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This musicial memoir and others can be found on Paul DeMark’s Substack.

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Something got a hold of me while playing drums with Howlin’ Wolf’s guitarist Hubert Sumlin on the Jambalaya Club’s stage.

In January of 1976 I moved to Arcata. The college and counterculture vibe suited me. Humboldt County loved live music and had an amazing number of excellent musicians and nightclubs. I thought, ‘I could live here for a while.’

I was playing drums three nights a week with local country music veterans, the Sons of Redwood Country, at Harvey’s Club. It was a rowdy country music honky tonk near Fortuna. I made $50 cash a night playing four sets from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Real good money in those days. 

My friend Harry Duncan called me in early March and asked if I could free myself to play a six-week West Coast tour beginning in April. I’d be playing again with the great Chicago blues pianist and singer Sunnyland Slim. I came out to California with him on a tour in 1972. 

Our guitarist for the tour would be Hubert Sumlin. He played and recorded with Howlin’ Wolf for 20 years. His guitar playing strongly influenced Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and even Jimi Hendrix.

Of course, I said yes. Harry said one of the stops would be the Jambalaya Club, in my new home of Arcata, for a couple of dates in April. Two shows a night.

After playing some Bay Area clubs for a week, we headed north. The band had already created a cool chemistry. I learned what an amazing musician Hubert was. He played with joy, creativity and a unique style. In 1954, Wolf reached out to Hubert in Mississippi asking him to move to Chicago to join his popular blues band. At Wolf’s demand, Hubert tossed away his guitar pick and played his electric guitar with his fingers, old-school Mississippi Delta-blues style.

Hubert was a funny and affectionate guy. For some reason, he took a liking to me. I’d spend as much time with him offstage as I could. He made me laugh. Once he put his arm around my shoulders backstage and said, “Paul, you ain’t nothing but a scuttlebucker.”

“What’s that, Hubert?” He said, “When I think someone’s a nice guy I call them a scuttlebucker. If I think they’re a son of a bitch, I call them a scownbucker.”

I was new to town, but I had already booked some gigs at the Jambalaya. Musicians Fred Neighbor and Joyce Hough opened the venue in 1973. It had become the cultural nightclub of Arcata. Jazz, bluegrass, jam sessions, poetry readings and dance bands – often Fred and Joyce of Freddy and The Starliners – were featured on a weekly basis.

The club had rarely booked a touring Chicago blues band. But interest in the music was high. By the time we arrived in Arcata, the 120-person capacity club had sold out four shows in two days. 

Sunnyland, ever the entertainer, was in a fine mood looking out at the crowd. “Ladies and gentleman, we have someone in the band who lives in your town, our drummer Paul DeMark,” he announced. I received some applause since I was a local but I was virtually unknown to the audience.

We played Sunnyland’s usual mixture of uptempo Chicago blues shuffles, swing tunes and slow blues. “Darling, can I have a glass of California wine?” he asked the bartender. A waitress appeared with some California red wine.

The crowd was appreciative and excited by the music. During Sunnyland’s uptempo shuffle, “She’s Got a Thing Goin’ On,” Sunnyland called for Hubert to take a solo.

As Hubert began soloing, he locked his eyes with mine. With a mischievous smile, he slowly walked over the stage to me. He closed in, raised his black-and-white Rickenbacker guitar neck and pointed it at my eyes. He had a smile that seemed on the verge of laughter. The full force of his joyful and close presence, and his extraordinary guitar playing, lit up my mind and body. The feeling he projected was tangible.   

By the end of the tour, I understood one couldn’t play with these blues masters without feeling the music deeply. They told me that’s what they cared about musically.  

I was talking to Hubert a few weeks after the Jambalaya shows. “Paul, I don’t know why, but you feel this music like Sunnyland and I do,” he said. I didn’t know exactly why either, but I know I felt it. They brought it out of me.

I was lucky and honored to play music with them as a young man. They changed my musical life forever.

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Author’s note: There will be another story about Hubert Sumlin in the future. Thank you to Pamela Long for editing and Julian DeMark for photo scanning.