[BLANK_AUDIO] Welcome back. Howlin' Wolf was born in 1910 in West Point, Mississippi. He died in 1976 in Chicago. See the pattern. All these guys from the Delta moved up to Chicago. Made their mark there. Howlin' Wolf was a big man. Six feet six, and something like 300 pounds. His real name was Chester Arthur Burnette. He had one of the loudest and most memorable voices. Anybody ever heard. Now, if you want to have somebody as a neighbor. Maybe that would be Fats Domino. But if you want to have somebody to sit down and have a six pack with, maybe you would choose Howlin' Wolf, if you were packin' some heat. I would suggest it might be a good idea to have a gun. That's not really fair. Anyway ru, Wolf was rough edged and slightly fearsome. Not noted to be a friendly sort of guy. His style contrasted considerably with the slightly smoother presentation of Muddy Waters. And he and Muddy by the way were rivals throughout their careers. Now, Howlin' Wolf played guitar and harmonica and of course, he sang. Now his music has been covered by a lot of artists, just like Muddy Waters. And Led Zeppelin was one of his biggest followers. They did a lot sounds, songs, sounding like Howlin' Wolf. Let's listen to one of Howlin' Wolfs earliest hits from 1951 called How Many More Years. [MUSIC]. Now this version by Led Zeppelin sounds almost the same in both title and sound structure. Just pretty much like Whole Lotta Love, and Led Zeppelin did not give credit where credit was due for this song either. [MUSIC] Well, majority of the songs we have just heard were either written or co written by another behind the scenes player, and we'll come to that in just a minute. First, let's go, let's stop off for a second and listen to another one of Howlin' Wolfs big hits called Smokestack Lightning from 1956. [MUSIC] Now that song was covered by The Yardbirds, The Animals, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, and, Soundgarden. [MUSIC] Another big hit from Howlin' Wolf, Wang Bang Doodle from 1961. [MUSIC] This one Red Rooster from 1961, covered by Sam Cook, The Doors, The Grateful Dead and Tom Petty, several others. [MUSIC] Here's the Rolling Stones version of Little Red Rooster. [MUSIC] And one of Howling Wolf's signature songs, a song of course, about heroin, called Spoonful, which was covered by several rock and roll artists, as well. [MUSIC] Cream covered that song of course. [MUSIC] That's Jack Bruce, the Cream base player doing that amazing vocal on that version of Spoonful. Another very famous song by Howlin' Wolf and this one was covered, of course, by the Doors and several other artists too. [MUSIC] Here's The Doors version of that from 1967. [MUSIC] Another great Howlin' Wolf song, I Ain't Superstitious from 1961. [MUSIC] Jeff Beck, great British guitar player, covered that song. [MUSIC] And you probably recognized that that was the one and only Jeff not Jeff Beck. Jeff Beck on guitar. Rod Stewart doing the vocal on that song with the Jeff Beck Group. One more version of I Ain't Superstitious from Megadeth. [MUSIC] Now, back to the behind the scenes players. We talked about Dave Bartholomew being essentially the right arm of Fats Domino. Well Willie Dixon was a musician himself, but more famous for his songwriting, producing, and bass playing at Chess Records. He was the creative partner of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, writing most of their hits, and frankly often playing the two off against one another. He could get somebody to record a song he thought they should record by saying that if he didn't give, if he didn't do it, that he'd give it to the other guy. Now Dixon is the one who received an undisclosed amount of money from Led Zeppelin for copyright infringement on Whole Lotta Love and How Many More Times, both of which, obviously, were written by Willie Dixon. Dixon also produced and sometimes wrote for other Chess artists. Including Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. When we come back, we'll talk about the third member of the holy trinity, John Lee Hooker. [BLANK_AUDIO]
