Hubert Sumlin – Blues Party / Healing Feeling

Hubert Sumlin wasn’t the first guitarist to record with Howlin’ Wolf, but he was in Wolf’s band longer than anyone else — from about 1953, off and on, until Wolf died in ’75 — and it’s his name most people associate with the big man’s sound. Harsh and uncompromising, his fretwork alternated declamatory, metallic chords with surrealistic lead patterns that often threatened to dissolve into formlessness, only to cohere again at the last minute. The style perfectly echoed the apocalyptic power that permeated Wolf’s own music and persona.

Since his mentor’s death, though, Sumlin has proven to be an oddly vulnerable musical presence. When properly supported, he seems unafraid to explore the nether regions of his imagination, confident that his bandmates will ease him back if needed. But he’s often found himself in the company of sidemen either too awed or too uncertain to create that kind of sanctuary. The result has sometimes been the very chaos he so masterfully skirted during his heyday with Wolf.

These two discs, which originally appeared on Black Top in 1987 and 1990, provide Sumlin with the kind of strong yet flexible support he needs. Guitarist Ronnie Earl, a longtime friend, fronts the band on both, and his call-and-response guitar duels with Sumlin provide some of the most thrilling highlights. Earl comes close to matching Sumlin’s kaleidoscopic melodic and harmonic visions; he also coaxes out of the older guitarist a focused discipline that has too often eluded him. Thus, the unexpectedly linear, tender-sounding lines Sumlin unfurls on ballads such as the Blues Party track “A Soul That’s Been Abused”; thus, also, Sumlin’s pliant chording and deft leads on “Down The Dusty Road”, an unaccompanied instrumental on Healing Feeling.

There’s plenty of fire on display as well; these guys sound as if they came to party. Quite a few of the new songs are closely patterned on Wolf/Willie Dixon ideas; several others are Wolf covers. At home in this territory, Sumlin explodes with inspiration, exploring heretofore unimagined nooks and crannies with his sten-gun attack and broken-glass tone.

The lead vocalists — veteran soul man Mighty Sam McClain (in full Bobby “Blue” Bland mode) on Blues Party, and both James “Thunderbird” Davis and harpist Darrell Nulisch on Healing Feeling — comport themselves gracefully, pouring gritty passion into everything they sing but avoiding “blooze” histrionics. Sumlin weighs in with a handful of vocals himself, improvising lyrics that sound as if they emanated from the same madman’s playhouse in which his musical muse resides.