A Howlin’ Wolf Performance
In honor of the upcoming trip, I decided to tell a story about Howlin’ Wolf, since we are attending the Howlin’ Wolf Blues Festival this year.
When Wolf played Memphis in 1965 in a blues package show, many recall the performance as astounding. Here is the show, recalled from one of four white audience members:
The MC announced Wolf, and the curtains opened up to reveal his band pumping out a good old down home shuffle. Compared to the other acts in the show, this was the hard stuff. So where was Wolf?
Suddenly he sprang out onto the stage from the wings. He was a huge, hulk of a man, but he advanced across the stage in sudden bursts of speed, hid head pivoting from side to side, eyes huge and white, eyeballs rotating wildly. Just when you thought he was having a seizure, he lunged for the microphone.
He blew a chorus of raw, hard harmonica, and then began to moan. He had the hugest voice ever, and it seemed to fill the hall and get right inside your ears, and when he hummed and moaned in falsetto, every hair on your neck crackled with electricity.
The set went by like an express train, with him alternating from harp to guitar (which he played while rolling around on his back, and at one point, while doing somersaults) and he was – in all his glory – the Mighty Wolf.
Finally, an impatient signal from the wings let him know his portion of the show was over. Defiantly, Wolf counted off a bone crushing rocker, began singing rhythmically, feigned an exit, and suddenly made a flying leap for the curtain at the side of the stage. Holding the microphone under hid beefy right arm and singing into it all the while, he began climbing up the curtain, going higher and higher, until he was perched far above the stage, the curtain threatening to rip, the audience screaming with delight. Then in one fluid movement, he loosened his grip, slid easily and smoothly down to the floor, cut off the tune, and stalked off the stage.
He was then 55 years old.
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