{"id":915,"date":"2012-07-15T17:07:03","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T16:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/?p=915"},"modified":"2022-12-25T10:40:25","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T10:40:25","slug":"howlin-wolf-the-loudest-and-largest-man-in-chicago-blues-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/?p=915","title":{"rendered":"Howlin\u2019 Wolf \u2013 The Loudest (and Largest) Man in Chicago Blues History"},"content":{"rendered":"

If he didn\u2019t scare the heck out of you, he\u2019d make a lifelong fan out of you instead.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s perhaps the best way to describe the legacy of Chester Arthur Burnett, better known as Howlin\u2019 Wolf.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>With his imposing size and extremely loud vocal delivery, Howlin\u2019 Wolf was not somebody you would want to trifle with.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>At 6\u20196\u201d, he was tall enough to be a professional basketball player, and at 300 pounds, big enough to play professional football.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But he was a superstar in a totally different field altogether \u2013 the Chicago blues scene of the \u201850s and \u201860s.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chester Burnett was a product of White Station, Mississippi, where he was born on June 10, 1910 and named after the 21<\/span>st<\/span><\/sup> President of the United States, Chester A. Arthur.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He got his stage name from his grandfather, who would frequently warn him about the \u201chowling wolves\u201d in the wild, in an effort to get him to behave.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>At the age of 13, Chester was on his own, having ran away from his abusive uncle \u2013 a few years earlier, his own mother threw him out for being lazy.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>A deeply religious woman, Gertrude Burnett had a contentious relationship with her son even when he became a successful bluesman \u2013 to her, the blues was the sound of Satan.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Howlin\u2019 Wolf got his unique shouting style after several failed attempts to imitate country legend Jimmie Rodgers\u2019 yodeling vocals.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But it was bluesmen such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Sonny Boy Williamson II who served as a greater influence when Wolf started playing professionally.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>At the age of 41, after years of criss-crossing the South as an itinerant musician, Howlin\u2019 Wolf was signed to Memphis Recording Service, a recording label owned by one Sam Phillips.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In a few years, this label would become Sun Records and give birth to some of the first and greatest rock and roll recordings ever.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After a brief, moderately successful run in Memphis, Wolf moved to Chicago in 1953.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>A year later, Wolf recruited guitarist Hubert Sumlin from the Memphis scene.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Sumlin would become Wolf\u2019s closest co-contributor, playing on songs such as \u201cHow Many More Years\u201d and \u201cSmokestack Lightning.\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>These two songs gave Wolf his biggest successes to date on the R&B charts, both peaking inside the Billboard R&B Top Ten.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Wolf\u2019s self-titled 1962 album featured the songs \u201cThe Red Rooster\u201d, \u201cSpoonful\u201d and \u201cBack Door Man.\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>These songs would eventually be covered by the Rolling Stones (as \u201cLittle Red Rooster\u201d), Cream and the Doors respectively, firmly certifying Wolf as a big influence on a new generation of largely white rock and roll combos.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Wolf was unique among American bluesmen of his era, as he mostly strayed clear of the usual temptations that prematurely end a musician\u2019s career.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He spent his money wisely, shunning expensive automobiles and other creature comforts in order to provide for his family and sidemen alike.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Still, his health began to fail in the late \u201860s, suffering several heart attacks and damaging his kidneys in an unfortunate car accident.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Wolf died on January 10, 1976, exactly five months shy of his 66<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> birthday, at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Hines, Illinois.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Howlin\u2019 Wolf\u2019s music and influence still lives on, and it\u2019s not just through the music of the bands and singers he influenced.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Every year, West Point, Mississippi is home to two tribute events \u2013 the Howlin\u2019 Wolf Memorial Blues Festival and Wolf\u2019s Juke Joint Jam.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If he didn\u2019t scare the heck out of you, he\u2019d make a lifelong fan out of you instead.\u00a0 That\u2019s perhaps the best way to describe the legacy of Chester Arthur Burnett, better known as Howlin\u2019 Wolf.\u00a0 With his imposing size and extremely loud vocal delivery, Howlin\u2019 Wolf was not somebody you would want to trifle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":917,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions\/917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}