Chester Arthur Burnett ate a lot of chicken. He ate more than any man had ever seen. I am not sure if he was a fan of Popeye’s or KFC. This was never answered by anyone, I reckon, but the little girls understood. Chester later became Howlin’ Wolf, frankly, I am not sure of the origin of the nickname. Sometimes it is credited to his grandfather, sometimes to singer Jimmie Rodgers. Regardless, Howlin’ Wolf was a big man. He made electric guitars look like mandolins in his huge hands. Wolf is one dude that you would NOT want to run into down a dark alley.
Now I’m not going to go into his entire history, you folks have Google and most everyone that is reading this knows all about Wolf already. I will say that he is one of my favorite bluesmen and his voice is instantly recognizable due to its raspy bite.
He was also king of the sexual double entendre songs, even though bassist Willie Dixon wrote most of these classics, Wolf’s interpretation of “Evil” scared the beejeezus out of the working dude that had to leave his woman alone for a few hours a day. “Back Door Man” implied a couple different things. I will leave that one up to you dear readers. “Spoonful” was not about a spoonful of water but did inspire the wonderful “Lovin’ Spoonful” band name. “Little Red Rooster” needed to be driven home, quite often, for he was constantly on the prowl. This song turned The Rolling Stones into a serious musical threat by white teens discovering that this was also a Wolf cover. “Moanin’ at Midnight”, “Smokestack Lightning”, I could go on and on…the blues and its lyrical sexual content was so wonderfully written and disguised that even whitebread dude Pat Boone sang “Shake, Rattle and Roll” with a non-knowing straight face. Throw his version against Big Joe Turner’s and you will see what I mean. But I digress, Big Joe is a whole ‘nother article…again, to me Howlin’ Wolf was a big man with big appetites and no one is going to stand in the way of what the Wolf craves so you better watch your happy home.
The painting was done with Wolf’s face taking up the entire space of the canvas. Wolf was bigger than life and needs to be displayed this way. This is one of my favorite paintings because I dig how he flashes his gold tooth and I think I captured that glint in his eye that says “ Damn right, I got the blues and I’m coming after you darlin’”…that Evil, if you will…I used the dark blue to signify the blues and the white signifies his spirit is still around and it appears in motion much like a 45 or 33 1/3 record would appear and this is the only way to listen to Wolf, not on no tape nor CD, vinyl is Wolf’s landscape and must be respected. So if you don’t know Howlin’ Wolf, then get on up to your record store and check him out. You will find him under The Blues.