Hughie Flint (born 15 March 1940,

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, Lancashire) is an English drummer, known for his stint in

John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers are an English blues rock band led by singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist John Mayall. While never producing a hit of their own, the band has been influential as an incubator for British rock and blues ...

, for his group

McGuinness Flint McGuinness Flint was a rock band formed in 1970 by Tom McGuinness (musician), Tom McGuinness, a bassist and guitarist with Manfred Mann, and Hughie Flint, former drummer with John Mayall; plus vocalist and keyboard player Dennis Coulson, and mul ...

in the early 1970s and for his subsequent association with

The Blues Band The Blues Band is a British blues band formed in 1979 by Paul Jones, former lead vocalist and harmonica player with Manfred Mann, and guitarist Tom McGuinness also of Manfred Mann and The Roosters. The band’s first line-up also included bass ...

. Flint played in the Bluesbreakers on and off for five years, adding a distinctive aspect to their

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

-based sound partly through his love of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

. He appeared on their albums '' John Mayall Plays John Mayall'' (1965) and '' Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton'' (1966, also known as ''

The Beano ''The Beano'' (formerly ''The Beano Comic'', also known as ''Beano'') is a British anthology comic magazine created by Scottish publishing company DC Thomson. Its first issue was published on 30 July 1938, and it became the world's longest-runn ...

Album''). Flint then left to play alongside

Alexis Korner Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner (19 April 1928 – 1 January 1984), known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major in ...

and

Savoy Brown Savoy Brown (originally Savoy Brown Blues Band) were an English blues rock band formed in Battersea, south west London, in 1965. Part of the late 1960s blues rock movement, Savoy Brown primarily achieved success in the United States, where they ...

; his place in the group was taken by

Aynsley Dunbar Aynsley Thomas Dunbar (born 10 January 1946) is an English drummer. He has worked with John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Journey, Jefferson Starship, Nils Lofgren, Eric Burdon, Shuggie Otis, Ian Hunter, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Mick R ...

. In 1970 Flint formed

with Tom McGuinness, former guitarist and bassist with

Manfred Mann Manfred Mann were an English rock band, formed in London and active between 1962 and 1969. The group were named after their keyboardist Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band. The band had two differen ...

. They reached number 2 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

with "When I'm Dead And Gone", which was followed in 1971 by another

hit single A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single or simply a hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record' ...

, "Malt and Barley Blues", which peaked at number 5. They also released their self-titled debut album in 1970, which reached the Top 10 of the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

in 1971. However the early success of the group proved to be short-lived. Despite featuring the production skills of

Glyn Johns Glyn Thomas Johns (born 15 February 1942) is an English musician, recording engineer and record producer. Biography Early history Johns was born in Epsom, Surrey, England. He had three siblings, two older sisters and a younger brother, Andy ...

and the accompaniment of pianist

Nicky Hopkins Nicholas Christian "Nicky" Hopkins (24 February 1944 – 6 September 1994) was an English pianist and organist. Hopkins performed on many popular and enduring British and American rock music recordings from the 1960s to the 1990s, most notably ...

, their second album ''Happy Birthday, Ruthy Baby'' proved to be the end of the original line-up. Multi-instrumentalist band members

Benny Gallagher Bernard Joseph "Benny" Gallagher (born 10 June 1945, in Largs, Ayrshire) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, most famous as half of the popular duo Gallagher and Lyle. Career The son of Irish parents, Gallagher atten ...

and

Graham Lyle Graham Hamilton Lyle (born 11 March 1944, in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland) is a Scottish singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. Between 1970 and 1997, he co-wrote 18 British Top 40 hits, 9 ''Billboard'' Hot 100 entries, 4 US Country No ...

, who also wrote most of the songs, left the group following its release. Flint and McGuinness teamed up with Dennis Coulson and Dixie Dean to release the album ''Lo and Behold'' in 1972, which consisted solely of obscure

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

covers. Shortly after this Coulson left. Despite the release of two further albums and a ''Greatest Hits'' collection in 1973, the band split in 1975. Flint played with the

Bonzo Dog Band The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (also known as The Bonzo Dog Band or The Bonzos) was created by a group of British art-school students in the 1960s. Combining elements of music hall, trad jazz and psychedelia with surreal humour and avant-garde art, ...

from 1971 and appeared with them until their final album, ''

Let's Make Up And Be Friendly ''Let's Make Up And Be Friendly'' was the fifth and, until 2007, final original album by the Bonzo Dog Band. The group had already disbanded when United Artists Records (which absorbed the Bonzos' label Liberty Records) informed band members ...

''. In 1977 Flint was the drummer and

bodhrán The bodhrán (, ; plural ''bodhráin'' or ''bodhráns'') is a frame drum used in Irish music ranging from in diameter, with most drums measuring . The sides of the drum are deep. A goatskin head is tacked to one side (synthetic heads or othe ...

player on the album ''

Suburban Ethnia A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

'' by the band

Chanter The chanter is the part of the bagpipe upon which the player creates the melody. It consists of a number of finger-holes, and in its simpler forms looks similar to a recorder. On more elaborate bagpipes, such as the Northumbrian bagpipes or the ...

. Flint's last band-based venture was

, a supergroup whose other members were Dave Kelly, Gary Fletcher, McGuinness and another Manfred Mann veteran, singer Paul Jones. Their debut ''The Official Bootleg Album'' was released in 1980, and Flint also appeared on their follow-up albums ''Ready'' (1980) and ''Itchy Feet'' (1981) before departing. In 1995 Flint appeared in the BBC television documentary ''

Rock Family Trees Peter Frame (born 10 November 1942 in Luton, Bedfordshire, England) is an English music journalist and historian of rock music. He has produced outlines of the history of rock bands for various magazines, such as ''Sounds'', '' NME'', ''Melody M ...

'' to discuss the history of the Bluesbreakers and the many offshoots of the band. By that time he was working as a porter at

Mansfield College, Oxford Mansfield College, Oxford is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The college was founded in Birmingham in 1838 as a college for Nonconformist (Protestantism), Non ...

, from where he retired in 2007. Flint also featured on

records A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

Georgie Fame Georgie Fame (born Clive Powell; 26 June 1943) is an English R&B and jazz musician. Fame, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still performing, often working with contemporaries such as Alan Price, Van Morrison and Bill Wyman. Fame is the on ...

Jack Dupree William Thomas "Champion Jack" Dupree (July 23, 1909 or July 4, 1910 – January 21, 1992) was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer. His nickname was derived from his early career as a boxer. Biography Dupree was a New Orleans ...

and Tom Newman amongst others.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flint, Hughie 1941 births Living people English rock drummers John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers members Musicians from Manchester British rhythm and blues boom musicians English blues musicians Savoy Brown members Chicken Shack members The Blues Band members McGuinness Flint members