Before I Got Here

Electric blues, Texas style! Inspired by the greatest players, he sounds like a Freddie King/Johnny Winter blend. If you like extended guitar soloing on a good level, and Johnny Winter-like vocals, you will love Texas Slim! Texas is a big state and Texas blues is big blues - so a name like "Texas Slim" is not to be used lightly. John Lee Hooker got away with it on King Records back in 1949 as he was a long way from Texas and probably had little to do with it. Many years ago, Johnny Winter settled instead for "Texas Guitar Slim" - but both are relevant for our man here, as the first blues he recalls hearing was by John Lee Hooker, and as for Johnny Winter, well, let's hear from Slim himself: “Johnny Winter is certainly my favorite guitarist of all time! I liked him before I realized he WAS blues.

This is arguably the first musically indispensable album that Hubert Sumlin has done since Howlin' Wolf died some 23 years ago. That isn't to say that he hasn't done some good albums before this, just that I Know You has a degree of urgency, coupled with remarkable ease, that makes it a real delight. The result is a record that compares very favorably with Wolf's London Sessions record as a mix of old and new. Sumlin will never sound like Wolf as a singer, but he can't help sounding like him in every other way, since it was Wolf's guitar on practically every cut after 1954; but he does his best with a limited voice and a hot guitar to deliver some superb electric blues.