How we arrive at discovering something we love can be via a very strange old route sometimes and that is my experience with the singer Howlin’ Wolf. 

Let me explain.

I’m at a club years ago and hear the track ‘Killing Floor’ by the group The Electric Flag, with Mike Bloomfield on guitar. I instantly loved it and wanted to know more.  So, at a record fair around then, I was asking for that song by that particular artist. ,’ I ain’t got that, by them’ said a stallholder ‘but I’ve got the original by Howlin’ Wolf’.’ Original you say. Who knew there was an original (this was pre internet don’t forget my loyal reader)

Yes please I say and off I go with a Howlin’ Wolf vinyl album compilation in my bag and that, is how I discover the majestic and sometimes alarming voice of Chester Arthur Burnett to give him his proper name. 

He was named after Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st president of the United States from 1881 to 1885, who was also a fervent rights campaigner on behalf of the slaves in New York City.

Our Chester was born in 1910, in White Station Mississippi. It appears he was a big ‘un from the get go, finally growing to 6ft 3 and weighing in at over 20 stone. I swear you can hear every pound of that in his voice. The name Howlin’ Wolf is said to have come from his grandfather who once warned a young Chester that ‘howling wolves’ would get him if he was a bad boy.

Well, he left home at 13 and became an acolyte of Delta blues musician Charlie Patton, learning guitar and stagecraft from him as they toured around the South.

Country artist Jimmie Rodgers was another early influence. Chester tried his voice at the famous Rodgers’s ‘blue yodel’ but it came out as more of a growl or howl: “I couldn’t do no yodelin’, so I turned to howlin’. His grandfather just nodded on a porch somewhere.

Once discharged from the army in 1943, he began performing on guitar and harmonica – having been taught to play that by Sonny Boy Williamson – in various bands in and around the Memphis area. His celebrity soon grew. 

The legendary record producer Sam Phillips, later to ‘discover’ Elvis Presley as part of his Sun Studios set up, recorded him early on. He then signed for Chess Records, relocating to Chicago as a result in 1952.

Legendary guitarist Hubert Sumlin then joined him to be an integral part of the Howlin’ Wolf sound, a position he would maintain right to the end of their careers, very much the Wolf’s right hand man.

They hit the R&B charts in the 1950s, with five songs. 

‘Moanin’ at Midnight’, ‘How Many More Years’, ‘Who Will Be Next’, ‘Smokestack Lightning and ‘I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)’.

At this stage of his career, Wolf begins a heated rivalry with blues rival Muddy Waters, based mainly on who got what song from writer Willie Dixon. The Wolf man was convinced Muddy got the pick of the tunes.

The 1960s proved to be a turning point for him worldwide with many of the songs, co written with Dixon being covered by burgeoning British ‘beat’ groups such as, famously, The Rolling Stones. 

‘I am the little red rooster
Too lazy to crow for day
I am the little red rooster
Too lazy to crow for day

Keep everything in the farmyard upset in every way’ and cue Brian Jones on the guitar.

Their version of ‘Little Red Roster’ hit the top of the UK charts in 1964 and appeared with the band on the TV show ‘Shindig’ at their request in 1965.

Chester was a shrewd man, despite having little formal education. What he earned, he protected and made it work for him. He even went back to school to take courses in business studies and accountancy, all with the intention of keeping his career, and money, on track.

For many years, he was a happily married man to Lillie and a father to her two daughters Bettye and Barbara. Sadly, his general health began to suffer, with a succession of heart attacks from1969, taking their toll. A later car crash also resulted in him sustaining kidney damage.

However, he returned to work and in 1971, ‘The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions album’ was released. Sessions for that took place between May 2 and May 7 in 1970, featuring among others, Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and Ringo Starr.

All was not well however, as complications from a resultant kidney operation, plus a brain tumour and further heart failure finally led to his death at 65 in 1976 at the VA hospital in Illinois. Rumour has it that Eric Clapton paid for his gravestone.

In truth, a voice that big, can never be truly silenced and long may that continue say I.

The Mumper of SE5