HELENA-WEST HELENA -- Blues guitar great Hubert Sumlin has been named as the recipient of the 2007 Sonny Payne Award for Blues Excellence presented by the Delta Cultural Center, a museum of the Arkansas Department of Heritage.

The Sonny Payne Award for Blues Excellence – called the “Sonny” – is presented annually during the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival in historic downtown Helena-West Helena each October. The award recognizes an individual or individuals who have strongly influenced the blues music of the Arkansas Delta. The honor is named for “Sunshine” Sonny Payne, the longtime host of the Peabody Award-winning “King Biscuit Time” program broadcast each week day from the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street on radio station KFFA-AM in Helena-West Helena. Payne is also long known as an advocate of the museum.

Previous recipients of the “Sonny” are Robert Lockwood Jr. and Houston Stackhouse (posthumously) in the award’s inaugural year of 2002, Sam Carr and Pinetop Perkins (2003), Cedell Davis and John Weston (2004), James Cotton and David “Honeyboy” Edwards (2005), and Michael Burks and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (2006).

Sumlin, named as honoree for the sixth annual presentation, is possibly best known for his amazing, influential guitar work for Howlin’ Wolf on Chess Records, particularly in the mid-1960s, standing out on tracks like “Wang Dang Doodle,” “Killing Floor,” “Shake For Me,” “300 Pounds of Joy,” and “Hidden Charms.” Often, he is cited as a major influence on modern guitarists including Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Bob Weir, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, and Jimi Hendrix.

The Sonny Award presentation is to be a part of Sumlin’s performance with The Willie “Big Eyes” Smith Band on Saturday evening, October 6, during the final evening of the three-day Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival (formerly the King Biscuit Blues Festival).

Born at Greenwood, Mississippi, on November 16, 1931, Hubert Sumlin grew up around the Hughes and West Memphis areas of Arkansas. While still a small boy, Sumlin began playing the tight length of baling wire his brother A.D. had nailed to a wall of the home. Soon, his mother would sacrifice a week’s $5 paycheck to buy eight-year-old Sumlin his first guitar.

According to blues legend, it was a couple of years later when Sumlin attempted to enter a local juke joint to watch a regional performer he’d been hearing a lot about – Howlin’ Wolf. Quickly thrown out, the boy stacked crates up to a window so he could still watch and listen. When the crates inevitably fell, young Sumlin tumbled through the window and onto the stage where he found himself face to face with The Wolf. The owner attempted to haul the boy out of the club once again, only to be stopped by Howlin’ Wolf, who demanded a chair on the stage for the child. He ordered that Sumlin be given nothing but water and be allowed to watch the Wolf’s show with Pat Hare and Junior Parker. Later on that night, Wolf escorted Sumlin home and asked the boy’s mother not to punish him because he’d only wanted to hear the music.

Still a teenager, Sumlin began performing with a similarly young and talented harmonica player named James Cotton. Wolf heard about them in West Memphis and soon brought Sumlin into his band and, in 1954, on to Chicago. Beginning as a rhythm guitarist, Sumlin continued to develop his own guitar style as a member of Wolf’s band, sometimes in answer to complaints from the band’s leader, who took offense at the young guitarist playing over his voice. He learned to play without a pick, a development which guitarist Bob Margolin described as key to the approach Sumlin developed and an important part of Howlin’ Wolf’s sound.

“Hubert developed a guitar style based on the human touch of flesh on steel, Margolin wrote in a 2003 essay about Sumlin, “perfectly framing and answering Wolf’s roars and moans, and soloing with pain and humor, trouble and transcendence.”

It was a sound that Margolin described as a unique conglomeration of the musical elements to which Sumlin had been exposed throughout his life.

“In Hubert’s music, you hear the acoustic stylings of the Delta meshed with the loud excitement and bright lights of Chicago and Memphis, combined with the artistry of Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Pat Hare, Son House, and Wolf,” Margolin wrote. “Sumlin brought these influences to the next level, creating his own exceptional sound. His tone and intensity were instantly identifiable.”

Following Wolf’s death in 1976, Sumlin continued to perform with The Wolf Gang until 1980, when he left to begin a solo career, stepping into the spotlight to feature his own vocal talents as well as his mastery of the guitar. Since, 1987, Sumlin has released solo albums frequently, including the well-received, star-studded “About Them Shoes” in 2003. A biography by author Will Romano, “Incurable Blues: The Troubles & Triumph of Blues Legend Hubert Sumlin,” was published in 2005.

Gallery hours at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street and the nearby DCC Depot at 95 Missouri Street are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturday. “King Biscuit Time,” the nation’s longest-running blues radio program, is hosted each weekday at the DCC Visitor’s Center by “Sunshine” Sonny Payne, from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. “Delta Sounds,” hosted by DCC Assistant Director Terry Buckalew and Payne, is broadcast each Friday at 1 to 1:30 p.m. An additional broadcast of “King Biscuit Time” is also slated for 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, October 6, as part of the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival celebration.

For more information, interested persons can call the Delta Cultural Center at (870)-338-4350 or toll free at (800)-358-0972 or visit the DCC online at www.deltaculturalcenter.com.

The Delta Cultural Center shares the vision of all seven agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage – to preserve and promote Arkansas heritage as a source of pride and satisfaction. Other agencies within the department are the Historic Arkansas Museum, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Arkansas Arts Council, and the Natural Heritage Commission.

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