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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Hubert Sumlin

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Enjoy!

^{Hubert Sumlin - Come On In My House}

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem."

-- Howard Zinn

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News and Opinion

Gaza Isn’t Starving, It Is Being Starved

Malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza are beginning to climb, with the health ministry reporting 18 in a single 24-hour period. Doctors report that people are “collapsing” in the street, and Gaza journalist Nahed Hajjaj is warning the world not to be surprised if the remaining reporters in the enclave are soon silenced by starvation.

Unless something drastically changes, things can be expected to get much worse very rapidly.

Meanwhile Israeli forces are setting new records with their massacres of starving civilians seeking aid, with 85 killed in a single day on Sunday.

If this isn’t evil, then nothing is evil. If Israel isn’t evil, then nothing is.

Israeli Military Kills 85 Palestinians Attempting to Get Aid in Gaza
Gaza's Health Ministry said a total of 128 Palestinians were killed over the previous 24-hour periodhttps://t.co/lZmTOlToJE

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) July 20, 2025

So what’s the plan here? Do we just sit and watch Israel starve Gaza to death with the support of our own governments?

And then what? We just go along with our lives, knowing that that happened? That this is what we are as a society? That our civilization is comfortable allowing something like that to happen? And that our rulers could do the same thing to another inconvenient population at any time?

We’re just meant to be cool with that? And go on living like it’s normal?

I’m genuinely curious. How exactly is everyone planning to go about living their lives after that point? How does that work, exactly?

I’m asking because I don’t know. I mean, I know what my own government and its allies should do, but I don’t know what we as ordinary members of the public are supposed to do.

People now collapsing in the street with organ failure and dying in Gaza due to extreme malnutrition because Israel blocks world organizations from delivering food into Gaza.

The group of private contractors Israel permits routinely massacres Gazans in line for tiny rations: https://t.co/wT0tLno9Mh

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 20, 2025

You’ll see western pundits and politicians asking “How do we get a ceasefire in Gaza?” or “How do we end hunger in Gaza?” as though it’s some kind of ineffable mystery, which is kind of like a man strangling a child to death while saying “The child is being strangled, but HOW do we stop the child strangulation from occurring?”

It’s not some mystery how to get a ceasefire in Gaza; the empire is the fire. It simply needs to cease firing. Israel’s holocaust in Gaza is made possible only by the support of its western backers, primarily the United States. Numerous Israeli military insiders have acknowledged that none of this would be possible without US support. If the United States and its western allies ceased backing Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, a ceasefire would have to occur.

Likewise, it is not a mystery how to get food into Gaza. You just drive the food on in and give it to people. They’ve got roads and gates right there. The only reason people in Gaza are starving is because western governments (including my own Australia) conspired to pretend to believe that UNRWA is a terrorist organization to justify cutting off critical aid, while doing nothing to pressure Israel into allowing aid to flow freely.

And now Israel and the US empire are monopolizing the delivery of “aid” through the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose facilities now see civilians massacred every day for the crime of attempting to obtain food.

The organizations, funding and delivery systems to feed Gaza are all 100 percent fully available (at no cost to Israel, by the way). They’re just not being allowed to provide aid because the goal is to remove all Palestinians from Gaza via death or displacement. The people of Gaza are starving because the west is helping Israel starve Gaza. It really is that simple.

This isn’t some kind of unfortunate famine caused by a drought or natural disaster. It is a deliberately manufactured starvation campaign, implemented with genocidal intent.

To paraphrase Utah Phillips, Gaza isn’t starving, it is being starved. And the people who are starving it have names and addresses.

WHO says Israeli forces hit its staff residence and main warehouse in Gaza

The World Health Organization has said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir al-Balah on Monday, compromising its operations in Gaza. The UN agency said the WHO staff residence was attacked three times, with airstrikes causing a fire and extensive damage, and endangering staff and their families, including children.

On Monday, Israeli tanks for the first pushed into southern and eastern districts of Deir al-Balah, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes hostages may be held. Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several others, local medics said.

“Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward al-Mawasi amid active conflict. Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint,” the WHO said. Two WHO staff and two family members were detained, it said in a post on X. It said three were later released, while one staff member remained in detention.

Its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “WHO demands the immediate release of the detained staff and protection of all its staff.”

'MADMAN': Even Trump Losing Patience With Israel WARMONGERING

Belgian police question two Israelis over war crimes accusations

Belgian authorities have said they briefly held and questioned two Israeli citizens who attended an electronic music festival last week, after pro-Palestinian groups accused them of war crimes.

Prosecutors said they had received legal complaints alleging that two Israeli soldiers responsible for “serious violations of international humanitarian law” in Gaza were spotted at the Tomorrowland festival near the northern city of Antwerp.

The federal prosecutor’s office said it had asked the police to locate the two people named in the complaint and to interview them. “Following these interviews, they were released,” it said in a statement.

The office said it had taken action after concluding that Belgian courts had extraterritorial jurisdiction over alleged war crimes. “No further information will be given at this stage of the investigation,” the office said.

Nelk Boys MELT DOWN After Bibi Interview: Compare To HITLER

'New Levels of Desperation' in Gaza as Israeli Blockade Starves 19 People to Death in One Day

"We are heading into the unknown," one Palestinian doctor warned Monday as officials reported that Israel's near-total blockade starved at least 19 people in Gaza in one day, with the human-caused hunger crisis in the enclave reaching new catastrophic levels.

Dr. Mohammed Abu Afash, the director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, told Al Jazeera that "malnutrition among children has reached its highest levels" since Israel first began blocking humanitarian aid in October 2023. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's U.S.-backed government began imposing the current blockade on March 2.

More than 50 children have died of starvation since then, according to the World Health Organization.

Gaza's civil defense agency said Sunday that infant deaths from starvation are on the rise, with three babies dying from malnutrition in the past week alone.

"These heartbreaking cases were not caused by direct bombing but by starvation, the lack of baby formula, and the absence of basic healthcare," Mahmud Bassal, a spokesperson for the agency, told Agence France-Presse. 

The mother of a four-month-old child in Deir el-Balah was seen "touching her body, saying, 'I am sorry I could not feed you'" after the baby died of malnutrition at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, reported Hind Khoudary at Al Jazeera. 

A four-year-old girl, Razan Abu Zaher, was also among the Palestinians who starved to death on Sunday, succumbing to complications from malnutrition in a hospital in central Gaza.

Her mother, Tahrir Abu Daher, had told CNN in June that she had no money to buy milk, the cost of which has skyrocketed in Gaza due to the blockade—when it is available at all.

"Her health was very good before the war, but after the war, her condition began to deteriorate due to malnutrition," Abu Daher told he outlet. "There is nothing to strengthen her."

Aid agencies that have operated in Gaza for years say that the small amount of relief that's entered Gaza since the blockade was partially lifted in May has been far from enough to meet the needs of starving Palestinians. Before Israel began bombarding the enclave in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack in October 2023, an average of 500 aid trucks entered Gaza to help feed the population of more than 2 million people. A tiny fraction of that amount of relief has been allowed in since May.

Commenting on images of crowds of starving children and adults, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), emphasized that Gaza's starvation crisis is "entirely manmade."

"UNRWA has enough food for the entire population of Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses," said UNRWA in a social media post, displaying photos of a facility in Al Arish, Egypt. "The supplies are available. The systems are in place."

The World Food Program (WFP) said the hunger crisis "has reached new levels of desperation."

"People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance," said the U.N. agency. "Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment. Nearly 1 person in 3 is not eating for days."

"Only a massive scale-up in food aid distributions can stabilize this spiraling situation, calm anxieties, and rebuild the trust within communities that more food is coming," added the WFP.

Pope NOT BUYING Israel’s Excuses For Bombing Catholic Church! w/ Dave DeCamp

Europe’s Betrayal of Gaza

While the U.S. government has given Israel carte blanche to commit genocide, many of us held out hope that Europe would be different—more principled, more bound by its own human rights commitments. But Europe has proven no better; it has been complicit through trade deals, a steady flow of weapons, and brutal crackdowns on pro-Palestine protesters across the continent.

At the July 15, 2025 meeting of the European Union-Israel Association Council, European foreign ministers had a chance to act, but they refused to take punitive action under the agreement’s human rights clause. Instead of imposing sanctions or halting arms sales, Europe offers tax breaks, preferential market access, and diplomatic legitimacy. And while European officials justified this by saying Israel had agreed to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israel is still starving people to death and forcing the children it has maimed to undergo amputations with no anesthetics.

Under international law—including the E.U.’s own human rights clauses—Europe is obligated to suspend agreements with countries committing grave violations. Yet it continues to benefit from Israeli technology, weapons, and surveillance systems—many of them field-tested on Palestinian civilians.

United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese condemned Europe’s inaction, calling it a violation of both legal and moral duties. She had urged the E.U. to suspend the trade agreement. The impact of the suspension would have been enormous because the E.U. is not only Israel’s largest trading partner, but also its largest investment partner, investing nearly twice as much as the U.S.

“It is absolutely sickening that the E.U. leadership rewarded this country with more economic partnership instead of putting an end to the genocide,” Albanese said.

Several E.U. countries maintain especially strong ties with Israel through military, economic, and diplomatic channels. Germany stands out as the most significant partner, supplying over $355 million in arms in 2023—including submarines and tank engines—and ranking as Israel’s second-largest global arms supplier.

Italy and France maintain long-standing military ties as well. Italy is the E.U.’s third-largest arms exporter to Israel, while France exported approximately $182 million in military equipment in 2023 before partially suspending sales under mounting public pressure.

Beyond arms, the Netherlands is Israel’s largest European investor, responsible for two-thirds of E.U. capital flowing into Israeli industries. Greece has also deepened its strategic partnership with Israel, holding joint military exercises and advancing energy cooperation. Hungary consistently shields Israel diplomatically within the E.U., blocking critical statements and threatening to withdraw from forums that try to hold Israel accountable. Austria brands itself a “strategic partner,” maintaining close political and trade links.

Despite the horrors in Gaza, the E.U. remains Israel’s largest trading partner—accounting for over $46 billion in goods traded in 2024, nearly a third of Israel’s global commerce. While some countries, including Ireland, Spain, and several in Scandinavia, advocate sanctions and accountability, powerful E.U. members like Germany, Hungary, and the Netherlands are instead doubling down on ties with Israel.

On the other hand, European citizens have been rising up in all manner of creative ways. Millions have taken to the streets in mass demonstrations. In the U.K., monthly protests have drawn crowds of up to 300,000. “Red Line” marches in The Hague and Brussels gathered between 100,000 and 150,000 people, clad in red to symbolize a moral boundary crossed. Huge rallies have filled Berlin, Bern, and Paris with tens of thousands chanting for Gaza and demanding an end to military collaboration with Israel.

Polls across Europe show plummeting support for Israel. Majorities in Germany, France, and the U.K. oppose its assault on Gaza and support an immediate cease-fire. In six key countries, only 6% to 16% support Israel’s actions. Up to 65% of respondents back an arms embargo and support prosecuting Israeli leaders for war crimes.

But instead of heeding this public outcry, many European governments have cracked down on protesters. The U.K. banned the direct-action group Palestine Action under anti-terror laws and has arrested over 100 people, including elderly demonstrators, for simply holding signs saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” France has banned rallies and deployed riot police. Germany has prohibited Palestinian flags, shut down protests, and initiated deportations. Austria has criminalized slogans like “From the river to the sea.” In Hungary, authorities have equated solidarity protests with terrorism. Across the continent, governments are not listening to their people—they are working hard to silence them.

Europe has a choice. It could follow the will of its citizens. At the recent trade meeting, it could have taken a stand. Instead, it is chosinge profits over Palestinian lives.

History will not just remember Israel’s crimes—but those, including the so-called “Western democracies,” who enabled them.

Israel Breaks Ceasefire, Continues WARPATH In Lebanon

Col Doug Macgregor: Who Believes These are Peace Talks? Russia & Ukraine Set to Meet

Kiev Out Of Men Losing Pokrovsk, French Military Say Defeat Inevitable; Putin Meets Iran Top Leaders

Nine households control 15% of wealth in Silicon Valley as inequality widens

Economic inequality has reached a staggering milestone in Silicon Valley: just nine households hold 15% of the region’s wealth, according to new research from San Jose State University. A mere 0.1% of residents hold 71% of the tech hub’s wealth. The findings come from the 2025 “Silicon Valley Pain Index”, a report published by SJSU’s Human Rights Institute each year since 2020. The report aims to quantify “structured inequalities” in Silicon Valley, and measures “pain” as “both personal and community distress or suffering”.

This year’s index reports that the wealth divide has widened in Silicon Valley at double the rate of the whole United States over the past decade. The nine wealthiest households in the valley control $683.2bn – a $136bn increase over the past year. At the same time, 110,000 households reported nearly none or no assets. The cost of living in Silicon Valley has risen as well: renters must earn $136,532 to afford an apartment – the highest in the nation.

The report ranked San Jose No 4 in “impossibly unaffordable” cities worldwide (after Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver). Yet, no cities in Silicon Valley have raised the minimum wage in the past three years. The report finds that 54,582 low-income households do not have access to an affordable home in San Jose and that homelessness grew 8.2% from 2023.

Ex-officer sentenced to nearly three years for role in Breonna Taylor’s killing

A federal judge on Monday sentenced an ex-Kentucky police officer to nearly three years in prison for using excessive force during the 2020 deadly raid on Breonna Taylor’s home, declining a justice department recommendation that he be given no prison time.

Brett Hankison, who fired 10 shots during the raid but didn’t hit anyone, was the only officer on the scene charged in the Black woman’s death. He is the first person sentenced to prison in the case that rocked the city of Louisville and spawned weeks of street protests over police brutality five years ago.

Last week, the justice department recommended a one-day jail sentence and supervised release in Hankison’s case. In a sentencing memorandum, assistant attorney general for civil rights Harmeet K Dhillon and senior counsel Robert J Keenan said Hankison had suffered psychological stress from the legal battle.

The US district judge Rebecca Grady Jennings sentenced Hankison at a hearing Monday afternoon. She said that no prison time “is not appropriate” for Hankison and said she was “startled” that there weren’t more people injured in the raid. Hankison will serve 33 months in prison as well as three years of supervised probation.

Migrants at Ice jail in Miami made to kneel to eat ‘like dogs’

Migrants at a Miami immigration jail were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates “like dogs”, according to a report published on Monday into conditions at three overcrowded south Florida facilities. The incident at the downtown federal detention center is one of a succession of alleged abuses at lails operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (Ice) n the state since January, chronicled by the advocacy groups Human Rights Watch, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Sanctuary of the South from interviews with detainees.

Dozens of men had been packed into a holding cell for hours, the report said, and denied lunch until about 7pm. They remained shackled with the food on chairs in front of them. “We had to eat like animals,” one detainee named Pedro said. Degrading treatment by guards is commonplace in all three jails, the groups say. At the Krome North service processing center in west Miami, female detainees were made to use toilets in full view of men being held there, and were denied access to gender-appropriate care, showers or adequate food.

The jail was so far beyond capacity, some transferring detainees reported, that they were held for more than 24 hours in a bus in the parking lot. Men and women were confined together, and unshackled only when they needed to use the single toilet, which quickly became clogged. ... When the group was finally admitted into the facility, they said, many spent up to 12 days crammed into a frigid intake room they christened la hielera – the ice box – with no bedding or warm clothing, sleeping instead on the cold concrete floor.

In one alleged incident in April at the downtown Miami jail, staff turned off a surveillance camera and a “disturbance control team” brutalized detainees who were protesting about a lack of medical attention to one of their number who was coughing up blood. One detainee suffered a broken finger.

Trump’s border czar to target sanctuary cities in US: ‘We’re gonna flood the zone’

The Trump administration is targeting sanctuary cities in the next phase of its deportation drive after labelling them “sanctuaries for criminals” following the shooting of an off-duty law enforcement officer in New York City, allegedly by an undocumented person with a criminal record.

Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s hardline border czar, vowed to “flood the zone” with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents in an all-out bid to overcome the lack of cooperation he said the government faced from Democrat-run municipalities in its quest to arrest and detain undocumented people.

His pledge followed the arrest of two undocumented men from the Dominican Republic after a Customs and Border Protection officer suffered gunshot wounds to the arm and face in an apparent robbery attempt in New York’s Riverside park on Saturday night.

New York is one of several self-designated “sanctuary cities” across the US, called so because the mayors and local councils have prevented law officers under their control from collaborating with federal immigration officers working on Trump’s mass deportation scheme.

Homan – who has previously threatened to arrest mayors if they impede Ice’s arrest efforts – said: “Every sanctuary city is unsafe. Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals and President Trump’s not going to tolerate it.

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Will Zohran Repeat Bernie's FAILURES? (w/ Norm Finkelstein)

Cuomo Admits Jews OVERWHEMLINGLY Pro-Zohran

Minneapolis Democrats endorse democratic socialist for mayor over incumbent

A Democratic socialist member of the Minnesota state senate won his party’s endorsement for the Minneapolis mayoral race over the incumbent, giving momentum to the progressive left’s political rise.

Omar Fateh, a state senator from Minneapolis’s southside, beat Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, who served as mayor during the George Floyd protests and through the pandemic. Fateh gained momentum after Zohran Mamdani, also a democratic socialist and state lawmaker, won the primary for New York City mayor.

Fateh was first elected to the state senate in 2020 and won re-election in 2022. He was the first Somali American and Muslim elected to the chamber. He chaired the higher education committee and advanced a plan for free college for families who make less than $80,000.

“I am incredibly honored to be the DFL endorsed candidate for Minneapolis mayor,” Fateh said after the endorsement win, referring to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, the Democratic party in Minnesota. “This endorsement is a message that Minneapolis residents are done with broken promises, vetoes, and politics as usual. It’s a mandate to build a city that works for all of us.”

Frey’s campaign contends that the endorsement process in Minneapolis was flawed and an electronic voting system didn’t properly count all votes. He is planning an appeal to the state party, multiple local news outlets reported.

Post-Epstein Polling Looks DISASTROUS For Trump, GOP

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Metal bottle caps ‘surprising’ source of microplastic contamination

Metal bottle caps can be a significant source of microplastic contamination in beverages, a new peer-reviewed study by France’s food safety agency finds. Researchers compared microplastic levels in beer, water, wine and soft drinks, and found the substance in all samples, but liquid in glass jars showed the highest levels. The surprising source of the contamination – a polyester-based paint on the glass bottles’ metal caps.

The findings were “very surprising”, said Alexandre Dehaut, a study co-author with the French agency for food, environmental and occupational health and safety. “Caps were suspected to be the main source of contamination, as the majority of particles isolated in beverages were identical to the color of caps and shared the composition of the outer paint,” the authors wrote in the study. ...

Dehaut said they were led to the paint because the microplastic fragments they found in the beverages seemed to match the paint. Closer scrutiny revealed the microplastics matched material, color and polymeric composition of the paint lining the outside of the caps.

It appears the bottle caps are stored post production with thousands of other caps in bags or boxes, and those scrape each other as they are jostled, Dehaut noted. Once the caps are sealed to the bottles, the bits of plastic from the scratches end up in the beverage. The authors were able to see the tiny scrapes and scratches when they placed the caps under a microscope.

Trump cuts stir fears of more pipeline ruptures

On a clear February evening in 2020, a smell of rotten eggs started to waft over the small town of Satartia, Mississippi, followed by a green-tinged cloud. A load roar could be heard near the highway that passes the town. Soon, nearby residents started to feel dizzy, some even passed out or lay on the ground shaking, unable to breathe. Cars, inexplicably, cut out, their drivers leaving them abandoned with the doors open on the highway. ...

Unbeknown to residents and emergency responders, a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide near Satartia had ruptured and its contents were gushing out, robbing oxygen from people and internal combustion engines in cars alike. ... The near-fatal disaster was a spur to Joe Biden’s administration to, for the first time, create a rule demanding a high standard of safety for the transport of carbon dioxide, a small but growing ingredient of pipelines increasingly captured from drilling sites and power plants.

“There’s been a lot of concern about safety among states that permit CO2 pipelines,” said Tristan Brown, who was acting administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration (PHMSA) until January. “Stronger standards like the ones we drafted last year have the dual benefit of addressing permitting concerns while also improving safety for the public.”

But shortly before the new safety regulations were due to come into force early this year, Donald Trump’s new administration swiftly killed them off. A crackdown on gas leaks from pipelines was also pared back. This was followed by an exodus of senior officials from PHMSA, which oversees millions of miles of US pipelines. Five top leaders, including the head of the office of pipeline safety, have departed amid Trump’s push to shrink the federal workforce.

Broader staff cuts have hit the regulator, too, with PHMSA preparing for 612 employees in the coming year, down from 658 last year. There are currently 174 pipeline inspectors within this workforce, PHMSA said, which is 30% less than the number of inspectors Congress required it to have when authorizing the agency’s budget in 2020. These 174 inspectors have the task of scrutinizing 3.3 million miles of pipe across the US, or around 19,000 miles per inspector. The indiscriminate nature of cuts at PHMSA “has real world consequences in terms of undermining the basic foundations of safety for the public,” Brown said.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

MAGA Going to Israel for Propaganda Training

The Serious Starvation Deaths Are About To Begin In Gaza

Massive Attack, Kneecap, Brian Eno, Fontaines D.C. announce formation of musicians’ alliance to repel Zionist attacks

Despite 2 Sabotage Attempts, the Gaza Flotilla Ship Handala Sails Onward

U.S. Inches Closer to Causing Major Caucasus Crisis With Offer to Administer Transport Corridor Between Turkey and Azerbaijan

Not Knowing The 'Enemy'

Patrick Lawrence: Sun Valley vs. Queensbridge

Trump officials release FBI records on MLK Jr despite his family’s opposition

AOC Loses Ryan Grim?

Dems SCRAMBLE To Defend Support For Israel!

MAGA Protests Netanyahu At White House To Stop Gaza Killings!

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A Little Night Music

Little Hubert Sumlin with Sunnyland Slim - Come On Home Baby

Howlin' Wolf - Smokestack Lightning

The Nighthawks with Hubert Sumlin - Spoonful

Hubert Sumlin - I'll be home on Tuesday II

Hubert Sumlin, Robert Cray Band, Jimmie Vaughan - Sitting on top of The world

Hubert Sumlin - Hidden Charms

Hubert Sumlin With James Cotton - Chunky

Hubert Sumlin - You Got to Help Me

Hubert Sumlin - Living The Blues

Hubert Sumlin, Robert Cray, Eric Clapton & Jimmie Vaughan - Killing Floor

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