walking upstream…
Howlin' Wolf
photo: eatonland · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Howlin' Wolf
sourcesWikipedia
Howlin' Wolf turned a towering frame and a ragged, guttural moan into one of the most physically overwhelming voices in American music, dragging Delta blues fundamentals into the amplified, city-hardened sound of postwar Chicago. Backed at Chess Records by guitarist Hubert Sumlin and songwriter-bassist Willie Dixon, he cut foundational sides like 'Smokestack Lightning' and 'Killing Floor' that British blues-rock bands would study, cover, and borrow from wholesale. He died in 1976, having spent four decades turning a Mississippi sharecropper's upbringing into some of the most influential recordings in the blues canon.
the sound in question
1956
Smokestack LightningHowlin' Wolf
walk the tributaries ↓
Charley Patton1920s-30s · Delta blues
As a teenager in the Mississippi Delta, Chester Burnett listened to Charley Patton play nightly outside a juke joint until Patton began teaching him guitar directly — Wolf recalled the first song he ever learned was Patton's own 'Pony Blues.'
listen: upstream & here
1929
Pony BluesCharley Patton
1951
Moanin' at MidnightHowlin' Wolf
listen forHear the raw, percussive drive of Patton's 'Pony Blues,' then Wolf's early Chess single 'Moanin' at Midnight' — the same stomping, guitar-driven urgency, amplified a generation later.
Jimmie Rodgers1920s · Country / Old-time
Wolf said he originally tried to copy Jimmie Rodgers's blue yodel but couldn't master the technique, so he 'turned to howlin'' instead — that failed-yodel-turned-holler became his signature vocal style.
listen: upstream & here
1927
Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)Jimmie Rodgers
1956
Smokestack LightningHowlin' Wolf
listen forListen to the tumbling yodel of Rodgers's 'Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas),' then the extended, moaning howl on Wolf's 'Smokestack Lightning' — one is the sound of a yodel that never quite happened, turned into something else entirely.
Sonny Boy Williamson II1950s · Chicago blues / Delta blues
When Burnett relocated to Parkin, Arkansas, in 1933, Sonny Boy Williamson II taught him to play harmonica directly, a foundational technique Wolf carried into his Chess recordings for the rest of his career.
listen: upstream & here
1951
Eyesight to the BlindSonny Boy Williamson II
1964
Killing FloorHowlin' Wolf
listen forHear Sonny Boy Williamson II's stinging harmonica lines on 'Eyesight to the Blind,' then the harmonica-and-guitar interplay driving Wolf's 'Killing Floor' — the harp vocabulary traces straight back to the man who first taught him the instrument.