Showing posts with label Howling Wolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Howling Wolf. Show all posts
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Howling Wolf - 'Smokestack Lighning’ Live 1964 | Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"
The only known recording of Howling Wolf singing his signature song ‘Smokestack Lightning’ in Britain 1964 - love the BBC!
"Howlin' Wolf "Smokestack Lightning" Live 1964
This is the only known filmed version of "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin' Wolf. This was shot in England during the famed American Folk Blues Festival tours and features the legendary Hubert Sumlin on guitar.”
Monday, January 13, 2025
Down In The Bottom - Howling Wolf [roots of Blues]
Chester Arthur Burnett - 'Howlin’ Wolf' performs at Newport in 1966, accompanied by Eddie Shaw, Andrew McMahon, and Hubert Sumlin in a photograph by the legendary David Gahr.
For some reason this has always been a favourite song . . . . . .sung here by a favourite singer!
THE HOWLING WOLF STORY COMPLETE
MEET ME IN THE BOTTOM
I think this reveals my own interest on such things but there is place I found on map in the middle of the woods near here where I live called Hangman’s Bottom! Why is a hangman living or operating his craft in the middle of a wood!?Maybe he left his shoes there . . . . ?
Slippin’ 'n a Sliding!
Rollin’ an' A Tumbling!
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Guitar lick pics bar none - VERNON REID (Living Colour) picks his top guitarists | Floppy Boot Stomp - Voodoo Wagon facebook page
Speaking of Guitar there’s this from FLOPPY BOOT STOMP/ VOODOO WAGON who posted this on their Facebook page . . . . .worth checking the guy knows his chops!
“The Who, Van Halen – the whole thing where there’s a separate singer from the lead guitar player. That started with Hubert Sumlin and Howlin’ Wolf”: Vernon Reid on the 7 riffs that inspired him, from Hendrix to Chic, Cream, and more” Vernon Reid - Living Colour
Howlin’ Wolf - I Ain’t Superstitious
MAESTRO!
Jimi Hendrix - Power of Soul : Band of Gypsies
Thursday, May 09, 2024
HOWLIN’ WOLF - (x2) ‘Highway 49’ & ‘Smokestack Lightnin’ (the only known footage of this latter )
And after all that Cap’n Beefheart yesterday how about this from one of his main inspirers!?
Ladies and Gentlemen the tail dragger, the WOLF.
HOWLING WOLF!
Howlin’ Wolf - “Highway 49” 1970 -
Vocals/Harmonica: Howlin’ Wolf Guitar: Hubert Sumlin Bass: Randy Joe Fullerton Drums: S.P. Leary Keys: Sunnyland Slim
Howlin' Wolf "Smokestack Lightning" Live 1964
Tail Draggin’ . . . . . HIGHWAY 49
Howlin' Wolf "Smokestack Lightning" Live 1964
This is the only known filmed version of "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin' Wolf. This was shot in England during the famed American Folk Blues Festival tours and features the legendary Hubert Sumlin on guitar.
SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING!
The amazing Howlin' Wolf (otherwise known as Chester Burnett) recorded on the 19th October 1964 at the Manchester Free Trade Hall as part of the American Folk Blues Festival tour in the UK. What a line up this was with Sugar Pie De Santo, Lightnin' Hopkins and Sonny Boy Williamson on the same bill!! 0:00 Smokestack Lightning 3:05 Don't Laugh At Me Howling Wolf: Harmonica, Vocals Hubert Sumlin: Guitar Willie Dixon: Bass Sunnyland Slim: Piano Clifton James: Drums
Colourised version plus ‘Don’t Laugh At Me’ (without the Reelin’ In The Years over printing!)
blues.in.colour
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Howlin' Wolf performs "Howlin' For My Darling" live at Newport 1966
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."
Down In The Bottom - Howlin Wolf behind the scenes at the faux Juke Joint Newport after scolding Son House (*see above notes)
Howlin’ Wolf scolding a drunk Son House in the final stages of alcoholism . . . . . . .
Friday, March 24, 2023
Howlin' Wolf - Message To The Young (1971, 2007 japan remaster) | PLAIN & FANCY
HOWLIN’ WOLF is down with the kids . . . . . . .. . this from Rockesteria
as Plain & Fancy says
Oft-considered his second attempt (after the Howlin Wolf Album he famously shunned) at offering the masses a psychedelic record, the sound on the record ranges from acid-rock, to blues, to funk, and back again. The title track on Message To The Young is exactly what the title suggests; Wolf s attempt at reaching the youth of the era in a beautiful spoken word ballad which can easily be summed up in two words Be Yourself .
Download it now . . . .check out the maestro of the Howl on the link above first if you don’t believe us!
Friday, April 22, 2022
CHESTER BURNETT 'HOWLIN WOLF' - 'MEMPHIS DAYS' - TWILIGHT ZONE
so the follow up second volume of the now long out of print Memphis recordings of Howling Wolf have been shared over at the Twilight Zone and another peach it is too! Great tidy up and cleans re-issue so if blues stalwarts are your thing have at it!
HOWLIN WOLF - MEMPHIS DAYS -VOL II - TWILIGHTZONE
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
HOWLIN' WOLF
CHESTER ARTHUR BURNETT
Another in an ongoing series on blues artists . . . . . . . . .
I have mentioned before my precocious interest in the blues and at about 13 developing a passion for Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White and others but Howling' Wolf scared me at first. That HUGE voice from the huge frame was so other worldly and unique I was at once fascinated and nearly fearful! I soon got to appreciate the link and added him and John Lee Hooker and the deltas blues players as well like Missippi John Hurt and Jesse Fuller as my searching took me further in to the more esoteric. Nothing but nothing will replace the feeling that I got when first I heard Howling Wolf sing 'Smokestack Lightning'
Some of Howlin' Wolf’s band members came home empty-handed from weeks on the road and told their wives that Wolf didn’t pay them. When Andrew McMahon’s wife, Ida, complained to Wolf about it, he called a meeting with the band members and invited their wives. Then he recited a litany of crimes and misdemeanors.
“Eddie Shaw, you didn’t bring your money home because you gambled it up. Hubert Sumlin, you gambled and drank your money up. S. P. Leary, you drank yours up. Andrew McMahon, you know you bought the womens with all your money.”
McMahon tried to convince his wife that Wolf was lying, but she didn’t buy it.
“Wolf didn’t like that wrongdoing,” she said. “I guess he just didn’t want his name scandalized that he was not paying his boys when he knew he was.”
Wolf was equally blunt with rude audience members. One night on a double bill in Memphis with Muddy Waters, someone in front had the nerve to yell about Wolf’s garish yellow tuxedo,
“Look at that man in the monkey suit!”
Wolf glared and said, “I don’t know what you-all talking about. You may think my suit’s funny. Yeah—go ahead and laugh. But you here to listen to me tonight—I’m not here to listen to you. And ’cause of that, I got a pile of money big enough to burn up a wet mule!”
James Segrest, Mark Hoffman. Moanin' at Midnight
Shake for Me
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