I first met Hubert in 1981 at Necktie Nate's. Nate's was over at Roosevelt & Damen. It was your typical Westside club. I was hired to play bass with Taildragger. Taildragger was a vocalist and another of the Howlin' Wolf imitators who saturated the west side of Chicago.

I was the first one at the gig. Bald Head Pete came in and started to set up his drums, then in steps Eddie Taylor with his Red Gibson Guitar and Fender Super Reverb amp. Wow Eddie Taylor!! This was also my first time meeting Eddie. This was going to be a great gig.

To top it off in comes the legendary Hubert Sumlin. I Can't believe it, West side Chicago? These guys should be on a European Blues Festival stage. I just wish I had a tape recorder that night. Both Hubert and Eddie had so much respect for each other, they played so well off each other.

About the same time as this gig I was hanging out at the Delta Fish Market at Jackson & Kedzie on the west side on Saturdays. Oliver the owner would have live music outside where people would sit, listen to the blues, and eat fish. Oliver always hired a band, and lots of musicians would come and sit in. This is where I met a lot of great blues musicians such as Sam Lay, Sunnyland Slim, and Matt "Guitar" Murphy; just to name a few.

Chico Chism was a drummer who took a liking to me and my Hofner Beatle bass. He had told me about getting a gig up at the Kingston Mines. Well, Hubert was at the market that day and somehow we put together a band on the spot to play the Mines. I had my friend Curt Obeda with me who was down from St. Paul, Minnesota and was also with me in Sammy Fender's band.

Well, the Kingston Mines shows went well. Chico is a great front man who can play as good as any of the great blues drummers. It was a fantastic gig that lasted every Tuesday for 8 months. We had lots of greats sit in: Lavelle White, Eddie Shaw, Sunnyland Slim, George Thorogood, Sugar Blue, and others.

One guy who was hanging on the scene was a guitarist by the name of Texas T-Bone Pegues. T-Bone wanted to take Hubert on the road. He set up a tour of Detroit, Wabash Indiana, Cleveland, and New York City. The band consisted of Hubert Sumlin, Shad Davis on guitar, Rick Howard on drums, T-Bone on guitar, and yours truly on bass. August 30, 1982 was the first date at the Soup Kitchen in downtown Detroit.

The show was going good, when at 12:30 in walks Stevie Ray Vaughan. He had just finished his show at Cobo Hall and wanted to see Hubert. Hubert called him up and he used Shad's guitar. What a show. There was some great interplay between Stevie and Hubert. Stevie totally respected Hubert and just layed in some great fills between Hubert's vocal phrasing. What a way to start out a tour!

Two days later we were at Peabody's Cove in Cleveland Ohio. We did a split show with Robert Jr. Lockwood, who sat in with our band and again Hubert shined. I was starting to realize how big of a legend Hubert was. Before joining up with Hubert I always wanted to be Buddy Guy's bass player. Now I realized that working with Hubert was just as great an opportunity.

In New York City, however, everything fell apart. We played at Dan Lynch's and that went OK, but another show was canceled and that put the whole tour in a tailspin. We came back to Chicago with a lot of screaming and yelling--T-Bone being the main cause of the frustration.