Howlin' Wolf

No figure in blues history has ever resembled the Howlin' Wolf. Standing six foot three and weighing nearly 300 pounds during his prime, he embodied the music's raw power pushed to its extreme limit. While Robert Johnson offered deeper lyrical insight, Muddy Waters carried greater dignity, and B.B. King displayed superior technical skill, none could rival Wolf's unmatched capacity to demolish a venue from its base while leaving audiences frozen in terror.

Born Chester Arthur Burnett in West Point, Mississippi, and named for the twenty-first president, he grew up working the land like his farmer father. That path shifted permanently on his eighteenth birthday after an encounter with Delta blues pioneer Charley Patton. Though Wolf never mastered the nuances of Patton's intricate guitar work, he absorbed two defining elements of his approach directly from the master: the unmistakable vocal growl and a flair for showmanship. His propulsive, rhythmic harmonica style took shape under the guidance of Aleck "Rice" Miller, better known as Sonny Boy Williamson, who married Wolf's half-sister Mary and passed along the instrument's fundamentals. By the early 1930s he performed as a devoted Patton follower; by decade's end he was igniting juke joints with a neck-rack harmonica and one of the earliest electric guitars in circulation. Following four years of military service he resumed farming and weekend gigs in West Memphis, Arkansas, where his professional music career truly ignited.

By 1948 he had become a recognized radio presence in the area. To promote his local shows, Wolf hosted a fifteen-minute program on KWEM that mixed raw blues with farm bulletins and the self-sold commercials that accompanied them. A decisive shift soon transformed the broadcast: listeners now heard fully modern electric arrangements. Wolf assembled his first band, anchored by Willie Johnson's ferocious guitar, whose slashing attack both complemented and intensified the menacing edge of Wolf's sound. In any account of the singer's initial breakthroughs on stage, radio, and record, Johnson's contribution stands as indispensable.

Wolf entered the studio for the first time in 1951 after Sam Phillips heard him on his morning radio slot. The tracks cut at the Memphis Recording Service crackled with raw energy, prompting Phillips to lease the masters simultaneously to the Bihari Brothers in Los Angeles and Leonard Chess in Chicago. Overnight, Howlin' Wolf appeared on the R&B charts twice, with both labels asserting exclusive rights. Chess secured him, and years later Wolf recalled the moment proudly: "I had a 4,000 dollar car and 3,900 dollars in my pocket. I'm the onliest one drove out of the South like a gentleman." Chicago became his permanent base in the winter of 1953.

When he returned to the Chess studios the following year, the Memphis sides' raw aggression gave way to a Chicago shuffle, and a new musician joined the lineup with little fanfare. Guitarist Hubert Sumlin would become Wolf's longest-serving collaborator. He first appeared on rhythm guitar in 1954; within a few years his distinctive style had developed fully, assuming lead duties by early 1958. Sumlin's "angular attack" featured almost no chordal support, occasionally slicing through Wolf's vocals with rapid fingerboard runs and piercing single notes. Just as Willie Johnson had served as Wolf's second voice in the Memphis years, Sumlin carried that role forward for the remainder of the singer's life.

In 1956 Wolf returned to the R&B charts with "Evil" and "Smokestack Lightnin'." He stayed a major draw on Chicago stages and the touring circuit, his records moving steadily in the South even when they rarely registered nationally. By 1960 he began an extended partnership with Chess staff songwriter Willie Dixon. For the next five years nearly every recording featured Dixon's material. The blend of Wolf's voice, Sumlin's guitar, and Dixon's songs generated strong sales and propelled the fifty-year-old performer into the following decade with renewed momentum. Regular European tours marked the mid-1960s, and "Smokestack Lightnin'" finally became a British hit eight years after its U.S. release. Any survey of Wolf's essential recordings must include the Dixon compositions "I Ain't Superstitious," "The Red Rooster," "Shake for Me," "Back Door Man," "Spoonful," and "Wang Dang Doodle." Though these songs eventually became Chicago blues standards, their widest impact arrived when rock bands worldwide began plundering the Chess catalog. The Rolling Stones' version of "The Red Rooster" reached number one in England. At the height of the British Invasion, the Stones insisted that Howlin' Wolf appear as their special guest on ABC-TV's Shindig in 1965. Seated at his feet, the band watched as Wolf delivered a fierce "How Many More Years" to several million viewers on his network-television debut. Wolf never ceased praising the Stones for the respect they showed him.

After parting ways with Dixon in 1964, Wolf recorded his own compositions again. "Killing Floor," cut during this period, featured a contemporary backbeat and an infectious riff from Sumlin that Led Zeppelin later borrowed for an early album, initially crediting the piece to themselves as they had done with other blues classics. By the close of the decade, artists including the Doors, the Electric Flag, the Blues Project, Cream, and Jeff Beck were covering Wolf's material. These recordings finally brought him recognition from a younger white audience. Chess responded by recording a "psychedelic" album widely regarded as the weakest of his career. His final substantial earnings arrived in 1970 when Chess dispatched him to London to join the vogue for London-session projects, where he worked with Eric Clapton and other British luminaries. Though Wolf's health was already declining, the results far surpassed the earlier misguided attempt to modernize his sound.

As the 1970s advanced, his condition deteriorated. Multiple heart attacks and kidney damage from a car accident that flung him through the windshield left him gravely ill. Bandleader Eddie Shaw limited him to roughly six songs per set. Yet flashes of his former intensity still erupted, and his final live and studio work demonstrates that he could still demolish a room when the spirit took hold. Admitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1976 for surgery, he did not survive the procedure, dying on January 10 of that year.

His legacy received prompt recognition. A life-size statue was erected in a Chicago park. Eddie Shaw preserved Wolf's sound for several years by maintaining the Wolf Gang. A Chicago child-education center was named in his honor, and he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1980. Election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame followed in 1991, and his likeness appeared on a United States postage stamp a couple of years later. Howlin' Wolf remains an enduring figure in American history.