The first time I heard Hubert Sumlin and Howlin' Wolf I almost had a heart attack. Honestly, it scared the shit out of me. I have only had music make me physically, mentally and emotionally afraid one other time and that was when my dad played me some classical music one sunny afternoon by a composer named Krzysztof Penderecki. Hubert and Wolf literally set my life on a radically different course. (Again, many thanks to you Col. Bruce Hampton.) All these years later I realize that you can't really separate Wolf's voice from Hubert's in your head. Its the sound of a world we didn't know existed for sure. We suspected it was there cause we could feel it in our dreams and we read about it in children's books like Lord of the Rings, but we couldn't really be sure until we stepped into that world for real. As soon as you hear Hubert on "I'll Be Around" you'll realize that all the stuff of legend and lore has its roots in the truth. That's why it lives on so long. Magic is real.
Living proof. That's what Hubert was and is to me.
He was also a true gentle man. Loving kindness personified. If you knew him personally its hard to match his personality with the lightning, fire, swords and destruction that came out of his guitar. Only it wasn't actually destruction that was taking place. It was cleansing. Intense heat to burn away the dross and leave the purest metal.
I guess that makes him a true Alchemist.
Thanks to you Mr.'s Richards and Jagger for paying for his funeral. You can say what you want to about those two but I'll always be on their side for that.
Do yourself a favor......... experience some real live magic.
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