E-Mail This Article to a Friend Lionizing Solomon Burke and Hubert Sumlin can still roar BY TED DROZDOWSKI
	Related Links Solomon Burke's official Web site Hubert Sumlin's official Web site TED DROZDOWSKI reviews Hubert Sumlin's About Them Shoes

It’s always a pleasure to see old lions at the top of their game. And that’s where Solomon Burke and Hubert Sumlin, two chapters in the history of soul and blues, are today.

Burke, who’ll turn 65 on March 21, and Sumlin, who’s 73, have just released vital albums that are part of a renaissance for both men that began at the turn of the decade. They also performed in New England during the first weekend of March, displaying spirit and musicianship undimmed by age and illness.

Burke’s show on March 5 at the Mohegan Sun Casino’s Wolf’s Den club in Uncasville, Connecticut, was pure fireworks. Although he must perform seated because of his knee troubles and his considerable girth, Burke soared with avian grace and commanded his big band like a general. He repeatedly whipped the group — six horns, drums, two keyboards, guitar, bass, and his son Solomon and daughter Candy as back-up singers — into passages of hard, frenzied playing that, along with his son’s revved-up dance steps, seemed to take numbers like his classic "Cry to Me" to the brink of chaos, only to cool the players down with a whispered "easy" or a smooth segue into a simmering soul chestnut like his late friend Sam Cooke’s "A Change Is Gonna Come" or a "Georgia on My Mind" that was an angelic salute to the late Ray Charles.

Burke also tapped the catalogues of Otis Redding and Little Richard in his requests-heavy performance, but some of the best tunes came from his last two comeback albums, 2002’s Grammy-winning Don’t Give Up on Me (Fat Possum) and the just-released Make Do with What You Got (Shout! Factory). The former provided the sweet Tom Waits ode to positivism "Always Keep a Diamond in Your Mind," to which Burke’s honeyed high singing gave genuine uplift. The latter provided the funky title track and "At the Crossroads," a new song about life’s challenges written for Burke by his admirer Van Morrison.

A few words about the new CD: Don’t Give Up on Me was a soothing and subtly complex recording produced by Joe Henry. Make Do with What You Got is its exuberant flip side, produced by Don Was and so faithful to the signatures of great ’60s soul that Was even got Muscle Shoals studio veteran Reggie Young to play guitar on its pumping tracks. It’s the kind of music Burke helped invent when he was a kingpin of the Atlantic Records roster from 1961 to ’68, and since he’s an even more accomplished singer than he was 40 years ago, it’s just that much better. Together these albums are providing Burke with a reintroduction to his older fans and a passage to a new audience while he’s still at the height of his vocal powers. That’s a rare gift for an artist who’s logged a half-century in the music business, which Burke is celebrating this year by performing as much as possible despite his need for a wheelchair. When he concluded the night with a slow, deeply voiced "Don’t Give Up on Me," it was a plea that touched many hearts in the crowd, leaving patrons at tables surrounding ours wiping away tears.

SUMLIN SEEMS TO HAVE BECOME the Energizer Bunny of blues. Despite the loss of a lung to cancer and a heart attack this past year that briefly put him in a coma, he’s undaunted and playing better than he has in decades, hopping planes to Europe and zipping around America behind his new About Them Shoes on the Newton-based Tone-Cool label. The album features Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and other stellar guests plumbing the songs of Muddy Waters, who employed Sumlin on occasion.

Dressed in a natty suit and holding court with audience members before ambling up on stage, Sumlin played two sets at the Regattabar in Harvard Square’s Charles Hotel on March 4. The first set featured guest appearances by his six-string acolytes Ronnie Earl and Sean Costello. Both shows rolled back the clock to the early ’60s, when Sumlin was Howlin’ Wolf’s main guitar man and one of the most distinctive instrumental voices in blues, fashioning a vocabulary out of slippery, zinging licks, eerie vibrato, and pure imagination. Sumlin’s sonic accomplishments were unparalleled until the punk era, when players like Robert Quine took their turn at transforming pentatonic scales into frenetic magic. Supported by a crack crew — pianist David Maxwell, singer Darrell Nuslisch, guitarist Troy Gonyea, bassist Mudcat Ward, and drummer Per Hansen — assembled with typical good judgment by local promoter Teo Leyasmeyer, Sumlin’s guitar sang every note he knows, though his five-song second set was too short for an artist whose career has been so long and influential.