Motley Moose – Archive

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”.

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

ART NOTES – an exhibition (to commemorate the opening of the museum’s newly-opened wing) entitled Art of the American West is at the Tacoma, Washington Art Museum through autumn.

HAIL and FAREWELL to Dallas Taylor – the original drummer with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (and later Manassas) – and after his musical career ended, became an addiction counselor specializing in interventions – who has died at the age of 66 …. also Edgar Froese – the founder of the pioneering German electronica band Tangerine Dream – who has died at the age of 70 ….. and to possibly the creator (in 1950) of the modern talk show format, first on radio and then on TV, Joe Franklin – who first interviewed numerous future stars and hosted nostalgia-style shows in recent years – who has died at the age of 88.  

END of an ERA #1 – after forty-four years, Rupert Murdoch’s London tabloid The Sun decided to end its daily Page Three Girls featuring images of topless women …….. except that they actually didn’t end, after all.

WAS LOOKING FORWARD to a Cheers & Jeers meet-up yesterday in Portland, Maine – to have a lot of laughs and old stories to share – but a surprise snowstorm placed it on hold. Hopefully, it can be re-scheduled soon.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is Oliver the Cat – a Georgia kitteh who survived several BB gun pellets, yet whose vet noted that Oliver still loves people … and he now has a forever home.

END of an ERA #2 – with the death of Alice Kearns Geoffroy Bernard at age 98, there are no longer any (known) survivors who were part of the Orphan Train Movement – a program (lasting from 1854 to 1929) where around 120,000 children (orphaned, homeless or unwanted) were sent via train from crowded Eastern cities to families across the nation … which ended with the beginning of organized foster care in America.

THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the pioneering vocal jazz group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross and their legacy: an inspiration to Al Jarreau and without them: there would be no Manhattan Transfer.

BUSINESS NOTES – both Orbitz and United Airlines are pursuing a lawsuit against a 22-year-old who began a website that hunts for discount fares via hidden-city tickets – which may only help to publicize the practice.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Salem the Cat – a Kentucky kitteh who went missing when his family moved eight miles away, and was thought lost ….. until he showed up in the backyard of a house he’d never been to, two months later.

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

QUOTE for the week: after the GOP-controlled House opened the new legislative session with divisive votes for Speaker (and ending legal recognition for immigrants who entered the country illegally, many of them as children), Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), said:

“Week 1, we had the vote for the speaker. Week 2, we debated deporting children. Week 3, we’re debating rape and incest ……… I just can’t wait for Week 4.”

OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? – former SNL cast member Andy Samberg and TV/film actor Matt Bennett (Nickelodeon’s “Victorious” and the Will Ferrell-produced film “The Virginity Hit”).

   

……and finally, for a song of the week …………… this coming June will mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of bluesman Howlin’ Wolf – and it may have been said best of him by Cub Koda of the All-Music Guide – “a Robert Johnson may have possessed more lyrical insight, a Muddy Waters more dignity, and a B.B. King  certainly more technical expertise, but no one could match him for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits”. When you are 6’3″ tall, 300 lbs with a gravelly voice, known for both acrobatic guitar tricks and a willingness to crawl at key song junctures …. well, that’ll do it: not for nothing was he simply referred to as “The Wolf”.

But his reputation as a mean guy was overblown, said Buddy Guy himself. Howlin’ Wolf was an intense man with a lot of pride and who expected much from others … but no less than what he expected of himself.

I recall seeing writer’s credits on rock albums listing Chester Burnett – actually, he was born Chester Arthur Burnett (after our 21st president) in White Station, Mississippi in 1910. His nickname had its first incarnation from his uncle, who warned of “wolves who would deal with misbehaving children”. Howlin’ Wolf grew up in a broken home, living with different relatives after a falling-out with his religious mother (who years later refused any kindness from him for playing the “devil’s music”, saddening him tremendously).

He befriended two legendary bluesmen while in his twenties, who helped form the bedrock of his musical style. As a guitarist he learned from Charley Patton (perhaps the genre’s first star) who showed him not only stylings but also the guitar tricks. Later, he learned harmonica from Rice Miller (aka Sonny Boy Williamson II) – but Chester Burnett was unsuccessful in emulating the yodel of his childhood hero Jimmie Rodgers – the white country music star – and so instead it morphed into a howling sound … which completed his stage name. As a result, he began the 1930’s as a Patton acoustic-style player …. and ended the decade on the blues circuit as one of the first electric guitar players in the region.

He spent two years in the US Army from early 1941 to 1943, leaving after having difficulty adjusting to that life. So at age 32, he settled into working on his family’s new farm in West Memphis, Arkansas. But he also played music with a band that included Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy (the future Blues Brothers band performer), and by having a 15-minute show on radio station KWEM in Memphis: their sound was heard throughout the region. As someone who was later influential in the career launch of both Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, Sam Phillips heard his voice and thought, “This is where the soul of man never dies” and recorded him in 1951.

Eventually Chess Records signed him and – unlike many Mississippi bluesman who boarded a train for Chicago – he drove there in a new car “like a gentleman”, a source of pride to him. A year later, he enticed into leaving Memphis the guitarist Hubert Sumlin – who was to play a pivotal role in many of Chess Records recordings (in addition to being the Wolf’s second voice). In the 2008 film Cadillac Records – to me, a must-see film for Chicago blues fans – he disdained fancy cars driven by his peers (that were presented as gifts from their record companies). “Just pay me what you owe me”, he told Leonard Chess, preferring a station wagon.

And while functionally illiterate into his 40’s: he not only got his G.E.D. but also studied accounting to further his career – later helped by his marriage to a native Chicagoan named Lillie, urbane and educated, who become his business manager and who helped him pay his sidemen not only a decent salary but health benefits as well.

At first, he recorded his own songs (which were often adaptations of older Delta blues works) – “How Many More Years”, “Evil”, Smokestack Lightning and  “I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)” which reached high on the R&B charts. By 1960, he began recording songs by the Chess Records composer & bandleader Willie Dixon – which helped break his career wide open after the British invasion was in full scale by mid-decade, such as Little Red Rooster plus Spoonful then I Ain’t Superstitious and Back Door Man as well.

His eponymous 1962 album – with a mix of Dixon songs as well as his own – helped shape the British invasion: “Smokestack Lightning” made the British charts (via The Yardbirds) … and the Rolling Stones in particular became his biggest fans. They insisted that he open for them on an American TV episode of Shindig in 1965 – a kindness for which he never forgot.

He had a 1966 hit with his own composition Killing Floor that was covered notably by Jimi Hendrix and was the basis for Led Zeppelin’s The Lemon Song which – after legal action – today lists “Burnett” as a co-writer. And for much of the rest of the 1960’s, Howlin’ Wolf enjoyed great success, especially on tours of Europe. One notable recording was the Howlin’ Wolf London Sessions – a 1970 album with Steve Winwood, Charlie Watts and Eric Clapton among the guest stars.

But as the 1970’s dawned, his health began to decline: not only from several heart attacks he suffered but also kidney damage from an automobile accident (and for which he needed dialysis in his later years). Howlin’ Wolf gave his last performance in Chicago in November 1975 with fellow blues titan B.B. King. He entered the VA Hospital to be operated on …. but he died in January, 1976 at the age of 65.

His achievements are as enormous as he was: three of his recordings (“Spoonful”, “Little Red Rooster” and his own “Smokestack Lightning”) were named among the 500 Songs that shaped rock music: and “Smokestack Lightning” also garnered a Grammy Hall of Fame award.

He was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – as an ‘early influence’ – in 1991. Lastly, he was named by Rolling Stone as *#54* on its 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

His legacy continues to outlive him: the subject of a 2004 biography as well as a 2003 documentary now on DVD, and in 2004 the US Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor. And how’s this for being prescient: thirty-five years before the election of Barack Obama one of his songs about those who discriminate included this warning, “You gonna wake up one morning ……… and a coon’s gonna be the President”.

   

The first time I ever saw the name “Chester Burnett” was the writer’s credit on the liner notes of the 1968 Cream album “Wheels of Fire” – for the song Sitting on Top of the World – which Wolf himself adapted in 1957 from a 1930’s blues band from Mississippi. It became popular with many rock bands (and at this link is Cream’s rendition at their 2005 reunion shows).

While not his original recording: below you can listen to Howlin’ Wolf’s (quite popular) later recording of it.