HOWLIN' WOLF
How Many More Years
Aberdeen, Mississippi-born Chester Arthur Burnett's parents were soil-tilling plantation farmers. He was named after Chester A. Arthur (president of the United States more than 25 years before his birth in 1910). Trivial tidbits like these are at odds with the fact that young Chester was destined to prosper in a field far removed from his provenance. Several childhood nicknames held perhaps more importance than any other aspects of his upbringing; a tall, gangly kid, he acquired these terms of dubious endearment but couldn't seem to shake them. One such misnomer was "Big Foot Chester," which accurately descibed him from the ankles down. Another was "Big Cow," a rather demeaning description of his imposing frame. Then there was the nickname he approved of and became known by for the remainder of his life: "Wolf."
His grandfather came up with the name when he was a baby, though no one, not even Chester, seemed to know why. An interest in music didn't occur until his teens. The great Charley Patton worked for a nearby plantation and was already famous for his musicianship, if only regionally. He taught Chester some chords (on a guitar his father had given him) and offered a few other pointers on string technique. Another Mississippi bluesman, Alex "Rice" Miller (later known as Sonny Boy Williamson II), made his acquaintance, gave Chester a crash course in playing the harmonica in a blues style and also married the kid's half-sister; the two wound up having parallel careers and later recorded for the same record label in the same city at the same time. Meanwhile, John "Funny Papa" Smith, a blues musician from Texas, made the rounds of the south during the 1920s and '30s and performed for part of that time under the name The Howling Wolf. Chester claimed he never heard of the guy until years later.
Still working in the fields as he entered his twenties, the young singer began playing in small clubs during his off time, using the name The Howlin' Wolf or just "Wolf." Inspired by "Singing Brakeman" Jimmie Rodgers' yodel, he developed his own "wolf howl" and progressed to such a level that he was invited to tour with Sonny Boy and guitar slinger Robert Lockwood Jr. Wolf frequently played guitar and harmonica simultaneously, with the harp on a rack around his neck. A four year Army stint (smack dab in the thick of World War II, 1941 through 1945) put any bigger plans on hold, though he did entertain troops in various locations including the Pacific Northwest, where he spent much of his tour at Fort Lewis (near Tacoma, Washington) and Camp Adair (north of Corvallis, Oregon).
Sometime after the war, he moved to West Memphis, Arkansas and in 1949 began performing regularly on KWEM-AM 990 (Sonny Boy and newcomer B.B. King could also be heard on the station). Sam Phillips, owner of the Memphis Recording Service (at 706 Union Avenue in the same building that became rock focal point Sun Records), became interested in Wolf after hearing him on the radio. In mid-1951 he had his first studio session there, continuing regularly for about two years. Phillips often licensed the artists he recorded to Chess Records of Chicago or RPM Records of Los Angeles, the latter run by brothers Joe, Saul and Jules Bihari. "Moanin' at Midnight," an original Chester had written under the pen name Carl Germany (with artist credit to the Howlin' Wolf), was licensed to Chess; its combination of strong guitar licks, harp and boldly unique vocals ('...mmm...mmm...yeahhh, somebody knockin' on my door...somebody callin', callin' me on my telephone...tell 'em I'm not at home!') really stood out. A slightly different version of the song titled "Morning at Midnight" appeared on RPM (crediting the writer as Wolf and artist as Howling Wolf).
The B side of the Chess single received more attention at the time. "How Many More Years" ('...have I got to let you dog me around...I'd soon rather be dead, sleeping six feet in the ground...'), a straight-to-the-point breakup song, spent two and a half months on Billboard's R&B Best Sellers chart and reached the top ten in January 1952. He played both guitar and harp at Sam Phillips' Sun studio in Memphis, calling all the shots during those recordings of his originals (writer credit shown as Wolf at first and Burnett later on), which were raw and assertive with howls more feverish in comparison to the later Chess efforts that were made with a varied array of Windy City musicians. He always recorded sitting down with his feet spread apart, his entire body and mind thrown into each performance. Ike Turner, one of the musicians Wolf worked with (though it hasn't been verified, he was likely the pianist on "How Many More Years"), moonlighted as a Memphis-area A&R man for RPM (and sister label Modern). Two additional 78s appeared on RPM in '51 and early '52 (with inconsistent artist credit, The Howling Wolf in addition to the two abovementioned variations), before he was signed permanently to Chess, which didn't immediately put a halt to the spelling and punctuation errors on labels.
He moved to Chicago (as did Sonny Boy a few years later when he, too, signed with Chess) and turned out a pair of songs that played upon his image: "The Wolf is at Your Door" and "Howlin' Wolf Boogie." The many session musicians at his recording dates included frequent sidemen Willie Johnson (guitar), Otis Spann (piano), Willie Steele (drums) and bassist Willie Dixon, who played an important part in the development of Wolf's career as well as other star Chessmen. In the mid-'50s, fellow Mississippian Hubert Sumlin became a regular contributor on guitar. More than three years passed before another song charted; "Who Will Be Next" (penned by talented young upstart Melvin London) focuses on the "unfaithful woman" of blues mythology ('Cheat if you want to, darlin', treat me unkind...come back and love me when you can find a little time') and appeared on the R&B airplay chart in June '55.
A stone cold classic was unveiled in '56. "Smoke Stack Lightning" (he and Patton had performed an early version as far back as the 1930s), another dissertation on a dubious female, delivered the goods: an infectious guitar hook, signature vocals with 'Woo-hoo, woo-hoo, wooooo...' in abundance and both Johnson and Sumlin supplying guitar licks. It's his second biggest hit and arguably most famous recording. The very next single (emblazoned with another weird variation on his name, Howlin Wolf sans apostrophe) is a scorcher: "I Asked For Water" ('...she brought me gasoline...that's the troublin'est woman, woo-hoo, that I ever seen...') reached the top ten of the R&B juke box chart. Songs in the coming years were just as compelling and increasingly influential. Willie Dixon composed a pair of famous tunes: "Spoonful" in 1960 ('...that spoon, that spoon...') with killer pickin' from Sumlin (or was Freddy King sitting in?) and "Wang-Dang-Doodle" the following year (which became a career-defining hit for Ko Ko Taylor in 1966). A rivalry between Wolf and labelmate Muddy Waters evolved, with both battling for the next hot Dixon tune.
Wolf rarely played guitar on his Chess records but always brandished his harmonica, and brilliantly so (despite some critics who held the opinion that he couldn't hold a candle to the personally troubled but no less impressive harpist Little Walter). Others were of the opinion he didn't really need a guitarist. He could smoke the axe on his own, so why not double up? His two main guitarists were Johnson and Sumlin, yet he occasionally played slide guitar on studio tracks, one example being "The Red Rooster."
Around 1963 or '64, high-profile fans revealed themselves...and they were British! The Rolling Stones insisted he appear as their guest on a May 1965 episode of the ABC-TV series Shindig! To their credit, the show's producers were usually accommodating (and as a result, many clips of performances from the show are historically important). On that fateful night, Howlin' Wolf treated viewers (the younger ones somewhat baffled, perhaps) to his top-selling hit "How Many More Years," a 14-year-old track with significance to a whole new wave of artists and fans. Other rockers, both British and American, have done notable versions of his songs, including The Yardbirds ("Smoke Stack Lightning"), The Doors ("Back Door Man") and Cream (both studio and extended live versions of "Spoonful").
The big man was seldom if ever concerned about the commercial aspects of making music. He stayed with his classic-inspired approach and only shifted from it when pressured to do his 1969 Cadet Concept collection of "updates," The Howlin' Wolf Album, featuring rock-infused takes on his classic tracks with an entirely different band than he was used to. Being a blues purist, he personally despised the LP and vowed to avoid any further kind of modernization. Nonetheless, the set's remake of his earlier "Evil" became a minor hit on the charts. He was, however, satisfied with the results achieved on his 1971 album The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions, recorded at Britain's Olympic studio and featuring many musicians from the U.S. and U.K. (who by his standards "got it"...the blues, that is) including Brit stars Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ringo Starr and Rolling Stones Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. Howlin' Wolf continued walloping the blues in his distinctive style until his death in 1976 at age 65. He will always hold an important place in music history.
