The Wolfman

If you've never heard Howlin Wolf, then you've never seen those insidious Viagra ads on TV, where the self confident but obviously over the hill dude with the muscle car uses bottled water to keep it from boiling over while Wolf moans "Oooh-ooh-eeee" to his signature tune "Smokestack Lightnin'" in the background- the new theme song of the ED- inflicted male.

In a kind of cultural twist, the first version of the song I ever heard was by the Yardbirds, another testament to the fact that the Wolfman's influence spread far and wide from his Delta roots, born Chester Arthur Burnett, June 10, 1910 in West Point,  Mississippi. Supposedly, his nickname came from his grandfather, who would warn little Chester that, if he misbehaved, howling wolves would get him for being bad.

Burnett was always an overpowering presence, as another one of his nicknames as a youth was "Big Foot" - Wolf was over 6 feet tall and weighed close to 300 pounds ! Like many Mississippi bluesmen, he started out singing in a local church choir, getting his first guitar at the age of 18. Burnett was drawn to the legendary  Charley Patton after seeing him perform at a local juke joint, amazed by Patton's Jimi Hendrix-ish gyrations with the guitar, playing it backwards, forwards, over his shoulder, between his legs. Wolf loved showmanship. One of his favorite tricks was to shake up a Coke or other carbonated soda, stick in his crotch prior to going onstage, then unzipping his fly at the climactic point of the song and popping the cap off.

After playing throughout the Delta in the 1930s with the likes of Robert Johnson and Johnny Shines, and serving in the Army during World War II, the Wolfman caught the ear of the legendary Sam Phillips, who recorded Burnett's first "hit" , "Moanin' After Midnight". A year later in 1952, Howlin' Wolf is signed by Leonard Chess, and moves to Chicago. If the movie "Cadillac Records" rings true, Burnett showed up in a pickup truck to sign the Chess recording contract. He was apparently pretty strict with his band and his morals, and was married to a woman who managed his money so well that Wolf actually paid his musicians decent salaries as well as health insurance.  One scene in "Cadillac" depicts the bluesman as paying for Little Walter's funeral in a tense scene with Muddy Waters, who reportedly clashed with Wolf over the theft of backup musicians.

A lot of Chester Burnett's music has permeated rock and roll, with tunes like "Ain't Superstitious" . "Spoonful", "Red Rooster", "Back Door Man", "Killin Floor", and of course - "Smokestack Lightnin" , which actually won a Grammy in 1959. The Wolfman died in 1976. and has a harmonica and guitar etched on his Chicago grave. Perhaps the most ironic tidbit to his cryptic career concerns an interview in which he was asked what the mysterious lyrics to "Smokestack Lightnin' " actually meant. Howlin Wolf reportedly - and somewhat sheepishly - admitted that he just liked the tune and the words really didn't mean anything at all.