HOWLIN' WOLF
Chester Arthur Burnett was born in West Point, Mississippi, on June 10, 1910. His early years were spent on the Young and Mara cotton plantation, where both his parents were employed, and he quite naturally fell into a farmwork vocation. It was a vocation which maintained supremacy until the man was 38, at which time a decidedly different vocation took the wheel.
HOWLIN' WOLF
“Howlin’ Wolf, man... he’s the guts of America spilling out on the floor, that’s all ”
Greil Marcus/CREEM
Chester Arthur Burnett was born in West Point, Mississippi, on June 10, 1910. His early years were spent on the Young and Mara cotton plantation, where both his parents were employed, and he quite naturally fell into a farmwork vocation. It was a vocation which maintained supremacy until the man was 38, at which time a decidedly different vocation took the wheel.
His alter-ego was the blues, and it came as naturally to Chester Burnett as had farming. The Delta farmlands were rich with the music. Church socials, community fish-fries, or just plain back porches; any time people gathered together, blues was a primary by-product. His father presented him with his first guitar in 1928, and the battle was on.