Episode 2 Howlin' Wolf

BROWN SHOES BLUES is a podcast hosted by Omar Dykes from Omar and the Howlers in Austin, Texas.  Omar is a legendary blues artist with a global fan base achieved by touring and performing for over 50 years. He has performed in 49 states and 23 countries, releasing 39 recordings from 1980 to present. 

Each episode will feature Blues Masters who have influenced Omar’s musical career throughout his life.  The goal of the podcast is to educate the audience about the Blues Masters, entertain listeners with personal stories and great music, and to emphasize the blues genre to help keep the blues alive. 

Omar would like to thank all musicians who played on the recordings used in the episodes, along with Matthew Garza (Upwork.com) for the audio mastering of each podcast.

Transcript

EPISODE 2 HOWLIN' WOLF

Omar Dykes: Hello. Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome to my new podcast. I want to thank you for listening. I think I got a doozy lined up for you. I'm talking about somebody I really like, really my favorite artist. I want to talk about him. 

This podcast will be about the Blues Masters and how they affected me. Most of my life I have been listening to, reading about, and studying their significance. My goal is to preserve their memory and legacy and explain their importance to my career.

 I heard Howlin' Wolf in my mom's kitchen on the radio. I was sitting at my parents' table while my mom washed the breakfast dishes. I knew that someone was singing that I wanted to know more about.

Howlin' Wolf is one of my biggest influences. He has affected my career a lot. He is my idol and musical hero, and I have been compared to him many times. Some people say there are similarities in our voices, but I have never tried to sound like Wolf because nobody can. There was only one Howlin' Wolf.

Here's a song co-written with my buddy Steve Callif and me. It's called Runnin' with the Wolf and it's on my release by the same title.

That was Runnin' with the Wolf recorded as a tribute to Chester Burnett.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about Wolf now. Wolf was born Chester Arthur Burnett on June the 10th, 1910 in West Point, Mississippi. Now I've been through West Point. Omar and the Howlers were going to Alabama to play, and we went through West Point. It seems like it was a convenience store with a gas station, a post office. Maybe a school, maybe one street crossing the other, and poof, we were gone. No longer in West Point. I went, "Wow, that's where Howlin' Wolf was from!" 

Howlin' Wolf's named after the 21st president, Chester A. Arthur. Back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, in Mississippi and in the South in general, I believe, it was customary for African American families to name one of their sons, usually their firstborn, after a United States president. Chester was named after Chester A. Arthur. Muddy Waters, another one of my heroes, his name's McKinley Morganfield, and he was named after President McKinley. Another one of my musical heroes is Hound Dog Taylor. Love Hound Dog Taylor. His parents named him Theodore Roosevelt Taylor. Of course, after Theodore Roosevelt. That's the way that worked. And I think that continued on in the South probably for quite a few years. 

All right, I want to talk about the Mississippi Delta right now. I grew up in McComb, Mississippi, which is in the southwest corner of Mississippi, and everywhere I've been, I've been all over Canada. I played every state in the union except Hawaii. I've been to Australia and many, many countries in Europe. And every time I would introduce myself and say, I was Omar Dykes and I'm originally from McComb, Mississippi, they would say, "Oh, you're from the Mississippi Delta." And I would go, " No, I'm not from the Delta. I'm from the swamp." I lived out in the middle of the swamp. It wasn't a Delta, but there's a common misconception all over the world that if you're from Mississippi, even with as much educational materials and shows and books and records there are about Mississippi musicians, especially if you say you play blues, they think you're from the Delta. The Delta goes from Vicksburg, Mississippi, all the way North through Mississippi, up to Memphis, Tennessee. They used to call Memphis the capital of the Delta although it's in Tennessee. It's kind of a joke ladies and gentlemen. All the Mississippi farmers would take their cotton to Memphis to sell it and usually come home broke because they gambled and partied. Work all year so you can party one night in Memphis, Tennessee the capital of Mississippi according to them. There you go.

Well, here's some more about Howlin' Wolf. He had a pretty rough childhood. He was raised in poverty on a farm. He continued to be a farmer for quite a few years of his life. But his mother kicked him out of the house when he was, I've heard, seven years old or around there. And he moved in with his uncle.

In 1928, at the age of 17, he wanted a guitar, and I have read that his father bought him a guitar on his 17th birthday. Howlin' Wolf really loved Charlie Patton, the singer with the rough voice. Wolf imitated his vocal style, and he had real powerful entertainment skills. He would put the guitar behind his head and play and he would roll on the floor and act crazy.

Howlin' Wolf liked that and continued his whole life to do that. A lot of people said Howlin' Wolf wasn't that great a guitar player, but he would always say, "I play my patterns." But I liked the way he played guitar. You don't have to be a virtuoso for somebody to play something that you like. Howlin’ Wolf was not a virtuoso singer. He was not a virtuoso harmonica player, but I liked his vocals. I love his harmonica playing. I thought he was a great harmonica player. He played exactly what it needed. 

 If Charlie Patton was his guitar mentor, then Sonny Boy Williamson, the second Rice Miller was his harmonica hero. And this worked out pretty good for Howlin' Wolf because Rice Miller wound up marrying Wolf's half-sister, Mary. So, he had access to him all the time to learn how to play the harmonica.

After Wolf got up old enough and had been farming, he went and joined the army and served for four years. He was in the Seattle area. He returned to Mississippi to farming for a while. In 1948, he went to West Memphis, Arkansas, working as a farmer and on the weekend, he would play music. This was the start of his career in music. 

Wolf was a great big man. They say he was six, three and weighed about 300 pounds. And because of his size and girth, they called him all kinds of stuff. They called him Bigfoot Chester, Bull Cow, and the main moniker that they put on him was Howlin' Wolf, and that's the one that stuck. They said he didn't like how men called Howlin’ Wolf, but his grandfather is one of the ones that started calling him the Wolf because he would tell him the stories of the Little Red Riding Hood. And Wolf liked the stories, but he didn't like being called Howlin' Wolf, but as far as I'm concerned, that was a perfect name for him. 

Wolf was influenced by a lot of people, Mississippi Sheiks, who did Sitting on Top of the World, which is one that Howlin' Wolf recorded later on and was a hit for him. He loved Blind Lemon Jefferson. He loved Ma Rainey. He was a big fan of Tampa Red, Lonnie Johnson, Blind Blake. 

And he did the Cool Drink of Water by Tommy Johnson, which later turned into I Asked for Water and She Gave Me Gasoline. But Tommy Johnson was from Crystal Springs, Mississippi, and Howlin' Wolf really liked him. And I would say that most of Howlin' Wolf's vocal style, he called it yodeling because he said that he liked Jimmie Rodgers. He'd heard Jimmie Rodgers and he said he would start trying to yodel. It didn't come out as a yodel. It came out as a growl. So, he said, "I can't do no yodeling, so I turned to howlin' and it done me just fine." 

Two of his early recordings were Blind Lemon Jefferson, the Matchbox Blues, and Leroy Carr's How Long, How Long Blues. We all have influences. I had plenty of influences. Howlin' Wolf's one of my influences.

Here's a song I wrote called I've Tried. It's off the Courts of Lulu record. I am working hard to inject a little bit of the magic that Howlin' Wolf brought to a recording when he was singing. 

In the late forties, Wolf became a DJ on KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas. He sold ads himself and mixed farm equipment pitches with music performances. At this time, Wolf's band played a loud, rough style of blues with early members including Matt Murphy on guitar, Pat Hare and Willie Johnson on guitar, Wolf's great harp playing, but he also featured, believe it or not, even though he was a harp player, he included Little Junior Parker and James Cotton on harmonica. Which, that's a passel of great harmonica players.

Ike Turner and KWEM radio brought Wolf to the attention of Sam Phillips at Memphis Recording Service. He was the engineer and the brains behind running the Memphis Recording Service. Phillips said of Wolf, "This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies." Phillips brought Wolf over to Memphis from West Memphis, Arkansas for his first session.

This is a clip from a song I wrote on my release, What's Buggin’ You, this is called Clarksdale, Mississippi.

When Wolfe was 41 years old, he and his band recorded many more sessions and Wolf remained Sam Phillips's favorite. Sam Phillips always said, "He's my favorite, I like all the blues guys, but there's something about the Wolf that you can't escape." 

There was a conflict from day one over Wolf's recording because RPM Records in Los Angeles and Chess Records in Chicago were putting out the same songs. They were being played on the radio and they had different titles. For a while they couldn't figure out what was happening. I always thought it was Sam Phillips doing that but later on found out that Ike Turner was recording Wolf in Memphis and peddling the same song to both labels by changing the names of the songs. That's why Wolf's songs have so many different names for the same song.

Conflict was resolved in 1952 when Chess was given the rights to Wolf's recording in exchange for R and B singer Roscoe Gordon's titles on Chess. Both sides were satisfied. In 1953, Chess persuaded Wolf to move to Chicago. Wolf was Chicago bound in a brand new Cadillac with a pocket full of cash.

Wolf started working with the songwriter and producer Willie Dixon on bass, Earl Phillips on drums, and guitarist Willie Johnson. Wolf recorded more songs by Willie Dixon than any other writer. Willie Dixon wrote songs for Wolf and Muddy. Wolf was a big man, but Dixon was even bigger. Sometimes he'd have to wrestle Howlin’ Wolf, get him in a headlock. They never threw any punches. Willie Dixon was an ex-boxer. He said, "I'd have to put a hold on his head." He'd get him straightened out. 

 Willie Dixon was one of the few men that Howlin Wolf would listen to. He would say, "You're giving Muddy all the good songs." And Muddy would say, "You're giving Wolf all the good songs." So, Willie Dixon had to deal with that all the time. 

Some of the songs Wolf recorded by Dixon are some of his biggest hits. Those include Howlin' for My Darlin' Wang Dang Doodle Which they said Wolf hated, but I think it was his biggest hit on Chess Records. He did the Little Red Rooster, Back Door Man, Spoonful, Built for Comfort, and Tail Dragger. Now that's a bunch of good songs right there.

That was The Red Rooster on Provogue Records. 

 Wolf's live shows were ferocious. They said he was a feral beast. He would roll on the floor of the stage, and his antics, he would do anything. Then he would complain to the reviewers who wrote up stuff on him and said, "You made me sound like an animal." Everybody wanted to go, "Yeah, when you roll around on the floor and have big eyes like that and growl at the audience, they're gonna think you're an animal." But there was always that conflict of interest with Howlin' Wolf because if there wasn't a problem, he would make one up and carry it out. 

There's a story that Robert Palmer wrote in the book Deep Blues, which I like a lot. He said that Howlin' Wolf was playing at a theater and they were signaling him ' your time's up, you need to get off stage'. They were signaling him, he looked over at them. He ran to the complete other side of the stage. There was a big red velvet curtain and he climbed all the way to the top of it. When he got to the top of it, he shook his fist at them and growled at the audience. Then he dropped to the floor and ran off the stage. And people just went nuts. It said at that time, Howlin' Wolf was 55 years old. 

Muddy and Wolf always had this thing going. They were friends. Wolf has said, "Muddy's a nice man. I like him." But they couldn't have been a more of a contrast between Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. Muddy was the Hoochie Coochie Man, suave and cool. He made the women jump and shout. Wolf played with bone crushing intensity and frightened the entire crowd. 

Wolf was recognized as one of the artists who transformed rural acoustic blues of the South to the electric, more urban blues of Chicago. His band from West Memphis played more aggressive, distorted music with Willie Johnson's guitar being the signature of Wolf's early recordings. When Wolf added Hubert Sumlin on guitar, the sound became more of a back beat that Chicago blues was mainly known for. 

Howlin’ Wolf had a huge impact on the British Invasion and American bands. Some of the British Invasion bands that loved Howlin' Wolf were Cream, who did Sittin’ on Top of the World, a blues rock loud version. Led Zeppelin, The Animals did Smokestack Lightning. The Rolling Stones did Little Red Rooster. Fleetwood Mac, Manfred Mann did a version of Smokestack Lightning. Jimi Hendrix did Killing Floor, and the Doors had a hit with the Back Door Man. The Blues Project did some of his songs, The Electric Flag, The Paul Butterfield Band, and one of my favorites, John Hammond Jr.

I got to play with John Hammond Jr. many times. The first time I played with him was in Washington D. C. at the famous club called The Cellar Door. We played with our five-piece band, and then he's came out and started setting up. He put a piece of board on the floor and put a microphone on that piece of board. He set up a resonator guitar, metal body guitar, and he had a Martin acoustic guitar. He came out later, and I was going, " How's he going to?" We just played as a five-piece band. I was all worried, " I don't see how he's gonna do it." And he came out with a harp rack around his neck with a harmonica in it and played that resonator guitar and beat his foot on that board. I've been a disciple ever since. I love John Hammond Jr. One of my heroes. Great, great, great. He showed me. It wasn't that hard to show me. It was 1978. I wasn't the smartest turnip in the box at that time, which I don't know if I ever did get to be the smartest one, but it don't matter. 

In 1971, they sent Wolf over to London. All the bands were doing what they call the London Sessions. Muddy did them, Jerry Lee Lewis did them. Everybody was doing them. But they sent the Wolf over to London to record, and he only took Hubert Sumlin with him. When I say only, that's a big word, because Hubert Sumlin was great. Eric Clapton was on that session. Stevie Winwood, Charlie Watts on drums, Bill Wyman on bass, Ringo Star played drums on some of it. It was a great session. They were doing the Little Red Rooster, and Eric Clapton was pretending he couldn't play the lead on it, he didn't understand it. He understood it just fine, but he was messing with the Wolf. Eric Clapton went on," I don't know how to play the slide guitar on Little Red Rooster." And Howlin' Wolf said, “Oh man, come on, you know how to play it." And Clapton goes, "Oh no, I don't know. If you play it on acoustic guitar, I would understand what to do then." So, Wolf said, "Hand me the acoustic guitar." He put that guitar on and played the lick. Clapton said, “Oh yeah, I'm starting to see what's going on here." Of course, it was just to get Howlin' Wolf going, and they had a big laugh about that later on. But anyway, I love the way they play it on the London Sessions. If you haven't heard Little Red Rooster from the London Sessions, you gotta listen to it because not only is it great entertaining music, but it's funny too. It's a funny story. 

 One of the greatest things that ever happened to me is I had been on a radio show in a different town in Texas a little ways away and they had told me they were having a jam with Hubert Sumlin that night. It was maybe a Monday night. And they told me to come by. By the time I did my radio show a couple hours away and drove back to Austin, I went to Antone's nightclub where Hubert was featured for the night as being the main entertainment. He was playing with an all-star band that were all friends of mine.

It was Hubert on guitar, Derek O'Brien on guitar, Ronnie James on bass, Chris Layton on drums, Jimmie Vaughan on guitar, and then James Cotton came by. We were all playing Howlin' Wolf songs and having a ball. We played Killing Floor and Little Red Rooster, and I think James might have joined us on Back Door Man, but when James got up, he just blew the top of the house off. He just took it to another level. He blew everybody away with his solo and showed, everybody who was the boss. God bless James Cotton. What a great man. 

Backstage at the end of the set, Hubert told me, he said, " Man, you're the only one who gets it." And I said," What do you mean?"

He said, " You sing Howlin' Wolf, but you don't try to do it just like him." He appreciated the fact that I sang Howlin' Wolf songs in my way. What a great honor to get to play with those guys, and especially Hubert Sumlin. Loved, loved, loved Hubert. 

Also, from Runnin' with the Wolf, this next track is me on rhythm guitar and vocals, Casper Rawls on lead guitar, Kaz Kazanoff on sax, and Wes Starr on drums. This is called Ooh, Baby, Hold Me. I holler whoa, whoa, whoa.

All right, that was Oh, baby, Hold Me. 

At the peak of Wolf's success, he returned from Chicago to Mississippi to see his mother. He was driven to tears when she refused to take the money offered by him. She said it was from his playing The Devil's Music. 

 Wolf's health started declining in the late 60s. He had his first heart attack in 1969 while in a car driven by Hubert Sumlin. Sumlin got out of the car and used a board that he found in the road to support Wolf's back, which kick-started Wolf's heart. Thank goodness for Hubert Sumlin.

Only a few weeks later, Wolf suffered more heart and kidney issues, but he refused an operation that they told him that he needed to have. He said, "Lillie, I gotta keep working." He just didn't want to deal with it and put it to the side. Don't we all do that sometimes? Something like that. 

1970, he was in a serious car accident. He went through the windshield, causing extensive damage to his kidneys. The rest of his life, he was on dialysis every three days, and this procedure was carried out by Lillie, his wife. Sweet, sweet Lillie.

While at the London Sessions in England, he got worse and one year later he had another heart attack, and his kidneys failed. He was having all kind of health issues. In 1973 he was performing again, but Eddie Shaw, who was the leader of the Wolf Gang, would only let the Wolf sing six songs because he was always worried about him and always looking after him. 

In 1976, Wolf checked in the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Administration Hospital in Hines, Illinois. Three days before his death, doctors found a brain tumor. Chester Burnett died in Hines, Illinois from complications during surgery on January the 10th, 1976. He was 65 years old. He is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery outside Chicago. His grave marker has a guitar and a harmonica etched in the stone. 

In 1980, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame.

In 1991, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, along with Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, Ike and Tina Turner, and others. 

 In 1994 1994, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp collection of blues and jazz artists. Wolf had his own stamp along with Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Ma Rainey. Bessie Smith and many others. I certainly consider this to be a great honor. Wow. To have your own stamp. Is that cool or what?

2005 the Howlin’ Wolf Museum opened in West Point, Mississippi. They have an annual festival to honor the Wolf and his memory.

 The Howlin’ Wolf Foundation is a non-profit organization formed to keep Howlin Wolf's legacy alive through preserving the blues, scholarships for students, and support for blues musicians.

 This is a tune that's a showstopper from Runnin' with the Wolf with me on vocals, Eve Monsees on guitar, Ronnie James on bass, Nick Connolly on organ Kaz Kazanoff on tenor and baritone sax, and Mike Buck on drums and percussion. Who's Been Talkin'?

That was Who's Been Talkin'? 

I've been talking for quite a while. I've told you everything I know about Howlin' Wolf and more. I even told you things I didn't know. 

This part of the podcast is called Omar's Picks. These are songs that I have personally chosen to be clear examples of the Blues Master discussed in the episode. I am unable to use this material in the podcast itself because the music is copyrighted. These are songs that you should listen to if you want more information about the Blues Master's work. Most this music is available on any digital music site.

Howlin’ Wolf Tracks. Moanin' in the Moonlight is the album on Hallmark Records, and it has Smokestack Lightnin' on it and I Asked for Water and She Gave Me Gasoline. Howlin' Wolf on Hallmark Records, Howlin' For My Baby, and it's sometimes called Howlin' For My Darlin' The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions on Chess Records has the Red Rooster, and that's the sessions he did with Eric Clapton and all the British guys. It's really good. I love it.

I would like to thank Ed and Simone Van Zijl at Provogue Records for permission to use the tracks from Runnin' with the Wolf.

Thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. Tune in next time for my next episode. Thank you.