Healing Feeling (1991)

Hubert Sumlin would rather be a sideman. That's understandable, since he became famous by playing lead guitar in the late Howlin' Wolf's band for more than 20 years. On Healing Feeling, he turns over nearly all of the vocal chores to James ''Thunderbird'' Davis and Darrell Nulisch. That allows Sumlin to concentrate on his Fender Stratocaster, taking standard blues patterns and wrenching them inside out. You never know where Sumlin's fingers will lead him, and it sounds like he doesn't always know himself. Even if some of the tunes here are pedestrian, Sumlin's spindly, jagged guitar work is scary good. B