HOWLIN' WOLF

In the history of the blues, there has never been anyone quite like Howlin' Wolf. A man of enormous presence, Howlin’ Wolf’s stage show was legendary. The raw power of his voice combined with an electrified blues delivered an exhilarating, exciting experience rarely matched by other performers.

He was born, Chester Burnett, in West Point, Mississippi on June 10, 1910.Wolf's parents, Leon Burnett and Gertrude Young, separated and his mother left him with his uncle, Will Young. Young was very strict and treated Chester badly. When he was thirteen, Chester ran away to live with his father on the delta, near Ruleville, Mississippi. He would work on a farm until a chance meeting with Delta blues legend Charley Patton changed his life forever. The meeting ignited his passion for music especially the blues and would see him recognized, along with Muddy Waters, as a pioneer in combining traditional Delta blues with electrified guitar.

After a four-year stretch in the Army Signal Corps he returned to his father's farm. Wolf settled down to work the farm during the week and play the blues on weekends. In 1948, Wolf set out to play the blues full-time and moved to West Memphis, Arkansas and put together a band that gained popularity on the local radio station, KWEM. Sam Phillips recorded Howlin' Wolf’s first two records, "Moanin' at Midnight" and "How Many More Years" at Memphis Recording Services. Unlike many of his contemporaries Wolf already had good business savy, as a means of advertising his own local appearances, he launched a 15-minute radio show on KWEM in West Memphis, mixing his blues with farm reports and advertising that he sold himself. Wolf had put his first band together, featuring the explosive guitar work of Willie Johnson, whose aggressive style was a perfect fit for Wolf's sound. Willie Johnson’s contribution was without doubt instrumental in his early success. Johnson created the Howlin' Wolf guitar signature mixing delta blues with heavily amplified, distorted electric guitar riffs. Hubert Sumlin would be the other key influence on Howlin’s sound. He first appears as a rhythm guitarist on a 1954 session, and within a few years' his style had fully developed to take over the role of lead guitarist by early 1958.

Chester moved to Chicago, where his career took off. By 1956, Wolf was in the R&B charts again, racking up hits with "Evil" and "Smokestack Lightnin'." He remained a popular draw both on the Chicago circuit and on the road. His records, while seldom showing up on the national charts, were still selling in decent numbers down South. In 1960 Wolf teamed up with Chess staff writer Willie Dixon, and for the next five years he would record almost nothing but songs written by Dixon. The combination of Wolf's voice, Sumlin's guitar, and Dixon's tunes sold a lot of records and saw the 50-year-old's popularity spread worldwide. The mid-'60s saw him touring Europe regularly with "Smokestack Lightnin'" becoming a hit in England eight years after its American release. The Chester Burnett/Willie Dixon/Hubert Sumlin team and variations would be a big money maker for Chess and the core of Wolf's sound for the rest of his career.

Dixon and Wolf parted company by 1964 and Wolf was back in the studio recording his own songs. One of the classics to emerge from this period was “Killing Floor.” However, this was the year of Motown as Soul Music started to gain popularity; Blues music became less popular with black audiences. Fortunately, a new, young, white audience was being cultivated across the Atlantic. Influenced by sounds heard on the American Forces radio, young people in Britain and Europe were an eager and enthusiastic market for Howlin’ and his peers. By the end of the decade, Wolf's material was being recorded by artists including the Doors, Cream, and Jeff Beck. His last big payday came when he recorded the London Session album with Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts. In the late 1960's, Wolf's health started to fail and he suffered several heart attacks. A car crash in Toronto in 1970 severely damaged his kidneys. Wolf kept singing and performing until his death, but for the rest of his life he would need dialysis done every three days.

Howlin' Wolf's last performance was at the Chicago Ampitheater in November of 1975. He entered the Veterans Administration Hospital at Hines, Illinois in mid December. Chester Burnett died on January 10, 1976 of heart failure during surgery. But his music did not go unrecognized. A life-size statue was erected shortly after in a Chicago park. A child-education center in Chicago was named in his honor and in 1980 he was elected to the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. In 1991, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio.