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Moanin' at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin' Wolf
Howlin’ Wolf was a musical giant in every way. He stood six foot three, weighed almost three hundred pounds, wore size sixteen shoes, and poured out his darkest sorrows onstage in a voice like a raging chainsaw. Half a century after his first hits, his sound still terrifies and inspires.Born Chester Burnett in 1910, the Wolf survived a grim childhood and hardscrabble youth as a sharecropper in Mississippi. He began his career playing and singing with the first Delta blues stars for two decades in perilous juke joints. He was present at the birth of rock ’n’ roll in Memphis, where Sam Phillips–who also discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis–called Wolf his “greatest discovery.” He helped develop the sound of electric blues and vied with rival Muddy Waters for the title of king of Chicago blues. He ended his career performing and recording with the world’s most famous rock stars. His passion for music kept him performing–despite devastating physical problems–right up to his death in 1976.There’s never been a comprehensive biography of the Wolf until now. Moanin’ at Midnight is full of startling information about his mysterious early years, surprising and entertaining stories about his decades at the top, and never-before-seen photographs. It strips away all the myths to reveal–at long last–the real-life triumphs and tragedies of this blues titan.
640 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
May 12, 2012
Probably the best book about Howlin' Wolf you're ever going to read, turned him from one of my favorite blues musicians to one of the most important figures in American music. Man, what a voice! He was a walking contradiction: nearly illiterate, yet always trying to better himself through adult education classes later in his life, he left an oppressive home as a young man, yet still thought he could make up with his mother, who never would accept him for playing the "devil's music."
Howlin' Wolf was the bridge between the acoustic blues played by oppressed Southern farm workers and the later Chicago style of electric blues. He played with originators Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson, traveling all over the Southern US playing juke joints, parties, etc - just him and an acoustic guitar. No PA system, you had to sing and play loud enough to entertain a drunken group.
Some of my favorite parts were the difficulties Wolf had with band members, who were constantly shuffling in and out of his, and other musicians, lineups. He had to deal with drunken behavior, womanizing, violence, disagreements about money and more - several band members pulled guns or knives on him throughout his career.
Also, good to get the full report of his "London" LP recorded with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts. The original rhythm section was Ringo Starr and Klaus Voorman, who left and never came back after the first day of recording, apparently Wolf was really rough on those guys.
A very entertaining read, helps the modern music fan to see the importance of Wolf and his contemporaries contributions to modern music. Haven't heard him? Get yourself a greatest hits compilation or the Chess Records 4-disc anthology. You won't be sorry.
Howlin' Wolf was the bridge between the acoustic blues played by oppressed Southern farm workers and the later Chicago style of electric blues. He played with originators Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson, traveling all over the Southern US playing juke joints, parties, etc - just him and an acoustic guitar. No PA system, you had to sing and play loud enough to entertain a drunken group.
Some of my favorite parts were the difficulties Wolf had with band members, who were constantly shuffling in and out of his, and other musicians, lineups. He had to deal with drunken behavior, womanizing, violence, disagreements about money and more - several band members pulled guns or knives on him throughout his career.
Also, good to get the full report of his "London" LP recorded with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts. The original rhythm section was Ringo Starr and Klaus Voorman, who left and never came back after the first day of recording, apparently Wolf was really rough on those guys.
A very entertaining read, helps the modern music fan to see the importance of Wolf and his contemporaries contributions to modern music. Haven't heard him? Get yourself a greatest hits compilation or the Chess Records 4-disc anthology. You won't be sorry.
February 18, 2020
Excellent. A perfect music book, taking us from hard times to good times.
Chester Burnett’s life begins in the Jim Crow south and depression where he found his voice on a plow behind two mules in the fields. He picks up gigs, then band members, playing in Memphis then recording in Chicago. An interesting story well-told about my favorite seminal musician who comes off a plantation then transforms music, making electric blues popular.
BB King and Chester Burnett met in nineteen forty-nine Memphis. They listened to the same blues singers while coming up, including Lonnie Johnson. Wolf sang for the sinners, which meant he sang for every one, writes King in the introduction. Wolf’s blues laughed at the world’s contradictions. Yet he acted and dressed lie a gentleman, expecting the same from his band. The country changed for black people since Wolf and King grew up. At that time they were considered local musicians, writes King.
Chester Arthur Burnett arrived nineteen ten into a violent and racially divided world in the Mississippi hills near Alabama. His father worked as a sharecropper. Chester came from a mix of African, Ethiopian and Native American.
Chester’s mother gave him music. He sang in a baptist church choir. After he heard the blues, he refused to sing spirituals with his mother.
The boy had a rough upbringing. Chester’s grim childhood scarred him. He left his hometown as a thirteen-year-old looking around the Delta for the father and family he never knew.
“He could not read or write. But, damn, he could sing!” said his sister. Chester believed in the value of self-education as a lifelong habit.
Chester heard music on the farm he worked. Born of hard times and injustice, Delta sharecroppers felt the blues. Blues songs grew from work songs, field hollers and spirituals with African roots.
Young Chester liked the sound of Charlie Patton, who showed him chords. Chester’s father bought him a guitar at age eighteen. Chester’s big hands and big fingers prevented him from playing subtle strings. He wore a size fourteen shoe. But Patton’s rhythm style worked for him. Patton also taught Chester how to hold a crowd.
Chester also liked the Mississippi Sheiks, playing blues, jazz, waltz, pop, hillbilly. Wolf’s “Sittin on Top of the World” came from the Sheiks.
Chester developed his howl by listening to Jimmie Rogers, a white guy known as the yodeling singer. “I couldn’t do no yodeling, so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine,” said Howlin’ Wolf.
In the late twenties, Chester went out to play on his own. He played plantation balls, breakdowns and fish fries, then he stretched out for dances, juke joints and house parties.
Chester took Howlin’ Wolf as his stage name at the beginning of his career, which fit his persona, style and voice.
Pops Staples, who lived on Dockery plantation, often heard Wolf. “He was the blues,” said Pops.
The blues life offered escape from the fields and Depression. A bluesman could make as much money playing a one-night juke as plowing a week behind mules.
Wolf constantly practiced guitar. By age twenty-four, he played “Smokestack Lightnin’,” Moanin’ at Midnight,” “The Red Rooster.”
Wolf played music to attract women, which attracted men. He loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him. Women would be all around him whooping and hollering and hugging him. And they chased him.
Wolf sang loud in juke joints in the days before amplifiers. His voice cut through the din. One night he played two harps at once, one with his mouth, the other with his nose. Wolf learned harmonica from Sony Boy Williamson II.
Wolf often played with Son House, a great early bluesman, a sometimes preacher torn between the devil's music and playing for the lord. House made his Paramount recordings in nineteen thirty Grafton. Eight years later, House saw Wolf play electric guitar with a harmonica rack.
By the late thirties, Wolf sang the way he would play later in Chicago. He put together his first electric band after World War II. By nineteen forty, Wolf left the Delta forever. Wolf, like other bluesmen, threatened the status quo because he could thrive without working for the Man.
He developed anxiety attacks in the army. Wolf could not handle the stress of discipline. But his service paid off in the end when he received free VA medical care.
Wolf played at a store in forty-one where Alan Lomax recorded Son House and others. He played guitar behind his head. “Boogie. Come on, baby. Boogie for me!”
By fifty-eight, a new music dynamic emerged in West Memphis: amplified instruments, horns, drums, guitars, piano. Wolf put together the best musicians, fusing them into the hottest blues band. “It was my dream come true, to have a stable band playing in its own proper style. Together we developed a style along the lines of the black tradition in West Memphis, that’s a very wild and rhythmic style.” Wolf knew the sound he wanted. Wolf’s band played with three horns, sax and trombone.
Wolf and his band created electric Delta blues, in West Memphis which sounds like Chicago blues, while Muddy Waters did the same thing in Chicago.
Sam Phillips heard Wolf in fifty-one, a year after opening his studio. Phillips wanted to record country and rhythm style blues.
“He cut everything out of his mind and sang with his damn soul,” said Phillips, who recorded two sides, including “Moanin’ at Midnight.” Phillips licensed the demos to Chess in Chicago.
Wolf’s lyrics, a recurring theme, warned his women to stop flirting and throwing his money at other men.
In fifty-one, Wolf recorded “Keep What You Got,” a fast rocker with a torrid guitar solo.
The success of electric down-home blues drove big sales for Wolf in Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee.
In the twenties, Paramount Records maintained a Chicago studio creating artists such as Ma Rainey. In the thirties and forties, Chicago’s South Side attracted Lonnie Johnson and others. Chess Records became the most important indie blues label, defining Chicago blues. By the fifties, Chicago became the world’s blues mecca. To rural black south people, you could see heaven from Chicago.
In fifty-two Wolf moved to Chicago, where he created his most famous records, influencing a generation of blues and rock musicians.
Muddy Waters became the Chess star in fifty-three. Wolf arrived two years later, hiring a band, including Hubert Sumlin on guitar, Otis Spann piano, and Henry Pot Strong on harp, who earned his nickname from smoking cannabis.
Hubert Sumlin quit Wolf to join Muddy. Their tour styles differed. After a gig at three in the morning, Muddy’s chauffeur drove him while the band members rode in another car. But in Wolf’s band, everyone rode in one car. Wolf drove often.
Most Chicago blues musicians sat down. Not Wolf. The brash Wolf onstage contrasted with his serious, businesslike bandleader role offstage. But Wolf led Chicago’s best band and the best-dressed band.
Wolf’s onstage antics preceded the rock generation. Popular with women, he would put a shook-up soda bottle in his pants, then unzip and spray the crowd. The book mentions a couple of these incidents.
In fifty-seven, Wolf recorded in the new Chess headquarter, on Michigan Avenue.
Wolf, as the employer of his band, withheld Social Security and unemployment insurance from wages, a precedent for Chicago blues bands.
June sixty-one, Wolf recorded “Shake for Me,” a fast ticket, encourage his baby to shake her charms. The song brought women to the dance floor, to shake their charms.
At the same session he recorded “The Red Rooster,” a slow country blues with Wolf on acoustic slide and Sumlin on electric. One of Wolf’s first vocals.
Wolf played sophisticated clubs on Chicago’s South Side while Muddy could not get a gig because of his slow music. Wolf played upbeat songs with a hot band. Wolf won out, sitting on top of the blues world.
As Wolf’s audience grew in Europe, it shrank at home while young blocks abandoned blues for Motown soul. Meanwhile, white guys who hung out at blues clubs came from well-to-do suburbs. Michael Bloomfield, for example, grew up in Glencoe, near where I grew up for eight years. Other locals included Elvin Bishop and Paul Butterfield.
Wolf played at the first North Side club, on Wells, that booked Chicago blues bands. He sat in a rocking chair for the Monday night gigs. “It’s just low-down gut-bucket blues,” he said.
Wolf made an impact on rock bands of the late sixties. At one point, he played the Avalon with Quicksilver Messenger Served plus Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.
In seventy-one, Watts, Wyman, Clapton and others recorded with Wolf. The blistering, iconic version of “Highway 49” comes from that session. If you listen to one song by Howlin Wolf, make it that one. Then play it again. The London Howlin Wolf Sessions spent fifteen weeks on the Billboard chart.
Wolf was big, weighing almost three hundred pounds and wearing size fifteen shoes. From that frame, he defined the blues.
But of course, his time ended.
Hubert Sumlin took Wolf’s death hard, quitting the band. During a two-year sojourn, he gave blues guitar tips to Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Jimmie played a subtle bare-finger style while Stevie played glissandos. Hubert Sumlin married and moved to Milwaukee where I saw him several times, including at a social club where his friends and family came. A fine evening.
Wolf left his wife in good shape. Lillie Burnett joined Willie Dixon’s widow and daughters to from the Blues Heaven Foundation at the Michigan Avenue Chess Building for fans and musicians. I’ve been there half a dozen times. It’s a couple miles south of the Art Institute. It is a small shrine to the blues. The open days and hours vary. Check ahead of time.
Musicians who gave time and insights to the author autos included: BB King, Hubert Sumlin, John Hammond Jr, John Lee Hooker and Pinetop Perkins.
See the DVD, The Howlin Wolf Story, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465500/ . Not a substitute for the book, but an excellent documentary.
Chester Burnett’s life begins in the Jim Crow south and depression where he found his voice on a plow behind two mules in the fields. He picks up gigs, then band members, playing in Memphis then recording in Chicago. An interesting story well-told about my favorite seminal musician who comes off a plantation then transforms music, making electric blues popular.
BB King and Chester Burnett met in nineteen forty-nine Memphis. They listened to the same blues singers while coming up, including Lonnie Johnson. Wolf sang for the sinners, which meant he sang for every one, writes King in the introduction. Wolf’s blues laughed at the world’s contradictions. Yet he acted and dressed lie a gentleman, expecting the same from his band. The country changed for black people since Wolf and King grew up. At that time they were considered local musicians, writes King.
Chester Arthur Burnett arrived nineteen ten into a violent and racially divided world in the Mississippi hills near Alabama. His father worked as a sharecropper. Chester came from a mix of African, Ethiopian and Native American.
Chester’s mother gave him music. He sang in a baptist church choir. After he heard the blues, he refused to sing spirituals with his mother.
The boy had a rough upbringing. Chester’s grim childhood scarred him. He left his hometown as a thirteen-year-old looking around the Delta for the father and family he never knew.
“He could not read or write. But, damn, he could sing!” said his sister. Chester believed in the value of self-education as a lifelong habit.
Chester heard music on the farm he worked. Born of hard times and injustice, Delta sharecroppers felt the blues. Blues songs grew from work songs, field hollers and spirituals with African roots.
Young Chester liked the sound of Charlie Patton, who showed him chords. Chester’s father bought him a guitar at age eighteen. Chester’s big hands and big fingers prevented him from playing subtle strings. He wore a size fourteen shoe. But Patton’s rhythm style worked for him. Patton also taught Chester how to hold a crowd.
Chester also liked the Mississippi Sheiks, playing blues, jazz, waltz, pop, hillbilly. Wolf’s “Sittin on Top of the World” came from the Sheiks.
Chester developed his howl by listening to Jimmie Rogers, a white guy known as the yodeling singer. “I couldn’t do no yodeling, so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine,” said Howlin’ Wolf.
In the late twenties, Chester went out to play on his own. He played plantation balls, breakdowns and fish fries, then he stretched out for dances, juke joints and house parties.
Chester took Howlin’ Wolf as his stage name at the beginning of his career, which fit his persona, style and voice.
Pops Staples, who lived on Dockery plantation, often heard Wolf. “He was the blues,” said Pops.
The blues life offered escape from the fields and Depression. A bluesman could make as much money playing a one-night juke as plowing a week behind mules.
Wolf constantly practiced guitar. By age twenty-four, he played “Smokestack Lightnin’,” Moanin’ at Midnight,” “The Red Rooster.”
Wolf played music to attract women, which attracted men. He loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him. Women would be all around him whooping and hollering and hugging him. And they chased him.
Wolf sang loud in juke joints in the days before amplifiers. His voice cut through the din. One night he played two harps at once, one with his mouth, the other with his nose. Wolf learned harmonica from Sony Boy Williamson II.
Wolf often played with Son House, a great early bluesman, a sometimes preacher torn between the devil's music and playing for the lord. House made his Paramount recordings in nineteen thirty Grafton. Eight years later, House saw Wolf play electric guitar with a harmonica rack.
By the late thirties, Wolf sang the way he would play later in Chicago. He put together his first electric band after World War II. By nineteen forty, Wolf left the Delta forever. Wolf, like other bluesmen, threatened the status quo because he could thrive without working for the Man.
He developed anxiety attacks in the army. Wolf could not handle the stress of discipline. But his service paid off in the end when he received free VA medical care.
Wolf played at a store in forty-one where Alan Lomax recorded Son House and others. He played guitar behind his head. “Boogie. Come on, baby. Boogie for me!”
By fifty-eight, a new music dynamic emerged in West Memphis: amplified instruments, horns, drums, guitars, piano. Wolf put together the best musicians, fusing them into the hottest blues band. “It was my dream come true, to have a stable band playing in its own proper style. Together we developed a style along the lines of the black tradition in West Memphis, that’s a very wild and rhythmic style.” Wolf knew the sound he wanted. Wolf’s band played with three horns, sax and trombone.
Wolf and his band created electric Delta blues, in West Memphis which sounds like Chicago blues, while Muddy Waters did the same thing in Chicago.
Sam Phillips heard Wolf in fifty-one, a year after opening his studio. Phillips wanted to record country and rhythm style blues.
“He cut everything out of his mind and sang with his damn soul,” said Phillips, who recorded two sides, including “Moanin’ at Midnight.” Phillips licensed the demos to Chess in Chicago.
Wolf’s lyrics, a recurring theme, warned his women to stop flirting and throwing his money at other men.
In fifty-one, Wolf recorded “Keep What You Got,” a fast rocker with a torrid guitar solo.
The success of electric down-home blues drove big sales for Wolf in Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee.
In the twenties, Paramount Records maintained a Chicago studio creating artists such as Ma Rainey. In the thirties and forties, Chicago’s South Side attracted Lonnie Johnson and others. Chess Records became the most important indie blues label, defining Chicago blues. By the fifties, Chicago became the world’s blues mecca. To rural black south people, you could see heaven from Chicago.
In fifty-two Wolf moved to Chicago, where he created his most famous records, influencing a generation of blues and rock musicians.
Muddy Waters became the Chess star in fifty-three. Wolf arrived two years later, hiring a band, including Hubert Sumlin on guitar, Otis Spann piano, and Henry Pot Strong on harp, who earned his nickname from smoking cannabis.
Hubert Sumlin quit Wolf to join Muddy. Their tour styles differed. After a gig at three in the morning, Muddy’s chauffeur drove him while the band members rode in another car. But in Wolf’s band, everyone rode in one car. Wolf drove often.
Most Chicago blues musicians sat down. Not Wolf. The brash Wolf onstage contrasted with his serious, businesslike bandleader role offstage. But Wolf led Chicago’s best band and the best-dressed band.
Wolf’s onstage antics preceded the rock generation. Popular with women, he would put a shook-up soda bottle in his pants, then unzip and spray the crowd. The book mentions a couple of these incidents.
In fifty-seven, Wolf recorded in the new Chess headquarter, on Michigan Avenue.
Wolf, as the employer of his band, withheld Social Security and unemployment insurance from wages, a precedent for Chicago blues bands.
June sixty-one, Wolf recorded “Shake for Me,” a fast ticket, encourage his baby to shake her charms. The song brought women to the dance floor, to shake their charms.
At the same session he recorded “The Red Rooster,” a slow country blues with Wolf on acoustic slide and Sumlin on electric. One of Wolf’s first vocals.
Wolf played sophisticated clubs on Chicago’s South Side while Muddy could not get a gig because of his slow music. Wolf played upbeat songs with a hot band. Wolf won out, sitting on top of the blues world.
As Wolf’s audience grew in Europe, it shrank at home while young blocks abandoned blues for Motown soul. Meanwhile, white guys who hung out at blues clubs came from well-to-do suburbs. Michael Bloomfield, for example, grew up in Glencoe, near where I grew up for eight years. Other locals included Elvin Bishop and Paul Butterfield.
Wolf played at the first North Side club, on Wells, that booked Chicago blues bands. He sat in a rocking chair for the Monday night gigs. “It’s just low-down gut-bucket blues,” he said.
Wolf made an impact on rock bands of the late sixties. At one point, he played the Avalon with Quicksilver Messenger Served plus Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.
In seventy-one, Watts, Wyman, Clapton and others recorded with Wolf. The blistering, iconic version of “Highway 49” comes from that session. If you listen to one song by Howlin Wolf, make it that one. Then play it again. The London Howlin Wolf Sessions spent fifteen weeks on the Billboard chart.
Wolf was big, weighing almost three hundred pounds and wearing size fifteen shoes. From that frame, he defined the blues.
But of course, his time ended.
Hubert Sumlin took Wolf’s death hard, quitting the band. During a two-year sojourn, he gave blues guitar tips to Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Jimmie played a subtle bare-finger style while Stevie played glissandos. Hubert Sumlin married and moved to Milwaukee where I saw him several times, including at a social club where his friends and family came. A fine evening.
Wolf left his wife in good shape. Lillie Burnett joined Willie Dixon’s widow and daughters to from the Blues Heaven Foundation at the Michigan Avenue Chess Building for fans and musicians. I’ve been there half a dozen times. It’s a couple miles south of the Art Institute. It is a small shrine to the blues. The open days and hours vary. Check ahead of time.
Musicians who gave time and insights to the author autos included: BB King, Hubert Sumlin, John Hammond Jr, John Lee Hooker and Pinetop Perkins.
See the DVD, The Howlin Wolf Story, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465500/ . Not a substitute for the book, but an excellent documentary.
February 19, 2021
I wholeheartedly have to say that I loved this biography of the Wolf. This book was very well researched and presented as complete as possible, a fun to read timeline of Howlin' Wolf's life both musically and personally.
If you're into the Blues and it's classic musicians, this is a must read!
If you're into the Blues and it's classic musicians, this is a must read!
October 4, 2015
Insightful, Deep & Inspirational! An Extraordinary Read! I Loved It!
January 5, 2020
James Segrestin ja Mark Hoffmanin "Moanin at Midnight : Howlin Wolfin elämä" (Johnny Kniga, 2010) on erinomainen elämäkerta legendaarisesta bluesmiehestä, joka oli vaikuttava niin ääneltään kuin olemukseltaankin. "Suden" jalanjäljissä pääsin vierailemaan niin syvän etelän plantaaseilla, juke joint -juottoloissa ja Chicagon musiikkiklubeilla.
Vuonna 1910 syntyneen Chester Burnettin nimellä tunnetun Howlin' Wolfin lapsuus oli karunlainen, eikä nuoruuskaan mennyt ihan putkeen: hän syyllistyi miestappoon lyötyään puuvillakuokalla eräältä mieheltä kallon halki. Jos tästä kaikesta ei synny bluesia, niin mistä sitten? No, tarvitaan siihen muutakin, eikä kitaransoiton opetus suurelta Charlie Pattonilta varmasti ollut sieltä vähäisimmästä päästä.
Howlin' Wolfin elämä sujui kurjista lähtökohdista huolimatta hyvin. Sudesta tuli menestyvä ja ennen kaikkea kunnioitettu bluesmuusikko, jonka merkitystä musiikin historiaan ei voi vähätellä, ja jonka levytykset kuten "Killing Floor" ja "Smokestack Lightning" ovat bluesmusiikin kiistattomia klassikoita.
Segrest ja Hoffman ovat tehneet melkoisen homman kerätessään aineistoa ja haastatellessaan monia Howlin' Wolfin entisiä soittokavereita ja muita läheisiä. Suomentaja Esa Kuloniemen käännös on omintakeisen sukkela; mustien slangi-ilmauksia viljelevän puheenparren kääntämisessä suomeksi lienee ollut oma hommansa!
Vuonna 1910 syntyneen Chester Burnettin nimellä tunnetun Howlin' Wolfin lapsuus oli karunlainen, eikä nuoruuskaan mennyt ihan putkeen: hän syyllistyi miestappoon lyötyään puuvillakuokalla eräältä mieheltä kallon halki. Jos tästä kaikesta ei synny bluesia, niin mistä sitten? No, tarvitaan siihen muutakin, eikä kitaransoiton opetus suurelta Charlie Pattonilta varmasti ollut sieltä vähäisimmästä päästä.
Howlin' Wolfin elämä sujui kurjista lähtökohdista huolimatta hyvin. Sudesta tuli menestyvä ja ennen kaikkea kunnioitettu bluesmuusikko, jonka merkitystä musiikin historiaan ei voi vähätellä, ja jonka levytykset kuten "Killing Floor" ja "Smokestack Lightning" ovat bluesmusiikin kiistattomia klassikoita.
Segrest ja Hoffman ovat tehneet melkoisen homman kerätessään aineistoa ja haastatellessaan monia Howlin' Wolfin entisiä soittokavereita ja muita läheisiä. Suomentaja Esa Kuloniemen käännös on omintakeisen sukkela; mustien slangi-ilmauksia viljelevän puheenparren kääntämisessä suomeksi lienee ollut oma hommansa!
September 7, 2015
It stands to reason that this book should get better as it progresses.
The lives of the blues masters are so shrouded in mystery and mythology, so subsumed in poverty and clouded by the inarticulate witnesses, that their biographers can only race through their early years, as quickly as possible, in order to get to the reliable archives--letters, interviews, television footage--before they commit new frauds. The delta mists are just too thick to penetrate. In the case of Howlin' Wolf, the fog forces the biographer into a series of not-so-subtle sleights of hand--most egregious of all, a very quick mention of a possible homicide and jail time (did Wolf really kill a man with a shovel?) in a single paragraph, before continuing with the recitation of set-lists and bandmates that makes up the first half of the story.
But the second half of the story, built on a much stronger historical foundation, actually made me cry...more than once, in fact. Wolf the man ends up the way I hoped he might--weird and warm, dangerous but avuncular, a fringe character who is somehow central to our cultural evolution. The writing here can be clumsy, to be sure, but Wolf has survived worse, and he lights up this book the way he lit up the stage.
The lives of the blues masters are so shrouded in mystery and mythology, so subsumed in poverty and clouded by the inarticulate witnesses, that their biographers can only race through their early years, as quickly as possible, in order to get to the reliable archives--letters, interviews, television footage--before they commit new frauds. The delta mists are just too thick to penetrate. In the case of Howlin' Wolf, the fog forces the biographer into a series of not-so-subtle sleights of hand--most egregious of all, a very quick mention of a possible homicide and jail time (did Wolf really kill a man with a shovel?) in a single paragraph, before continuing with the recitation of set-lists and bandmates that makes up the first half of the story.
But the second half of the story, built on a much stronger historical foundation, actually made me cry...more than once, in fact. Wolf the man ends up the way I hoped he might--weird and warm, dangerous but avuncular, a fringe character who is somehow central to our cultural evolution. The writing here can be clumsy, to be sure, but Wolf has survived worse, and he lights up this book the way he lit up the stage.
February 16, 2017
A friend and colleague shared this book (it came highly recommended), and it provided a glimpse into blues and music I never fully appreciated compared to some music genres. However, you get a snapshot from inside the performers perspective during segregation and the evolution of blues few understood.
Being a southerner by birth, some of the characters become like people you grew up around. It's a world you traverse as a southerner up close growing up, and moved away from like Wolf later in life. Yet it frames the perils of the Jim Crow south and a culture of survival beyond most of his readership.
The warmth and the tragedy of Wolf's family experiences run the gambit, and reflects southern history quite well.
Being a southerner by birth, some of the characters become like people you grew up around. It's a world you traverse as a southerner up close growing up, and moved away from like Wolf later in life. Yet it frames the perils of the Jim Crow south and a culture of survival beyond most of his readership.
The warmth and the tragedy of Wolf's family experiences run the gambit, and reflects southern history quite well.
October 25, 2016
I've read a lot about Howlin' Wolf over the years, but this books revealed two narratives I was unfamiliar with: down south, Wolf once murdered a man with a garden hoe by accidentally slicing off the top of his head in a moment of rage and, while in Chicago, he spent most of his adult life taking remedial education classes to better himself and to better take care of his family. If you put on any of his albums, especially those first two from Chess, all of this will be revealed in the first words Wolf sings. It doesn't even have to be words when he opens his mouth, such is his truth.
December 29, 2008
I had to read the biography of my all time favorite blues artist.
And I did slog through it. But it was hard.
The authors did a lot of research but all those little numbers floating around at the end of sentences made it look like a dry history book.
They wrote it like they wanted tenure at a college. In other words, they approached Howlin Wolf's story like a boring history professor.
I wish someone with some flare could have taken on this project.
And I did slog through it. But it was hard.
The authors did a lot of research but all those little numbers floating around at the end of sentences made it look like a dry history book.
They wrote it like they wanted tenure at a college. In other words, they approached Howlin Wolf's story like a boring history professor.
I wish someone with some flare could have taken on this project.
May 14, 2021
The author's descriptions of the music is pure poetry at times. Excellent book!
May 20, 2021
The definitive biography of one of the greatest bluesmen.
August 14, 2013
I recently moved from Los Angeles to Clarksdale, Mississippi and it is to some extent the fault of Howlin' Wolf. I first heard him when I was 12 and my reaction at the time was: "What the hell is that? That's amazing!" It started a lifelong love of the blues. In turn that led me here for the first time, as Clarksdale is arguably the homeland of the blues. (Well, the ancestral homeland is Africa, but...) Once the music led me here I fell in love with the whole place and here I am a number of years later a resident.
Anyhow, it would be nearly impossible for me to not really like a biography of Howlin' Wolf. This one fails in the way that most biographies written by fans fail - it tends to error a little too much on the side of gushing admiration for its subject.
But, the research is excellent. The quotes from people who knew and played with Wolf are great. The details are good - though at times the descriptions of the places he played and the world he lived in are a bit more spare than I'd like. It does give the reader a pretty good sense of Wolf the man, though maybe not quite as in depth as I would like from a biography. Mostly it gives the reader a very good picture of what he did and the people he played with and influenced and a bit of who influenced him.
But, just as the writer is obviously a fan, so am I, so I was going to find this book fascinating and fun almost no matter what. Because of that it's a little hard to judge from a literary point of view.
Anyhow, it would be nearly impossible for me to not really like a biography of Howlin' Wolf. This one fails in the way that most biographies written by fans fail - it tends to error a little too much on the side of gushing admiration for its subject.
But, the research is excellent. The quotes from people who knew and played with Wolf are great. The details are good - though at times the descriptions of the places he played and the world he lived in are a bit more spare than I'd like. It does give the reader a pretty good sense of Wolf the man, though maybe not quite as in depth as I would like from a biography. Mostly it gives the reader a very good picture of what he did and the people he played with and influenced and a bit of who influenced him.
But, just as the writer is obviously a fan, so am I, so I was going to find this book fascinating and fun almost no matter what. Because of that it's a little hard to judge from a literary point of view.
February 17, 2011
Moanin’ at Midnight: the Life & Times of Howlin’ Wolf by James Segrest & Mark Hoffman
Chester Burnett, nicknamed Wolf by his grandfather who told him the wolves would get him if he misbehaved, grew up with an abusive uncle and a mother who threw him out of her house when he was 13 and disowned him for playing “devil’s music” even after he became a well known, professional musician. He was able to escape that life, find his father and meet blues artist Charlie Patton who inspired and influenced him not only in playing the guitar, but also becoming a showman.
This is a great companion to Can’t Be Satisfied: the Life & Times of Muddy Waters. The Wolf could come across as a big, mean, menacing force but many people who knew him describe him as a nice guy who really cared about his family, friends, fellow musicians and fans. He grew up illiterate but strove to better himself by taking classes and setting his band up like a business going as far as getting his musicians Social security and unemployment insurance so they could draw benefits in case they couldn’t perform.
Chester Burnett, nicknamed Wolf by his grandfather who told him the wolves would get him if he misbehaved, grew up with an abusive uncle and a mother who threw him out of her house when he was 13 and disowned him for playing “devil’s music” even after he became a well known, professional musician. He was able to escape that life, find his father and meet blues artist Charlie Patton who inspired and influenced him not only in playing the guitar, but also becoming a showman.
This is a great companion to Can’t Be Satisfied: the Life & Times of Muddy Waters. The Wolf could come across as a big, mean, menacing force but many people who knew him describe him as a nice guy who really cared about his family, friends, fellow musicians and fans. He grew up illiterate but strove to better himself by taking classes and setting his band up like a business going as far as getting his musicians Social security and unemployment insurance so they could draw benefits in case they couldn’t perform.
January 4, 2015
A deeply intimate look at one of the giants of American roots music, and a true master of the blues. The early life of the outsized Howlin' Wolf would have killed many a person, but he persevered to create a sound as distinct, influential, and meaningful as any artist in the 20th Century.
While this book rambles and roams at times, it is filled with incredible anecdotes and portraits not just of the Wolf, but also his musical contemporaries like Muddy Waters and his brilliant band members. This may not be the book for the casual blues/music fan, but it's essential reading for people who are serious about the blues and rock and roll music.
While this book rambles and roams at times, it is filled with incredible anecdotes and portraits not just of the Wolf, but also his musical contemporaries like Muddy Waters and his brilliant band members. This may not be the book for the casual blues/music fan, but it's essential reading for people who are serious about the blues and rock and roll music.
October 15, 2015
An amazing read! Howling Wolf was such an interesting individual and a great artist of the blues. The authors did a superb job of telling Chester Burnette's story: the good, the bad, and all of the ugliness of it. Howlin was rather a tragic figure, a proud man who made it through life basically illiterate, but with enormous gumption and talent. The more I read the more I liked him, and I definitely love his music!!! I have a lot of blues biographies to read, but so far this is my favorite. I can't recommend this book enough, especially to those who love music and the blues. He was a fascinating man.
July 15, 2017
Absolutely a must read.
Without a doubt one of the best. It is filled with great interviews from people who knew the Wolf. There is a section in the book where Wolf predicted that after his death maybe he would one day receive his just due. Unfortunately he was right...
I would most definitely recommend this book if you are a Howli' Wolf fan, music without his influence would be vastly different.... Rip
Without a doubt one of the best. It is filled with great interviews from people who knew the Wolf. There is a section in the book where Wolf predicted that after his death maybe he would one day receive his just due. Unfortunately he was right...
I would most definitely recommend this book if you are a Howli' Wolf fan, music without his influence would be vastly different.... Rip
July 21, 2017
3 1/2 stars
This book is clearly a labour of love amassed by a couple of very thorough and dedicated fans of Howlin' Wolf and his contemporaries. The book is wooden in terms of its writing style and synthesis of ideas and themes, but it more than makes up in enthusiasm and sheer love for Chester Burnett and his place in musical history. (In the exhaustive catalogue of those who carried on the Wolf's tradition, Captain Beefheart is bewilderingly absent.)
This book is clearly a labour of love amassed by a couple of very thorough and dedicated fans of Howlin' Wolf and his contemporaries. The book is wooden in terms of its writing style and synthesis of ideas and themes, but it more than makes up in enthusiasm and sheer love for Chester Burnett and his place in musical history. (In the exhaustive catalogue of those who carried on the Wolf's tradition, Captain Beefheart is bewilderingly absent.)
October 10, 2014
An extraordinary story of a man who began his life in near slavery conditions. A man who was rejected by his mother for singing "the Devil's music" and made his own way in life on his own terms.
Howlin' Wolf was unique and his music still resonates today in a variety of musical genres ranging from Hip Hop to Blues, from R 'n B to punk. An outstanding biography that left me wanting more.
January 31, 2015
Simply the best book on The Wolf. I don't think there are any others devoted only to him. I know he is mentioned in other books but this is all about Chester A. Burnett. The best Blues singer of all time.
The book gave great detail about his life and how he impacted the music scene at the time and the people that followed.
The book gave great detail about his life and how he impacted the music scene at the time and the people that followed.
September 29, 2016
As much as you can handle
THE definitive story of one of the greatest ever. If you only know the London Sessions, buckle up and dig in for a ride with the Wolf all the way from the country roads of Mississippi to Michigan Avenue. A giant in American music that should be required reading.
THE definitive story of one of the greatest ever. If you only know the London Sessions, buckle up and dig in for a ride with the Wolf all the way from the country roads of Mississippi to Michigan Avenue. A giant in American music that should be required reading.
June 6, 2017
This is one of the best music biographies ever written. Thanks in large part to the Titan that was Howlin' Wolf. The authors do a great job telling the history and humanity of one of the most important figures that helped shape western/modern music. If you are a fan of music whether you know it or not, you are a fan of the Wolf!
January 24, 2017
Full Of Great History
What a great story of a blues legend. The author did a nice job of painting a picture of the hard times from Wolf's youth through his successful career.
It was a great book and look forward to reading more by this author.
What a great story of a blues legend. The author did a nice job of painting a picture of the hard times from Wolf's youth through his successful career.
It was a great book and look forward to reading more by this author.
March 31, 2010
Interestign story, but the book was a little hard to read.
February 12, 2012
Oh how I love these books about the great blues men. This is an insightful book which in my view is a must for anyone interested in the Chicago Blues scene in the 40's and early 50's
May 21, 2012
Great book for anyone interested in the Wolf.
October 2, 2015
A truly amazing book about the most influential artist of the Blues.
February 4, 2013
Excellent read about my favorite bluesman.
April 12, 2014
A fine book on Howlin' Wolf. I would recommend an ass pocket of whiskey and a pistol, because this is the real deal... Nothin' but the blues!
Want to read
July 17, 2014Illinois
April 14, 2015
Astonishingly good book about the Wolf. Full of stories related in the vernacular. The voices start to echo in your head and leave you emerged in a wonderful world.
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