December 12th
Howling Wolf-The Red Rooster –Chess 7”
single
It’s getting
quite close to the end of the year and therefore to the end of this book. This
may be the last blues track that shows up and if it is, then it’s not a bad way
to go. Anything by the great Howling Wolf has to be worth a listen; like Blind
Willie McTell and very few others that I’ve written about this year, there
simply isn’t one single track by him that’s duff. You could pick any Howling
Wolf track at random and not be disappointed-they are all equally as good as
each other. It would be so simple to make a Howling Wolf mixtape-all you’d need
to do is to pick any 80 minutes or so of his music and you’d be done. Even
Dylan and The Fall (as much as I love them), have recorded and released the odd
track that is frankly,crap and not worthy of attention; not so with Howling
Wolf-everything he did hit the mark perfectly.
He was a true
giant of a man; both figuratively and literally. He stood in at 6 foot 3 inches
and weighed 300 pounds. His feet were that big that he couldn’t find a pair of
shoes either long enough or wide enough to fit him; whenever he bought a new
pair of shoes he had to cut them with a razor so his feet would fit. On shaking
hands with Wolf, Marshall Chess (of Chess Records) said that, “My hand was a
little nothing inside his.”
But musically,
well, that was a whole different ballgame. Howling Wolf learned his trade at
the feet of the greatest Delta bluesman, Charley Patton. This is not just a
figure of speech-Patton actually taught him how to play guitar and many of
Wolf’s songs can be more or less traced back to Patton’s work. (This track for
instance, although credited to Willie Dixon, is, in the words of Howlin’ Wolf,
“a Charley Patton tune”). He first met Patton when he was 20 and went on to
play with many of the notable blues artist of all time; Robert Johnson, The
Mississippi Sheiks, Robert Lockwood Jr, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson
and many others. Sonny Boy Williamson II taught him the harmonica. His idol was
the country singer Jimmy Rogers. Wolf tried to emulate Rogers’ famous yodelling
but couldn’t manage it; it came out as a growl. “So I kept on howlin’. And it
done me fine.” Wolf only started recording in 1950 at the age of 40 in Sam
Phillips Sun studios. This was all before he left the South and drove to Chicago to become the Chicago
blues master he is best thought as.
When you work
though all the different musicians Howlin’ Wolf had direct contact with, it’s
absolutely jaw-dropping. His first band included Matt “Guitar” Murphy, as well
as harmonica player Junior Parker (of “Mystery Train” fame); and at times he
recorded with Ike Turner, Bo Diddley and many other greats. His finest pick was
persuading one of the finest blues guitarists of all time, Herbert Sumlin, to
move from the South and join his band in Chicago. Sumlin stayed a part of his
band for over 20 years. I could go on and on for another 500 words and another
500 after that about Howlin’ Wolf, but the only thing that needs to be done is
to hear the 2 minutes 25 seconds of this song.
This is an extract from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod"
and what "Totally Shuffled" is all about:
One track per
day for 366 days on a broken iPod.
366 tracks out of a possible 9553.
From the
obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex).
From the
sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse).
From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music
to The Monkees.
From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz,
classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between.
This is what I
listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to
hear any more music again. Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. Some
artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of
critical kicking.
There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops,
prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that
I’d completely forgotten about.
But with 40 years of listening to music, I
realised that I’ll never get sick of it.
I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but
I’ll never fall out of love with music.
Get/read Totally Shuffled here
Kindle:
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