Here this wonder clip shared on Facebook earlier today minded me how much Wolf influenced our dear Captain Beefheart! . . . plus a cautionary tale about alcohol addiction (not Alan Lomax’s best idea to give a free bar to a whole bunch of blues legends . . . . )
Howlin' Wolf performs "Howlin' For My Darling" live at Newport 1966
In July 1966, Wolf played the prestigious Newport Folk Festival. Founded by George Wein in 1959, Newport was a showcase for traditional American music as well as the hottest young folk and blues stars. Wolf’s Newport schedule was full as he participated in a blues vocals workshop, played an afternoon set, performed on the main stage at night, and was filmed for two separate documentaries. Waiting his turn to perform at the workshop, Wolf was deeply moved by the gospel music of Reverend Pearly Brown. Wolf performed a couple of numbers on an acoustic guitar, pulling out some of his old Delta repertoire for a rapt audience.
The highlight of the day was Wolf’s performance on the main stage. Dick Waterman recalls it vividly thirty years later. “The band is playing and Hubert is leading the band and the band is roaring away and no Wolf is in sight. This is the Newport night concert, which is eighteen thousand people, and they were up in a frenzy. And the band is playing and still no Wolf. And finally from the back left corner of the stage, Wolf enters, wearing work boots, Farmer Brown bib overalls, a long-sleeve work shirt, a white straw hat—a big, big hat. And he has a broom and he’s sweeping the stage! The band keeps playing and Wolf keeps sweeping, slowly moving towards the front, and it takes a matter of minutes for him to do this. In Newport in those days, since they put so many acts on, each act had maybe seventeen or eighteen minutes.… For somebody to be wasting their stage minutes with these antics—well the Newport people were just totally baffled. Not just baffled, but stunned. Wolf finally comes right up to the front of the stage. He’s taken three or four minutes to do this, and the crowd is in a frenzy. They’re on their feet, they’re roaring, they’re just yelling and screaming, and the band has whipped them into a frenzy! And Wolf gets right up to the front of the stage, grabs the microphone, throws down the broom, and right on the chord change sings, ‘I’m gonna get up in the mornin’—I believe I’ll dust my broom!’ He just disintegrated them. Just destroyed them—just destroyed them.”
Taj Mahal saw Wolf’s Newport show and was inspired to wear bib overalls and a big neckerchief for years, including on the cover of his influential 1969 album Take a Giant Step. After his show on the main stage, Wolf and his band rode over to a faux juke joint that Library of Congress folklorist Alan Lomax had set up to film some of the festival’s black performers—Wolf, Son House, Bukka White, Pearly Brown, and Skip James. Lomax gave everyone in the room free booze to re-create a juke joint atmosphere. * Unfortunately, House, by then a desperate drunk, was in the advanced stage of alcoholism known as “wet brain,” where a single drink could overload his damaged liver. Worse, House’s manager, Waterman, was not at the filming. With no one to watch his intake, House drank up and started reeling.
When it was his time to perform, Wolf rapped about the blues. “A lot of people’s wonderin’, ‘What is the blues?’ I hear lots of people saying, ‘The blues, the blues.’ But I’m gonna tell you what the blues is: When you ain’t got no money, you got the blues. When you ain’t got no money to pay your house rent, you still got the blues. A lot of people’s hollerin’ about, ‘I don’t like no blues.’ But when you ain’t got no money and can’t pay your house rent and can’t buy you no food, you damn sure got the blues. That’s where it’s at, let me tell you. That’s where it’s at. If you ain’t got no money, you got the blues, ’cause you’re thinkin’ evil. That’s right. Any time you thinkin’ evil, you thinkin’ ’bout the blues.
Segrest, James; Hoffman, Mark. Moanin' at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin’ Wolf
Here an additional note about The Wolf from the always fascinating Dangerous Minds . . . .I was scared by the sound of Howlin’ Wolf when I first heard him (about 12/13) singing, I think Smokestack Lightning which still can haunt me and it took me a long time to adjust and appreciate the greatness of the man mentioned more kindly here:
"During the American Folk Blues Festival in Newport, Howlin’ Wolf reflects on the meaning of the blues, while Delta blues peer Son House heckles him, sloshed out of his ever-lovin’ gourd. It could have been way more uncomfortable than it actually was, but Howlin’ Wolf elegantly hands House his drunken ass. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Son House, but Wolf is one of those seemingly rare aggressive, “dangerous” performers who also happened to be a really, really good person.
In additions to being a devoted husband and father (and raising his wife’s two daughters from a previous relationship), Howlin’ Wolf (real name Chester Burnett) actually attempted to support his mother as soon as he became successful. Tragically, she drove him to tears, rejecting both her son and his money for their association with “The Devil’s Music.” In a time when black musicians were almost never properly compensated, Howlin’ Wolf was a musician’s union member and managed his money incredibly well. Not only did he possess innate business savvy, he passed that knowledge on to his band members, who received health insurance as a condition of their employment. They were also required to pay union dues, but if they couldn’t afford it, Wolf would front them the money, or send extra dosh to their family back home.
It might go without saying that Howlin’ Wolf attributed much of his success to the avoidance of vice and excess, and with Son House as a cautionary tale, it’s not hard to imagine why."
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