Howlin’ Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians ever.

Born into poverty in Mississippi, Burnett became a protégé of Delta blues musician Charley Patton in the 1930s. In the Deep South, he began a solo career by performing with other notable blues musicians of the day. By the end of the decade, he had established himself in the Mississippi Delta. Following a number of legal issues, a stint in prison, and Army service, he was recruited by A&R man Ike Turner to record for producer Sam Phillips in Memphis. His first record "Moanin' at Midnight" (1951) led to a record deal with Chess Records in Chicago. Between 1951 and 1969, six of his songs reached the Billboard R&B chart. His studio albums include Howlin' Wolf a.k.a. The Rocking Chair Album, a collection of singles from 1957 to 1961, The Howlin' Wolf Album (1969), Message to the Young (1971), The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions (1971), and The Back Door Wolf (1973). His reputation grew throughout the blues revival of the 1960s, and he continued to perform until November 1975, when he performed for the last time alongside fellow blues musician B.B. King. He died on January 10, 1976, after years of deteriorating health. In 1980, Howlin' Wolf was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and in 1991, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

With a booming voice and an imposing physical presence, he is one of the best-known Chicago blues artists. AllMusic has described him as "a primal, ferocious blues belter with a roster of classics rivaling anyone else, and a sandpaper growl of a voice that has been widely imitated". Several of his songs have become blues and blues rock standards. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed "Little Red Rooster", "Smokestack Lightning", "Killing Floor", and "Spoonful" in its "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll" and “Smokestack Lightning" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 54 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

Chester Arthur Burnett was born on June 10, 1910, in White Station, near West Point, Mississippi, to Gertrude Jones and Leon "Dock" Burnett. He later said that his father was "Ethiopian", while Jones had Choctaw ancestry on her father's side. He was named for Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States. The name "Howlin' Wolf" originated from Burnett's maternal grandfather, John Jones; Burnett had been squeezing his grandmother's chicks so hard he was likely to kill them, and his grandfather told him wolves would come and get him. The blues historian Paul Oliver wrote that Burnett once claimed to have been given his nickname by his idol Jimmie Rodgers.

Burnett's parents separated when he was a year old. Dock, who had worked seasonally as a farm laborer in the Mississippi Delta, moved there permanently while Jones and Burnett moved to Monroe County. Jones and Burnett would sing together in the choir of the Life Boat Baptist Church near Gibson, Mississippi, and Burnett would later claim that he got his musical talent from her. Jones kicked Burnett out of the house, for unknown reasons, during the winter when he was a child. At the peak of his success, he returned from Chicago to see his mother in Mississippi and was driven to tears when she refused to take money offered by him, saying it was from his playing the "devil's music".

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.