Birth of the Blues: Howlin' Wolf

Birth of the Blues: Howlin' Wolf
By Hunter60

By 1975, The Wolf had grown tired and ill after suffering several heart attacks and a recent cancer diagnosis. At the end of 1975, Wolf entered the Illinois VA Hospital where he died on January 10th, 1976.

Holwin' Wolf is still considered to be one of the two pillars, the other being Muddy Waters, of the modern blues sound, Muddy's style was powerful and smooth with a wink a smile. Wolf's was feral, animalistic and at times, brutal. It was screaming amplified blues straight from the muddy banks of the Delta. Muddy's voice was booming and heartfelt. Wolf's voice had the tinge of having being the result of his gargling with gasoline and gravel. Consider this account of one of Wolf's performances from Robert Palmers "Deep Blues" when The Wolf was 55 years old. "He was a huge hulk of a man but he advanced across the stage in sudden bursts of speed, his head pivoting from side to side, eyes huge and white, eyeballs rotating wildly … he had the hugest voice I've ever heard … defiantly, Wolf counted off a bone-crushing rocker, began singing rhythmically, feigned an exit and suddenly made a flying leap for the curtain at the side of the stage … singing all the while, he would climb the curtain … until he was perched high above the stage, the audience screaming with delight … then he loosened his grip and in a single easy motion, slid right back down the curtain, hit the stage, cut off the tune and stalked away …"

But I think that the late Cub Koda (rock critic, writer and member of Brownsville Station) said it best: "No one could match his singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits."

If the blues has two faces, Howlin' Wolf personified the one that only came out at night.