Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 295 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
We have covered the blues and famous bluesmen and women here on Black Music Sunday in many of our past posts. Blues aficionados and players are well aware of the contributions to the genre of the late great Chester Arthur Burnett, known to the world as “Howlin’ Wolf.”
Allow me to introduce him to everyone on the day after the anniversary of his joining the ancestors. A powerful man with an amazing presence, his contributions to the genre and later to rock ‘n’ roll were and still are enormous. Born on June 10, 1910, in Mississippi, he passed away on Jan. 10, 1976.
While readers may disagree with the title of this mini-documentary on his life—given that who founded rock ‘n’ roll is highly debated—it’s still an excellent introduction.
As the video notes on the documentary explain:
Discover the extraordinary true story of Howlin' Wolf—the six-foot-three, three-hundred-pound blues giant who transformed Delta blues into electric Chicago sound and laid the foundation for modern rock and roll. Born Chester Arthur Burnett in 1910 Mississippi, Wolf survived brutal childhood abuse, learned guitar from Charley Patton, and at age forty-one recorded his first hit “Moanin’ at Midnight” with Sam Phillips. His legendary Chess Records years produced “Smokestack Lightnin',” “Spoonful,” “The Red Rooster,” and more—songs that shaped The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Cream, and The Doors. In 1965, Wolf made history on Shindig! when the Stones sat at his feet in awe.
For a deeper dive, I suggest this longer doc:
As the video notes:
Howlin' Wolf, aka Chester Burnett, came out of the deep south, out of the fields of Mississippi, out of a super-religious mother who stuck so firmly to her guns that Blues was "the devil's music" that she never spoke to her son for decades, out of racism and hardship, and made his own original, vibrant kind of music. He wasn't alone, as others like Muddy Waters came into prominence … and shook up popular music first for black audiences and then slowly but firmly for whites.
The biographers of “Moanin’ at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin’ Wolf” detail Wolf’s relationship with trailblazer Sam Phillips:
Peter Guralnick, one of the best American roots-music writers ever, has just released an outstanding new biography of Memphis music trailblazer Sam Phillips, who “discovered” Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Walter Horton, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roy Orbison, among others. [...]
Until the end of his life, Phillips said that Wolf was the most profound artist he ever worked with, and he wanted to record Wolf until either of them died. He never got that chance because Wolf left Sun Records to record for Chess Records in Chicago in 1954. Losing Wolf was the biggest disappointment of his career, Phillips said--far worse than losing Elvis to a bigger label. That tells you all you need to know about what he thought of Wolf’s talent.
NPR’s Morning Edition featured him back in 2004, explaining “Howlin' Wolf electrified the blues of the Mississippi Delta and laid the foundation of rock and roll in the early 1950s. His lyrics—delivered in a gruff, haunting voice—evoked his hard-life experiences.”
The death of his beloved wife, Lillie Burnett, on May 11, 2001, is also memorialized, as well as their love story:
Howlin’ Wolf’s widow, Lillie Burnett, passed away on Friday, May 11, 2001, ending one of the great love stories in blues history. Born Lillian Handley in Livingston, Alabama on August 12, 1925, Lillie moved in 1950 to Chicago, where she worked in the dietary department of a hospital. One evening in 1957, her brother and a cousin convinced her to accompany them to Sylvio’s nightclub to hear Wolf. He noticed her, introduced himself, talked with her, and offered to drive her home. Her brother and cousin followed in their car to make sure Wolf’s intentions were honorable. Wolf asked for her phone number, but she gave him the wrong one because she didn’t want to get involved with a bluesman, figured Wolf had lots of girlfriends already, and thought her mother would disapprove. Wolf ran into her several times in the following months and pursued a relationship until she relented. Years later she said, “I'm so happy I did!”
Wolf and Lillie lived together for six years before they married in March, 1964, and from all indications, though both Lillie and Wolf had been married at least once before, Lillie was the great love of his life. In an interview in 1968, Wolf said, “She was a flower the first day I seen her, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s a flower now.” Lillie provided a traditional home life and managed the couple’s finances wisely. She also encouraged him to go to night school to learn to read and write. “I married him to help him, because that’s what he needed,” she said. Wolf told Lillie, “I saw good in you the first night I laid eyes on you.” He also told her, “I wished I had had you the first day I ever howled.”
Some of my favorite tunes:
“Smokestack Lightning,” interspersed with some footage from the movie “Cadillac Records” about Chess Records founder Leonard Chess. It was the label where Howlin’ Wolf recorded for more than two decades:
“Little Red Rooster”:
“Killing Floor”:
Please join me in the comments section below to post your favorites, and for the weekly musician’s birthdays and departures roundup.
