Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf, born Chester Arthur Burnett in Mississippi on June 10, 1910, had a voice like a freight train running over gravel and a frame to match, and he used both to drag the acoustic Delta blues into the electric roar of Chicago. He learned at the feet of Charley Patton in the 1930s, played across the Deep South, and was spotted by Ike Turner, who brought him to Sam Phillips in Memphis. His first record, "Moanin' at Midnight", came out in 1951 and got him signed to Chess.

Several of his songs turned into standards of blues and blues-rock: "Smokestack Lightning", hypnotic and eerie, plus "Spoonful", "Killing Floor" and "Little Red Rooster". He played guitar and harmonica, but it was the voice that did the damage. Over four decades his records wandered from R&B to rock and roll and even into psychedelia, and the blues revival of the '60s brought his name to a new crowd.

He kept playing until November 1975, sharing a final stage with B.B. King, and died on January 10, 1976. The Blues Hall of Fame took him in in 1980, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and "Smokestack Lightning" entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.