One hundred years ago today, a blues legend was born in Mississippi hill country.
A lot of peoples wonder what is the blues. I hear a lot of people saying, "The blues, the blues...", but I'm gon' tell you what the blues is. When you aint got no money, you got the blues. When you aint got no money to pay your house rent, you still got the blues. A lot of people holler about, "I don't like no blues!", but when you aint got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you damn sure got the blues. When you aint got no money, you start thinkin' evil. Anytime you're thinkin' evil, you got the blues.
-Howlin' Wolf
Since much of America seems to have the blues right now, I thought it was fitting to honor the music that would inspire the world and change the tone of popular music for a century to come. Howlin' Wolf was but one of many blues legends but he happens to be my all-time favorite and almost shares a birthday with me (mine is tomorrow!). Howlin' Wolf passed away on January 10, 1976 but his recordings will always be with us. He may have not made the 100 year milestone as a living, breathing man but his music is just as alive today in the hearts, souls and Ipods of people who were born too late to be his contemporary for very long.
Chester Aurthur Burnett aka Howlin' Wolf was born June 10, 1910 to Leon "Dock" and Gertrude Burnett in White Station, Mississippi, a whistle stop town between Aberdeen and West Point in the Mississippi hill country and far from the Delta. He was named after Chester A. Aurthur, the 21st president of the United States. He was nicknamed "Big Foot Chester" because of his size 16 shoes and "Bull Cow" because of his abnormally large growing body. From an early age, he loved music and banged pots and pans to the rhythm of the train that stopped through White Station and imitated it's whistle. He learned to sing at his pastor uncle Will Young's church as a boy. His uncle was stern, abusive and unforgiving. One childhood friend described him as "the meanest man from here to hell".
Because he was a "bad boy", his grandfather, John Jones used to tell him stories about big bad wolves meeting terrible fates as in Little Red Riding Hood. He would also tell little Chester the wolves would get him if he kept misbehaving. When he was small, it scared him and made him angry when his mother and grandfather would "howl" to discourage him from his mischief or warn him about his eventual fate. He later embraced the persona "Howlin' Wolf" and it became his stage ego and professional name.
Similar to the origins of many other blues artists, Wolf was born to a piously religious mother who was a gospel street singer and sold bibles for pennies. She believed in hard work and insisted that her son work on the family farm. According to blues guitar legend, band mate and long time friend Humbert Sumlin,
"He told me [while] cryin', he said, 'Hubert, she put me out on account I wouldn't work for 15 cents a day.' And told him 'Don't come back! I don't want you back here!' -Hubert Sumlin
His father and his mother had broken up when Wolf was very young and his father's home with his new wife was quite far away. He moved in with his uncle Will Young in White Station, Mississippi, who treated him very badly and Wolf eventually would run away when he was 13, finding his father 75 miles away in West Point, Mississippi in the Delta. Wolf claims to have walked barefoot the entire journey because his uncle never bought him shoes. He moved in with his father's large family where he'd finally found a happy home. He loved his father very much and was always treated well by him. He remained at odds with his mother after he was famous and she would refuse to take any money from her son when they met many years later upon him leaving Chicago to visit his home town. She refused to take any profits of the "devil's music" and brusquely disowned him. It was one of the most hurtful moments in his life and that's saying a lot for a bluesman.
In 1930, Wolf met Charlie Patton, a popular and talented Delta blues musician who would befriend Wolf, become one of his mentors and teachers and inspire him to pursue a career in the blues.
"I was plowin'...plowin' four mules on the plantation. Man come through there pickin' a guitar called Charlie Patton and I liked his sound. So, I always did want to play the guitar so I got him to show me a few chords, ya know. Every night that I'd get off work, I'd go over his house and he'd learn me how to pick the guitar. So, I got good with it, so I went out for myself and peoples went for what I was puttin' down and I decided that I would play. So, I asked my father to get me a guitar. Nineteen twenty-eight the fifteenth day of January, he went and got me a guitar and I started picking the guitar first...(singing and playing)...I'm the wolf and hound, they found me howlin' at your door..." -Howlin' Wolf
Before he found his distinctive style, Wolf would watch Charlie Patton play the jukejoints at night. He would study and copy Patton's guitar tricks and unique showmanship and would later incorporate these wild stage antics into his own act.
"When he played his guitar, he would turn it over backwards and forwards, and throw it around over his shoulders, between his legs, throw it up in the sky" -Howlin' Wolf
Wolf played with Patton in the small Delta communities but was also inspired by many great blues artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Blind Blake, Tampa Red, Tommy Johnson and Wolf's childhood idol, country singer, Jimmie Rodgers. Wolf's famous howl is a result of him trying to emulate Rodger's famous "blue yodel" and failing because it sounded more like a howl than a yodel. Hence, it became his signature vocal, distinguishing him from his early influences and carving out a personal style for Wolf that would stay with him during his career as a musician.
"I couldn't do no yodelin' so I turned to howlin' and it's done me just fine." -Howlin' Wolf
His gruff, haunting voice, tinged with the intense vocal style of black American gospel singers and his hard-driving rhythm powered by a 6' 6", 300 lbs. frame, influenced such prestigious names in rock as Mick Jagger, Steve Winwood, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors and laid the tracks for heavy metal and other harder variations of rock and roll.
In the 1930s, Wolf played the blues circuit throughout the south and moved to Parkin, Arkansas in 1933 where he learned to play the harmonica from Rice Miller aka Sonny Boy Williamson II. He played with a number of well known blues musicians including Robert Johnson, Willie Brown and Floyd Jones on the blues circuit while he made a name for himself.
On April 9, 1941, Wolf was inducted into the U.S. Army but found that military life didn't suit him well. He was discharged two years later on November 3, 1943 after being stationed at several Army bases and never being deployed overseas to fight World War II.
After being discharged from the U.S. Army at age 33, he returned home to his family to help with the farming work. Like so many blues musicians who lived during The Great Depression, Wolf played hard and worked harder. There was very little, if any, glamor in the life of true bluesmen and blueswomen in those days. Wolf's days were spent plowing, planting and hauling. His nights were spent at the jukejoint sharpening his craft and shaking off the pressure of the daily grind.
In 1948, he formed a band with guitarists Willie Johnson and Matt "Guitar" Murphy, harmonica player Junior Parker, drummer Willie Steele and a piano player known as "Destruction". His band did live broadcasts on KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas where rock and roll producer Sam Phillips discovered him and signed him to Memphis Recording Service in 1951.
Wolf began recording sessions with his new band which included Willie Johnson and guitarist Pat Hare for Modern Records and Chess Records in 1951. Chess Records won the bidding war over Howlin' Wolf and he moved to Chicago in 1953 where he formed a new band with Joseph Leon "Jody" Williams, Hubert Sumlin and the lineup would change over the years to include such names as Willie Johnson, Jimmie Rodgers, Freddie "Abu Talib" Robinson, and Buddy Guy just to name a few who recorded songs and did live performances with Wolf's band.
Muddy Waters shared a somewhat tense but civil rivalry with Wolf, although they were mostly rumored to be cordial. Muddy never quite got over Wolf stealing guitarist Hubert Sumlin away from him. Hubert was the only guitarist to remain with Wolf's band until the end.
How Many More Years was Wolf's first and biggest hit and made it to number four on the R&B charts in 1951.
Moanin' At Midnight peaked at number ten the same year. In 1956, his most posthumously famous song Smokestack Lightning only made it to number eight as did his only other hit of 1956, I Asked For Water (And She Gave Me Gasoline). His first album, a compilation of previously released singles, Moanin' In the Moonlight was released in 1959.
In 1962, Wolf released an album called Howlin' Wolf (aka the Rocking Chair Album) that would be one of the singularly most influential blues albums of all time.
It included the legendary hits Goin' Down Slow, Wang Dang Doodle, Little Red Rooster and Spoonful. In 1964, German promoters invited Wolf to tour Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. He appeared with The Rolling Stones on a British Television program called "Shindig" while on this tour, performing his 1951 hit How Many More Years.
In 1970, Wolf, harmonica player Jeff Carp and Hubert Sumlin traveled to London to record Howlin' Wolf London Sessions with guest artists such as, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Charlie Watts among others. His last album with Chess Records, The Back Door Wolf was recorded in 1973.
Despite the cold reception he got from his mother after his success in Chicago and around the world, Howlin' Wolf was a country boy at heart who loved the country life and loved going back home to Mississippi and Arkansas to hunt and fish and enjoy other serene rural activities that he missed while living in urban Chicago. His family and those close to him described him as "laid back" and "down to earth". Even though he had such meager beginnings, he was never extravagant, his daughters Bettye Jean and Barbara said in the British documentary, The Howlin' Wolf Story. He never bought Cadillacs or anything elaborate. He drove a Pontiac station wagon even when he could afford otherwise.
Another reason I wanted to honor Howlin' Wolf on his 100th birthday here at Daily Kos is because he was a progressive through and through. A champion of the worker and the "little guy". Most people know a lot about his career as a blues artist but there isn't usually much reflection about his political point of view. He didn't speak much about politics directly but his viewpoint certainly pointed to the progressive left side of politics.
His early rejection of the abusive treatment shown to him by the religiously stern people in his family is part of the vibe that makes rock and roll the music of the people and defines the rebellious American persona. Although he was functionally illiterate most of his life, he learned to read and write and earned a GED in his 40s and studied accounting and business which would help him with the business side of his career. Jimmie Rogers remarked on Wolf's professionalism and the way he would stand up to Chess Records executives on behalf of his band's welfare.
"Wolf was better at managing a bunch of people than Muddy or anybody else. Muddy would go along with the Chess company. [But] Wolf would speak up for himself." -Jimmie Rodgers
Wolf even went as far as withhold Social Security and unemployment insurance that many of his band members drew until the day they died. Because of his reputation as a fair and stable employer, he had his pick of the best musicians who would have stood in a line around the block to join Wolf's band.
He (sort of) predicted the rise of Barack Obama, America's first black president of the United States over 35 years ago;
"You know, they called us ‘coons’—said we didn’t have no sense.
You gonna wake up one morning, and a coon’s gonna be the President."
—"Coon on the Moon" from The Back Door Wolf, recorded in 1973
Offstage, Wolf was a doting father and loving husband to his wife Lillie and two daughters from Lillie's previous relationship, Barbara and Bettye Jean. He was hardworking, honest and upstanding and he and Lillie remained in love for the rest of their lives together after being married in 1957. He was a volunteer at the fire department in Arkansas where he owned farmland and visited frequently between playing gigs and living in Chicago.
Lillie and Wolf in 1969
Bettye Jean and Barbara
He remained financially well off the rest of his days, unusual for most blues musicians of his era. Wolf somehow managed to avoid the pitfalls of drugs, alcohol and "loose" women that eternally follow the entourages of musicians. He described himself as the only bluesman to ever drive up to Chicago from the Delta in his own car with $4000 in his pocket.
In the late 1960s and 70s, Wolf's health began to deteriorate and he suffered several heart attacks and a car accident in 1970 that severely damaged his kidneys. He received dialysis every three days for the remainder of his life, administered by his wife Lillie. In spite of his failing health, he continued to perform live and record through his sickness.
In November 1975, Wolf rose from what would have been his deathbed to give one final heroic performance at the Chicago Ampitheater. He revived his old hits and even recreated one of his old stunts of crawling across the stage during the song Crawling King Snake. After receiving a five minute standing ovation, Wolf collapsed offstage and a team of paramedics had to be called in to revive him. Two months later, he died after his heart gave out during an operation. He is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Cook County, Illinois.
"I sing for the people." -Howlin' Wolf
That was usually Wolf's simple answer to the inquiries about his energy and prowess on stage that would exhaust a man half his age.
In honor of this humble yet magnificent sharecropper's son from Mississippi, who overcame extreme poverty, child abuse and the Jim Crow South, I'm going to close out this tribute with my favorite taped performance of his, Shake It For Me. Cheers to you, Howlin' Wolf, our native son, a great American blues legend and stellar human being.
I also dedicate this to my beloved old unfamous North Carolina grandfather who was likeiwse a functionally illiterate bluesman, abused and disowned by his fundie Christian parents as a youth, walked the dusty country roads with his guitar slung over his back as a young man and played his heart and soul on that instrument. As a daughter/granddaughter (whatever) of the blues, it's been a lot of fun to write this even though I kind of feel a duty to do this. My hands were too small for me to keep much interest in the guitar for long even though he tried to teach me many times. Writing stories was more my thing and more suitable to the size of my hands. ;-) I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it.
Long live the blues and have a wonderful day, y'all!
Rest In Peace, Mr. Wolf.
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Pssstt! I need help with tags. First diary. :-)