E-Mail This Article to a Friend Fire and brimstone Hubert Sumlin, Solomon Burke, Ronnie Earl & Duke Robillard, and a whole lot more BY TED DROZDOWSKI

One of 2005’s coolest blues albums should have been out four years ago, but the producers of Hubert Sumlin’s terrific About Them Shoes were lax when they neglected to ask guests Eric Clapton and Keith Richards to ink contracts authorizing the use of their tracks. As soon as both legends finally signed off — following the last Rolling Stones tour and Clapton’s summer excursion — Sumlin’s manager called Rosy Rosenblatt, president of locally based Tone-Cool Records, and began the next chapter in Sumlin’s recent artistic rebirth.

The new millennium hasn’t been easy on Sumlin. The guitarist suffered a heart attack in August and lost a lung to cancer in 2002. Yet after nearly 20 years of listless performances and struggles with booze, he became the now-73-year-old Energizer bunny of the blues, reclaiming the fire he sprayed all over Howlin’ Wolf’s ’60s sides for Chess Records.

It was Sumlin’s then-unheard-of mix of slippery riffs, zinging sliding notes, key-hopping solos, shivery vibrato, and mad string-bending that helped Wolf classics such as "Killing Floor," "Shake for Me," "Wang Dang Doodle," "Built for Comfort," and "Going Down Slow" sing with strange beauty. Nonetheless, About Them Shoes, which hits store on January 25, is a tribute to one of Sumlin’s shorter-term employers, Muddy Waters. Besides Clapton and Richards, Sumlin is joined on the disc by fellow Waters sidemen James Cotton on harmonica and Paul Oscher and Bob Margolin on guitars, with the Band’s Levon Helm kicking in some drumming.

Sumlin confides that Clapton’s his favorite guitarist on the album . . . besides Hubert Sumlin. "Once I found my tone, it was my soul and the way that Wolf sang that helped me find the way I play," he says. "In my book, my sound is more soulful than anybody’s."

Come March 8, local blues-guitar heroes Ronnie Earl and Duke Robillard will give Sumlin some competition with their long-awaited collaboration, The Duke Meets the Earl (Stony Plain). For Earl, who has delved into jazz and gospel, and for Robillard, who has spent years exercising his estimable jazz and R&B chops, this is a return to stone blues. For any fan who’s heard both men jam on stage, especially on the old Walter Price tune "My Tears" — which clocks in as a 16-minute epic here — it’s six-string nirvana.

A week earlier, on March 1, Solomon Burke’s much-anticipated follow-up to his 2002 Grammy-winning comeback Don’t Give Up on Me (Fat Possum/Epitaph) arrives. Produced by Don Was, it’s called Make Do with What You Got. Like Don’t Give Up on Me it draws on a bank of great songwriters, but with a more historic bent. The 64-year-old vocal giant applies his soulful delivery to Hank Williams’s "Wealth Won’t Save Your Soul," the Stones’ "I Got the Blues," and Van Morrison’s "At the Crossroads," along with Robbie Robertson’s "It Makes No Difference," Dylan’s "What Good Am I?," and the Dr. John title track.

The group that Robillard started in the late 1960s, Rhode Island–based little big band Roomful of Blues, releases Standing Room Only (Alligator) on January 11. It’s a return to their original swinging jump-blues form. They’ll celebrate by continuing their perpetual tour, including dates at the Greenwich Odeum theater in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, on January 22, with an in-store appearance at Borders in Providence the same day, and a show at Union Blues in Worcester on February 11. Also on January 11, Chicago-based Alligator Records will release a collection by harp master Charlie Musselwhite, In My Time, as well as former Siegel-Schwall Blues Band co-leader Corky Siegel’s Traveling Chamber Blues Show.

In February, Rory Block revisits her original country-blues style with From the Dust, on the Telarc label, which will also have new albums by Louisiana singer-guitarist Tab Benoit in March and former Nighthawks string-bender Jimmy Thackery in April. Down in Mississippi, Fat Possum is putting the finishing touches on juke singer-guitarist Little Freddie King’s February or March release. A few dozen miles up the road, in Memphis, Alvin Youngblood Hart is polishing off a blazing guitar album for Tone-Cool; to the west, in Austin and Los Angeles, Kim Wilson’s Fabulous Thunderbirds are working on their debut for the same label, which also has a disc by guitarist-singer Sean Costello in the wings.

Later in the year, new albums will be coming from singer Shemekia Copeland, West Coast jump outfit Little Charlie and the Nightcats, and former Bluesbreakers guitarist Coco Montoya. Plus, Maria Muldaur is following up her critically heralded acoustic Delta-style Richland Woman Blues (Stony Plain) with a sequel featuring guests Alvin Youngblood Hart, Taj Mahal, and Tracy Nelson for April or May release.