“Popular music, which produces the stimuli we are here investigating, is usually characterized by its difference from serious music.
“This difference is generally taken for granted and is looked upon as a diff- -”
Nope. Sorry. Not this time.
Roll over, Adorno!
Time to play some rhythm and blues!
Amplified, hard-hitting blues tunes would eventually catapult the culture industry to levels of power and influence that even Adorno hadn’t predicted. Maybe it shattered our attention spans in the process, and made us all impulsive and pliable suckers. Who knows? But the music also changed our society for the better.
This wasn’t evolution or forward progression. It took us back, way back. To the mists of time.
To the call of the wild.
In West Point, Mississippi, in the early 1920s, a young boy named Chester moved to his grandparents’ home after his mother kicked him out.
The boy was angry, and sometimes he strangled his grandmother’s chickens to death. His grandfather, hoping to scare the boy straight, showed him the corpse of a wolf he had shot one night.
He warned Chester that other wolves were still around to get him. Whenever the boy would misbehave, his grandparents would give a little howl to remind him of the wolves that would come for him. They took to calling him “Wolf.”
In the late 1920s, the legendary blues troubadour Charley Patton traveled to West Point and played for the patrons of the black taverns there. Now a teenager, Chester was plowing a field when heard the man playing as he passed by one day, and was transfixed.
Young Chester Burnett asked Patton to teach him how to play guitar, and Patton agreed to give him lessons. After saving up his money from plowing, Chester convinced his father to buy a guitar for him.
Soon he was traveling with Patton and providing vocals to his songs. He later sang with Son House, Robert Johnson, and other blues legends. Burnett gained a reputation for his distinctive voice–a gravelly, guttural roar. And for the feral energy of his performances.
He eventually chose a name to fit his wild stage persona:
Howlin’ Wolf.
Burnett took the primal fear of his childhood memories and wore it like a costume.
In 1943, after leaving the Army, Howlin’ Wolf moved to West Memphis, Arkansas, and played in the juke joints there.
He also hosted a radio show where he played live for 30 minutes every day at noon, and invited promising young musicians to put their own music on the air, including James Cotton, Willie Johnson, Pat Hare, and Hubert Sumlin, among others.
For years, Wolf howled his songs out in the hopes that someone in nearby Memphis would notice. And eventually, someone did.
In early 1951, Ike Turner came calling. Fresh off the success of his single, the rowdy rhythm and blues tune “Rocket 88,” Turner took Burnett to Memphis to record some tracks.
Producer Sam Philips put the band’s drums and electric guitar louder in the mix than he ever had done before.
Little did he know, he was creating a new template for his rock ‘n’ roll recordings soon to come. When Philips heard Burnett singing for the first time, he thought: “This is where the soul of man never dies.”
Wolf and Philips sold the songs to record labels known for their interest in rhythm and blues:
Chess Records from Chicago…
And to RPM Records in Memphis, a subsidiary of Modern Records from Los Angeles.
Wolf’s tunes for Chess both became hits on the Billboard R&B charts. And the Chess family convinced him to move up to Chicago to play shows and record some more. Wolf drove from West Memphis to the Windy City, newly earned cash in tow, and he formed a new band to bring his ideas to life. His time had come.
He soon met the other icons of Chicago’s ascendant blues scene: Big Bill Broonzy, Elmore James, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, B.B. King.
All of these musicians had come from the rural south to the urban south, and then up to the big city. These other men and their bands had come to develop a clean, sophisticated take on electric blues.
In their music there was the twang of the country fields, the volume of the local pub, and the elegance of the downtown nightclub all in one.
As for Howlin’ Wolf, he doubled down on the simple, the raw, and the raucous. The supporting guitarists he chose often played jagged riffs or big, dirty power chords with distortion from their amplifiers.
And Wolf himself put on quite the show, growling and roaring into the mic, gyrating wildly, and even licking his guitar.
Still, despite the stage persona, Burnett was otherwise a straight-laced businessman. Whoever played in Wolf’s band got paid often and well, and were even provided health insurance. But he was a strict taskmaster, and he forbade his musicians from drinking. He knew that a career in the blues could take him far, and he took that prospect very seriously.
His inner beast was something he saved for the stage, and he took pains to prevent anyone else’s beast from getting in the way of success. Through his hard work, he found that success, and then some.
Of course, his success would be eventually eclipsed by the younger rock ‘n’ roll stars like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. And even more so by the white rockabilly singers that Sam Philips would record: Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison. And everyone was eclipsed by Elvis Presley.
The early rock ‘n’ roll craze was one fueled by teenagers, and so it makes sense that the most successful electric blues tunes of the day were bright and exuberant variations of the ever-danceable boogie-woogie style.
But by the time of the 1960s, most rock bands had moved beyond Elvis imitations into the sounds of the Chicago and Detroit electric blues musicians.
And these new kings of pop culture paid open tribute to the older legends. Cream and the Doors would both put Howlin’ Wolf songs on their debut albums. The Rolling Stones would not only cover him, they would invite him to play with them for a live television appearance.
The young black boy who had strangled chickens on a Mississippi farm had grown up to become a treasure for the young musicians of the world.
And fittingly, they played his song, “Red Rooster.”
Burnett happily played the role of father figure to the new generation, referring to the Stones’ singer with affection as “my little boy Mick Jagger.” Finding his inner wolf had raised him out of poverty and beyond success, into cultural significance. It made perfect sense that his role would be to teach others how to free the wildness within.
The legacy of rock ‘n’ roll is Howlin’ Wolf’s story writ large. A poor man from the country gives voice to his troubles in the blues, then he transforms his blues into something cathartic and fun, finding dignity and community in the process. Meanwhile, audiences in the city are able to tap into that primal energy and just let go for a moment. And this creates a new demand that takes the market by storm.
Rock ‘n’ roll was the new dance fad, but it was also all about that wild, freewheeling, libidinal energy. Far more than swing or jump blues, this fad enabled moments of ecstatic abandon and explosive, lusty passion.
For a populace so deeply inhibited by repressive mores, this was an essential corrective. The ability to tap into our more primal nature helped us vent, helped us bond, and helped us loosen up.
Not to mention, it helped white youths to see the humanity of black musicians playing the songs they loved. This fad proved to be an important ingredient for our societal liberation.
Of course, the transformation wasn’t all good. Plenty of the early rock ‘n’ roll pioneers, black and white, engaged in some sleazy and sometimes violent behavior. And for some, the darkness of their songs proved to be more than just a pose.
Take Pat Hare. The guitarist who almost single-handedly pioneered both rockabilly and heavy metal guitar.
He released his own song “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby,” and then nine years later, actually shot his girlfriend dead, along with a police officer who came to the scene.
If Howlin’ Wolf represents the cultural shift at its best, perhaps Pat Hare’s story serves to warn us of the dark side of liberation.
Once rock ‘n’ roll became a fixture of the popular music industry, rebellion itself became a lucrative commodity. Something to cultivate and encourage among artists.
Often the rebellion was just a pose. Yet in the decades to come, seriously bad behavior among popular musicians would be further incentivized and protected by record labels and their lawyers, continuing even today.
Adorno was right: cash rules everything around us. And the culture industry will amplify or defend whatever increases the profits of the few.
All true. But culture is complicated. And most social transitions involve trade offs rather than simple improvements. The fact remains that the primal energy of electric blues and rock completely shook up our cultural systems. And in many ways, for the better.
The stranglehold of puritan virtues was relaxed just a bit. And the everyday person got just a little closer to the Bohemian ideals of the avant garde circles. More than Allen Ginsberg ever could, rock ‘n’ roll taught regular folks how to Howl.
Hold on a second:
Fighting back against repressive social orders with the force of primal, libidinal will?
Where have I heard that before?
No wonder they called this stuff “the devil’s music.”
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Ha! mt, your lead photo made my morning. You’ve surely got ol’ Ted rolling now.
https://memes.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/072af6e2-e25a-4f1b-b444-8596b214177b
Once again, we’re on the same track. Pat Hare gets a mention in my next article.
This is what Tom Breihan was talking about, whether he knew it or not, in his reviews of “Blurred Lines” and “Wrecking Ball.” The manufactured outrage over Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke’s TV performance distracted us from real issues. We could have been talking about climate change or global hunger or any number of other issues we could do something about if we had our priorities straight, but that sort of reasonable thinking doesn’t bring in much cash.
Nice job, Phylum! Thanks for telling Howlin’ Wolf’s story and putting it in context.
That’s true. I was thinking more about the protection of creeps like Marilyn Manson and R. Kelly, but yes, nowadays we also have outrage algorithms to contend with.
What an interesting time to be alive!
About 10 years ago I got hooked on an ABC network show called, “What Would YOU Do?”
It was ostensibly a serious “Candid Camera” type of program that showed people standing up for the underdog. It felt good to watch average Joes and Janes sticking up for people whan they though something unjust was going down.
What I failed to realize at the time is that I was being subjected to what some now call “Outrage Porn.” While it’s clearly good to see honest morality in action, it now seems to me that the manufactured and contrived versions that we see all over YouTube, X, et al, for the clicks and monetized engagement are doing more harm than good.
Or am I just being meta-outraged at the outrage? Time for a coffee.
The show Black Mirror has long since jumped the shark, but its episode “Fifteen Million Merits” was a brilliant commentary about how everything can eventually feed the beast, including radical attempts to shock the system.
If it wasn’t already intended as self-aware meta-commentary about Charlie Brooker’s own writing, it ultimately proved to be true about his show. Brought to you by Netflix.
Anything that intersects with the foundational elements and origin story of rock and roll will always have my attention. Some great info in here on Howlin’ Wolf that I did not know.
Thanks for this. Howlin’ Wolf is such an important figure in the progression towards popular music in the 20th century but reading this made me realise how little I know of his life story.
The devil has the best tunes and blues singers have the best names; Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Pinetop Perkins and many more. Names with character and a story.
Very informative Phylum, I’ve never knew about this part of history before.