Re: [Harp-L] Howlin Wolf

["david j. brown" <nonidesign@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I love all the Chixago guys (local bias) but for me Wolf was the most "South
side" of 'em all:
1. He was nuts.
2. He put on a show like a maniac. Creeping onto stage with his eyes bulging
out and his face all contorted like it was going to explode.
3. That voice. Man, that voice sounded like a train wreck and so it was
....perfect.
4. He had that menace....a little danger... in his attitude. Muddy was like
a statesman but Wolf looked like you owed him a lot of money and he just
found you alone in an alley. There's a photo of him in Peter Guralnick's
book "lost Highway" (p.281). Wolf is standing on a porch holding a cigarette
and looking down at the camera. He's got that "what the fu**k you lookin'
at?"look on his face.
And his harp playing reflected all that attitude too. He had a definite Rice
Miller influenece in his playing which suggested his Southern roots but at
times Wolf would really torture his harps in a way that set his style apart
from Miller's.

 

"Smokestack Lightning" is in my top 5 blues songs of all time and the sound
of his harp fading out with that ghostly reverb at the end gives me chills
every time.