This Week's Featured Artist...

Howlin' Wolf - Born Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), Howlin’ Wolf ranks among the most electrifying performers in blues history, as well as one of its greatest characters. He was a ferocious, full-bodied singer whose vocals embodied the blues at its most unbridled. A large man who stood more than six feet tall and weighed nearly 300 pounds, Howlin’ Wolf cut an imposing figure, which he utilized to maximum effect when performing. He wrote classics as “Killing Floor,” “Smokestack Lightning” and “Moanin’ at Midnight.”Wolf derived his trademark howl from the “blue yodel” of country singer Jimmie Rodgers, whom he admired. He moved to West Memphis in 1948 where he put together a full-time band. Howlin’ Wolf influenced such blues-based rock musicians as the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, and he recorded the albums - The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions and London Revisited - with his British followers in the early Seventies. Howlin’ Wolf gave his last performance in Chicago in November 1975 with B.B. King. He died of kidney failure two months later, aged 65. A life-size statue of him was erected shortly after in a Chicago park.