Moanin' at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin' Wolf

The most famous life story in the blues is more legend than fact—the tale of how Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil to play guitar, then laid down some massively influential recordings before being poisoned by a jealous man and dying before fame could catch up with him. I heard it at an early age; while I didn’t condone the whole selling-your-soul thing, the general ethos (life fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse) did kind of fit with my whole worldview.When I got older I started longing for more uplifting stories—stories of perseverance, stories of faith and hope. Not necessarily in the religious sense, but in the belief that maybe a great artist could be a great human being as well. I heard glimmers of Howlin’ Wolf’s life here and there—a story of a man who paid his band members well and treated people kindly and still made amazing music. I wanted a story where nobody had to sell their soul for success. I wanted Wolf’s story to be that story.I bought this magnificent book—a thoroughly researched and compelling biography—and soon found out the truth was far more complicated.Wolf’s story, like that of so many African Americans, is a story of the Great Migration—leaving the South, and overt racism, for new opportunities and wealth up north—and subtler forms of prejudice. He lived the blues long before he sang it; he’d been born dirt-poor in hilly eastern Mississippi, cast out by his mother and raised by an abusive great-uncle, and had finally escaped by hitching a ride on a train at age thirteen.The suffering of Wolf’s early life might have crushed a less resilient soul, and it certainly left its mark on him, but it also shaped his identity—the lone wolf, unable to depend on anyone. He did find some support and stability in the Delta—working as a sharecropper, reconnecting with his father, and meeting the legendary bluesman Charlie Patton. Patton taught the young Wolf to play guitar, and more importantly, became the role model he needed: a captivating showman whose live performances entranced the poor laborers, and lifted them to a better place.Wolf’s route out of the Delta was slow and circuitous; for years he farmed by day and sang by night. He met and played with other bluesman, including Robert Johnson; he played small towns throughout Mississippi, honing his craft not just as a guitar or harmonica player—his technical skills were not great compared to others—but as an irresistible and spellbinding performer, willing to sweat and shake and pour every bit of his soul into a performance, crawling across the bare wood floors of country juke joints to put on a show his audiences would never forget. By his late thirties, he made his way to the clubs of West Memphis, Arkansas, and got a radio show; eventually his reputation caused Sam Phillips—later to found Sun Records—to tune in. “When I heard Howlin’ Wolf,” Phillips later related, “I said, ‘This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.”Wolf was forty-one when he started cutting the records that would shape modern music. “God, what it would be worth to see the fervor in that man’s face when he sang,” Phillips said. “He cut everything out of his mind and sang with his damn soul.” He took that energy and passion with him to Chicago; unlike so many making the Great Migration, he did it not out of poverty and desperation, but in his own car, with folding money in his pocket, as a sharp career move. Perhaps because he’d worked so long to make it, he didn’t take success for granted; backed by an amazing band, he would never rest on their efforts but instead worked hard for every performance, making sure his audiences got their money’s worth.What did it cost? He left a failing marriage behind in the South, and a son named Floyd whom he wouldn’t see for twenty years. He was a big, physically intimidating man, and while he paid his musicians fairly and even set aside Social Security and unemployment for them, he wasn’t above getting in fistfights with them, and with rival bluesmen. (Nor was the violence an aberration—he’d allegedly murdered a man in his Mississippi Delta days.) He had reason to hate the religious people in his life—“his mother, the religious fanatic who cast him out, and his great-uncle, the church deacon who beat him with a whip”—and while later in life he said grace in public and said prayers next to his bed every night, the authors also note that, “at some level, Wolf really did feel that he’d sold his soul to the devil.” After his death, Floyd—miles away in Connecticut, with no knowledge of his father’s passing—thought he heard Wolf calling him from the kitchen, asking for water; Wolf's son, steeped in religious tradition, sensed his father was gone, and believed the request for water meant that he was hell-bound.Wolf’s soul continues to haunt us—in recordings his voice is still an emotive locomotive, as powerful as anything in music, sure to be listened to for all time. Is that enough of an afterlife? One has to wonder—for as much acclaim as he got, he still seemed dissatisfied near the end of his life, caught up in legal battles with the record company that made him famous, and with at least one of the massive rock bands that grew famous, in part, by stealing from him. And yet he was also a nice and decent and gracious man, happily married at last, a man who’d kept working to improve himself, and whose legacy of slow success through perseverance is an inspiration to all whose souls are weary. But still, his legacy is that voice, "his gift from God," in the words of one fellow bluesman; it was a lonely voice, but it still gives comfort to millions of souls, and it's hard to imagine a more divinely ordained outcome.I wanted another legend, to compete with Robert Johnson's—instead, with this book, I got something better. A complicated life reconstructed, a big man who sweated on stage and is resurrected on the page, functionally illiterate for much of his life but incredibly smart: one whose heart burned with emotion, and whose voice continues to cast that feeling into our souls any time we care to listen.

I have been working for 15 years on a biography of Alex "Rice" Miller AKA Sonny Boy Williamson II. During that time I have had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Jim Segrest and Mark Hoffman, probably more time than they spent together face-to-face in writing this amazing book.Understanding the poetry of the blues and truly understanding the unspoken motivations of those unique and passionate musicians who practice the art of playing and singing the blues is nearly impossible for most of us of the "white persuasion" What is ironic is that it takes an objective, caring and, frankly, obsessed researcher to both the view of an outsider to see behind the near-sighted and often disapproving family who lived with but never saw the artist who was on the road.In Wolf's case, he was probably the most loyal to his family and his wife of the blues giants. He studied accounting to make sure that he withhelf the appropriate amounts for taxes and unemployment insurance, he studied music theory until just before his death and he understood how to lead a band and build band loyalty.Like Robert Lockwood Jr., Wolf was a businessman striving to provide a comfortable life for his family.Muddy Waters was royalty, a prince or king, as a musician and a direct connection to the sources if carefully-mannered, Little Walter was highly-talented but out-of-control and Sonny Boy Williamson was (well, you will have to wait until that secret is revealed -- his friends, family and fans had no idea about his true story as opposed to the story he wanted them to know.My congratulations to Jim Segrest and Mark Hoffman; until I have the courage and discipline to finish my project as they did theirs, they are my heroes; they should be theirs and most importantly, they should be the heroes of Wolf's family who might notice the increase in their royalties his attention stimulated. Everyone thinks there is so much money in writing a book like this; they will be lucky if they break even but they deserve to earn the movie rights.Their book captures lightnin' in a bottle as much as Wolf's music told his story in a blues poetry not even he could have appreciated for lack of comparision.

My father love the novel, learning the backstory of Howling Wolf! Since he still listening to blues music, even in late 80s. His music collection: filled with mostly blues, and old school R&B/Soul genres!

liked everything about this book

I woul have like to know more aboutThe Led Zeppelin lawsuitThe recording of the London sessionsHow the Rolling stones managed to get a black man on national tv in 1964

Excellent research! Well put together! Loved it! It was great to get to know the private Wolf, as well as the more famous one.

One of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading. Blues all day! Highly recommend for all those who really want to know music.

Discovering Wolf as a young teen getting into the blues was a revelation, but the moment I closed the last page of this incredible story with a tear in my eye just solidified this giant of a man as one of those pillars of my personal council on how to live.That should also stand testament to the authors and their team, as this really is superlative biography at it's best. You find yourself IN the bars, IN the kitchens and standing in the fields as if you were really there. Thank you!But it's Wolf, the characters around him, the intertwining with modern pop culture and an underlying force of personality that really sinks into your soul. Still twinges that he's gone but when his legacy lives on in so many ways it's heartening. If there is a here-after I'm hunting this man down for one of those legendary handshakes.Go on, dive in...that bland cover belies an adventure unimagined.