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Hughie Flint (born 15 March 1941, Manchester, Lancashire), is an English drummer, best known for his stint in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, playing drums on the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton album, released in 1966. Flint played in the Bluesbreakers on and off for five years, playing an integral part to their blues based sound, partly influenced by Flint's love of jazz. Flint also appeared on the Bluesbreakers albums Crusade (1967), A Hard Road (1967) and So Many Roads (1969), although principal drumming duties in the group were eventually taken by Aynsley Dunbar.
In 1970, Flint formed McGuinness Flint with Tom McGuinness, a former guitarist with Manfred Mann. They reached number 2 in the UK Singles chart with "When I'm Dead And Gone", which was followed in 1971 by another hit single, "Malt and Barley Blues", which peaked at number 5. They also cut their self-titled debut album in 1970, which reached the Top 10 of the UK Albums Chart in 1971. However the early success of the group proved to be short lived. Despite featuring the production skills of Glyn Johns and the accompaniment of pianist Nicky Hopkins, their second album Happy Birthday, Ruthy Baby proved to be the end of the original line-up. Multi-instrumentalist band members Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle left the group following its release. McGuinness and Flint teamed up with Dennis Coulson and Dixie Dean to release the album Lo and Behold in 1972, which consisted solely of obscure Bob Dylan 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. Also, around this time, Flint joined the Bonzo Dog Band for their final original album, Let's Make Up And Be Friendly.
In 1977, Flint was the drummer and Budhran player on the album Suburban Ethnia by the band Chanter.
Flint's last band based venture was in The Blues Band, a supergroup composed of Dave Kelly, Gary Fletcher, McGuinness and fellow 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.
By the late 1980s Flint had left the music industry and he dropped the ('ie') from his name, preferring to be known simply as Hugh Flint. He took the job of porter at Mansfield College in the University of Oxford in 1988. He kept this job until 2005. During this period of his life he stopped playing drum kits as such, preferring to dabble in percussion. He remained in contact with John Mayall and appeared on the television documentary, Rock Family Trees, to discuss the history of the Bluesbreakers and the many off-shoots of the band.
Flint is now retired.
Besides his appearances in the aforementioned groups, he has also featured on records by Georgie Fame, Jack Dupree and Tom Newman amongst others.
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