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Today marks the centenary of the birth of Chester Burnett, Howlin' Wolf.
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Even the BBC (Radio 4) will be marking the occasion at 0822 this morning.
"It is a hundred years since the blues singer Howlin' Wolf was born. British blues singer and guitarist Ian Siegal and Nigel Williamson, the author of the Rough Guide to the Blues discuss the legacy of Howlin' Wolf's work. "
We should all pay our respects to this giant of rhythm 'n' blues by listening in. Or you could listen to my very own Howlin' Wolf Tribute recorded at the Sun Studio in Memphis. The tribute is an improvised medley based on "How Many More Years", "Smokestack Lightnin'" and "I asked her for water, she gave me gasoline".
To see the great man in action, albeit out of sync, see him on Youtube, singing "How many more years" and playing his harp on British TV (Shindig) in 1964, the same year that I met him.
Postscript:
I listened to the BBC item. Ian and Nigel described the Wolf as "elemental", "intense", "primal", "raw", as well as "frightening" and "spooky".
I would rather say that his voice was supremely expressive and sensitive. When I talked to the Wolf back in 1964, I asked him about the meaning of the poetic imagery in his song, "Smokestack Lightnin". He told me:
"Well, it's about this train you see. 'Stead of saying the smoke come out the funnel, I said 'Smokestack lightnin'...shine just like gold' - more poetical you know. You know what a smokestack is? Sure, you seen 'em on engines. They got a circle of brass round the top, and when the sun shines, wall, this brass ring shines -just like gold!"
When I asked him his opinion of Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup and of Elvis Presley, he commented: "Well, Big Boy is a real favourite of mine, but I don't think you should critic any entertainer. They've all got their own sound and own style, and you should never critic them for what they done different-like. Presley, too: he got his own sound. But you know, some entertainers get real big-headed and don't have time for nobody. Me, I'm pleased to talk to you; if you like me and have time to talk to me, wall I'm pleased for that and have time for you- I got all the time in the world! But I'm not a flirtin' kind o' man; I don't never critic any entertainer, 'cos they might critic me. Just listen to their music."
Ian Siegal will be performing tonight at a Tribute Concert at the Blues Kitchen, 111-113 Camden High Street. I wish I could be there. He's got a great sound. You can hear him sing one of Wolf's songs on the BBC.
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Wrong place.
White folks can't sing the blues - oh, man, doncha know; can't you hear?
ReplyDeleteLangston Hughes said it well, "Everybody wanna sing my blues, nobody wanna live my blues", and "you've taken my blues and gone."
What you call 'dark' and 'scary' is the stuff of the Black man's soul crying out in anguish and defiance against the strictures of white oppression. You will never really know; gotta live it to know it, baby.
Regine, you could be right, but John Lee Hooker was a little more generous on this topic. It wasn't me who said the music was "scary", I love it, have loved it for 50 years. I think the Wolf is expressive, sensitive. I was merely quoting the BBC commentators this morning.
ReplyDeleteWe may never know what's going on in another man's or woman's soul. But we can respect and admire and value what we hear, or think we hear.
Everyone who's ever lived has paid some dues.
Regine,
ReplyDeleteIf you're there, maybe you'd like to take a listen to my "Howlin' Wolf Tribute" which you'll find uploaded on:
www.thesixtyone.com/artist/corfu100#/corfu100/
Let me know what you think!
Further to these comments, I recall that James Baldwin wrote, in "The Fire Next Time", that "Only people who have been 'down the line' as the song puts it, know what this music is about".
ReplyDeleteBut I still believe that the deepest blues songs often deal with the human condition. Colin Wilson once wrote about 'art giving order and logic to chaos...Only something as instinctively rhythmic as the blues can give us a sense of order that doesn't seem false'.
Regine,
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add these words of John Lee Hooker's.I have them on tape; this is what he said during an interview I recorded with him:
"Nowadays it don't matter what nationality you are- if you got it, you got it. Because you find more young people now singing the blues- all nationalities. It don't matter if you're coloured or white, or Indian or Mexican, if you've got the know-how, if it's in you and you've got the feeling, you sing the blues... You find a lot of white people were born with soul, just like we were- you won't find it in many of them, but there's a whole lotta them born with soul and won't sing nothing else but the blues".