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THE HOWLIN’ WOLF STORY
(Bluebird)
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Director Don McGlynn’s homage to this literal giant of early electric blues is perhaps the finest portrait of any figure from the genre. It’s packed with visceral performances from the Newport Folk and American Folk Blues Festivals and other sources, and it draws on conversations with such intimates as his daughters and his former sidemen, drummer Sam Lay and guitarist Hubert Sumlin, as well as dialogue from the Wolf himself, to capture all the grit and depth the singer born Chester Burnett possessed as both a performer and a man. It’s a trip watching Wolf perform on the ’60s TV show Shindig with the Rolling Stones sitting at his apparently size 15 or 16 feet. Better yet are his Newport performances, including a take on "Smokestack Lightnin’ " with plenty of his trademark howlin’ as he lasciviously licks and gnaws on his guitar’s neck.
Wolf went to great pains to create the image of a man possessed on stage and sometimes — as Lay and Sumlin explain — when dealing with his band. That’s how he mesmerized audiences and cowed transgressors. But as his daughters attest, the same man who once advised young Marshall Chess, the son of his record label’s president, that "the best pussy is wino pussy" was also a tender family head who adored his wife and daughter and their tranquil home. The film explains that Burnett got his fierce nickname from his parents, who told the Mississippi Delta youngster that wolves would get him if he misbehaved and used to scare him by saying that they heard distant howls. This easy-flowing 90-minute documentary brings Wolf’s howl up close and personal. We’re left with an understanding of what the late Sun Records founder Sam Phillips meant when he described Wolf’s artistry as coming from "where the soul of man never dies."
