Jones kicked Burnett out of the house during the winter when he was a child for unknown reasons. Jones and Burnett would sing together in the choir of the Life Boat Baptist Church near Gibson, Mississippi, and Burnett would later claim that he got his musical talent from her. Dock, who had worked seasonally as a farm laborer in the Mississippi Delta, moved there permanently while Jones and Burnett moved to Monroe County. īurnett's parents separated when he was a year old. The blues historian Paul Oliver wrote that Burnett once claimed to have been given his nickname by his idol Jimmie Rodgers. The name 'Howlin' Wolf' originated from Burnett's maternal grandfather, John Jones, who would admonish him for killing his grandmother's chicks from reckless squeezing by warning him that wolves in the area would come and get him the family would continue this by calling Burnett 'the Wolf'. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States. He would later say that his father was 'Ethiopian', while Jones had Choctaw ancestry on her father's side. Early life Ĭhester Arthur Burnett was born on June 10, 1910, at White Station, near West Point, Mississippi, to Gertrude Jones and Leon 'Dock' Burnett. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 54 on its list of the ' 100 Greatest Artists of All Time'. 'Smokestack Lightnin'' was selected for a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, and three of his songs were listed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its '500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll'. '' Several of his songs, including ' Smokestack Lightnin' ', ' Killing Floor' and ' Spoonful', have become blues and blues rock standards. This is where the soul of man never dies. The musician and critic Cub Koda noted, 'no one could match Howlin' Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits.' Producer Sam Phillips recalled, 'When I heard Howlin' Wolf, I said, 'This is for me. AllMusic has described him as 'a primal, ferocious blues belter with a roster of classics rivaling anyone else, and a sandpaper growl of a voice that has been widely imitated'. With a booming voice and imposing physical presence, he is one of the best-known Chicago blues artists. He was posthumously inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. After years of severely declining health, Burnett died in 1976. He released his final album The Back Door Wolf in 1973, and made his last public performance in November 1975 with fellow blues legend B.B. His studio albums include The Howlin' Wolf Album (1969), Message to the Young (1971), and The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions (1971).

He released several albums in the 1960s and 1970s, and made several television performances. Five of his songs got on the Billboard national R&B charts. He started his recording career in 1951 after being heard singing by 19-year-old Ike Turner, and then formed his own band in Chicago. He started a solo career in the Deep South, playing with other notable blues musicians of the era, and at the end of a decade had made a name for himself in the Mississippi Delta.Īfter going through some legal issues and a particularly rough experience while serving in the Army, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, in adulthood and became successful. He then ran away to his father's house where he finally found a happy family, and in the early 1930s became a protégé of legendary Delta blues guitarist and singer Charley Patton. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time.īorn into poverty in Mississippi as one of six children, he went through a rough childhood where his mother kicked him out of her house, and he moved in with his great-uncle, who was particularly abusive.

He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer and guitarist.

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