| |
Wolf Has Got This Weird Time
Rolling Stone Issue #60
July 11, 1970
By Chris Holdenfeild
London - "Now, son," says Howlin' Wolf to Eric Clapton, "it's jus' like countin'. One-two, one-two, one-two," - and then a long slide - "threee-four."
Clapton, bent over his Fender, watches assiduously as Wolf, on his big Harmony Sovereign, leads him through "Little Red Rooster." Clapton follows each move faultlessly, yet a bit nervously, as Wolf throws in "jus' like this" pointers. When they're finished, Clapton sticks out his hand and says, "Thank you," and they shake on it.
Howlin' Wolf (born Chester Arthur Burnett) is getting on some in his 60 years, but the master of the blues still sells a few records. Chess Records arranged for the session in London so Wolf could record with various hotshots of the British recording industry. The sidemen were Clapton, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Klaus Voorman, Mick Jagger and Ringo Starr. Ringo Starr? This crew is roughly comparable to England's network of Old Boys: those who came from the same boarding schools and colleges, with the same school ties, to become the ruling class. The Cream, in other words.
Ringo was the only one who got into any trouble: at the first session, doing "I Ain't Superstitious," he seemed initially puzzled by his first out-and-out pure blues, and Wolf got cantankerous. But it all got smoothed out. The musicians were all ready to lay down their wigs for Wolf. At one point in the session a cat named Jeff Carp was playing harp, and although he showed talent, he didn't realize that he was kind of intruding. When the song was done, Wolf looked up and spoke: "That harp, man, it just don't go in there. The guitars is what's gonna carry it, not the harp."
Carp answered back, "You ...mean you don't want me to play it, huh?" He was pale-face, and filled with respect.
Wolf turned away. "Well...eh, I jus' know that the harp just ain't where it's at, man. You can blow away if you want to."
There was certainly no shortage of talent at the sessions; Glyn Johns, engineer extraordinaire, handled the electronics. Ian Stewart, the Stones' road manager (he can also be heard on some early Stones albums) played piano. Rhythm guitar was by Hubert Sumlin, Wolf's adopted son.
Mick Jagger, though, was the subtle star of the session. One of the guys from Chicago said that he had expected Jagger to be "just some jive cat," probably unaware that Wolf has been for some years, one of Jagger's main men. As it turned out, however, Jagger knew what it was all about, organizing the sound and helping break the ice between Wolf and the other musicians. At one point he tried to get Wolf to sing some Robert Johnson songs, but Wolf (who knew Johnson as a kid) apparently thought that that was going too far back in his past.
Norman Dayron, who also produced Muddy Water' Fathers and Sons, cooked up the session in a hip and timely manner: Dayron and Clapton had the same dope dealer a while back, and one day they both showed up at the cat's house at the same time. So there they were, sitting around getting stoned, and Dayron lines out a pipe dream to Eric: "Say, how'd you like to cut a record with Howlin' Wolf?"
So Eric fell through the floor. In subsequent calls to the Stones, everybody got similarly turned on, and at one point Steve Winwood was also supposed to show up, except that no one could find him. Clapton even made an expedition to Winwood's Berkshire cottage, but no luck.
Now Howlin' Wolf is a big cat, maybe six-foot-five wearing size 14 shoes. He wears red suspenders that pull his pants up to his chest, and he sits there in a corner of the studio, out of the lights, in a slump like a man sitting on the can. Next to him is a paper bag with his harps and some packs of Beech nut gum inside.
When he moves to the microphone, Dayron moves with him, because although Wolf had been playing for nearly 40 years, his memory for his own songs isn't that good, and Dayron has to hold the lyrics in front of him. Sometimes he whispers a line into Wolf's ear, just before it comes up. Although Wolf's voice isn't as powerful as it once was, it's still warm and raspy - not a city voice, but the voice of a man who counts his chickens and eggs.
And then there's Eric Clapton, slouched over his guitar with a cigarette wedged into the tuning knobs, looking austere in his short hair, beard and tweeds. Clapton's playing is nothing extravagant (which is where it's at with blues); once or twice he runs a Bo Diddley lick, or a stilted Ventures riff.
Watts, as usual, plays his plain, unfrilled style (except for one song where Wolf urges him into playing a mambo beat). Bill Wymans bass playing is always gorgeous and imaginative, and this time is no exception; Wolf even taps his foot once in a while.
Compare this session, then, with Chess Records' last stab at "modernizing" the Wolf: the psychedelicized Howlin' Wolf's New Record. ("Man, it's dogshit!" said Wolf at the time.) I asked Wolf what he thought of his present sidemen, and he said, "Well, that boy on gi-tar over there, he's outasite."
After the session, Clapton remarked that it was "the most complex music I ever heard. It's so complicated, y'know, yet it's so natural. He's got this weird time - one is that Delta thing, 4/4, and the other is...ah...that other thing."
"Yeah," Voorman laughs, "that other thing."
Although there were some new songs "Commit a Crime": "Woman, you mix my drinks with a can of Red Devil lye." And "Do The Do", most of the numbers were old stand-bys like "Killing Floor." This is supposed to be Howlin' Wolf's last album, the end of an era, and there is some question as to whether this is a fitting thing to do - remaking a man's songs, when the originals are just about perfect. Who benefits from such an album, Wolf or the young musicians?
And so they sat there, the Old Boys did, after the third and final session. Wolf had put on his golf jacket and left, and they were trying to decide what token of appreciation they could give him.
"What do we send him?" asks Eric.
"A woman," someone says.
"Naaah," says Dayron, "he's already got a woman, and he loves her. We can't send him that."
Someone else from Chess mentions that Wolf is a great fisherman, and raises prize kennel dogs.
"Naah," says Dayron again, "he's going right back to do Greenville, North Carolina. He won't rest."
"If we send him a fishing rod, then he'll have to use it."
"Well," snaps Charlie Watts, "let's send him some fish and chips."
Back to Top
|
|
