart failure at the age of 80.^[10] Mick Jagger and Keith Richards paid Sumlin's funeral costs.^[11]

Discography

Albums

Year	Title	Label	Number	Notes
1964	American Folk Blues	Amiga	850 043	Germany	1969	Hubert's "American" Blues ! (Scout Sc-4)
1974	Kings of Chicago Blues, Vol. 2	Disques Vogue	LDM 30175	France, recorded 1971
1976	Groove	Black & Blue	33.511	France, recorded 1975
1980	Gamblin' Woman	L + R	42.008	Germany, recorded 1980
1987	Hubert Sumlin's Blues Party	Black Top	BT-1036	US
1989	Heart & Soul	Blind Pig	BP-3389	US
1990	Healing Feeling	Black Top	BT-1053	US
1991	Blues Guitar Boss	JSP	239	UK, recorded 1990 in London
1994	Made in Argentina 1993	Blues Special	9501	Argentina, recorded 1993 in Buenos Aires with Emilion Villanueva and the Kansas City Boys
1994	I'm the Back Door Man	Blues Special	9506	Argentina, recorded 1993 in Buenos Aires
1996	Blues Classics	Bellaphon	82007	Germany, recorded 1964 in East Berlin
1998	I Know You	APO	2004	US
1998	Wake Up Call	Blues Planet	1116	US
1999	Pinetop Perkins & Hubert Sumlin: Legends	Telarc	83446	US
2003	Doing the Don't	Intuition	34252	Germany; Elliott Sharp's Terraplane, with Hubert Sumlin
2004	About Them Shoes	Tone-Cool/Artemis Records	51609	US, also Rykodisc RCD 17307 in the UK
2012	Sky Road Songs	Yellowbird	7724-2	Germany; Elliott Sharp's Terraplane, with special guest Hubert Sumlin (recorded in 2011)

^[12]

Videos

Year	Title	Label	Number	Notes
2005	The Blues Guitar of Hubert Sumlin	Homespun Tapes	SUMGT21	US, VHS & DVD

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