Blues singer Lee “Little Howlin’ Wolf” Solomon always seemed a bit too mild for his nickname. The original Howlin’ Wolf, Chester Arthur Burnett, had stood nearly six and a half feet tall and weighed almost 300 pounds–in Peter Guralnick’s book Lost Highway, bluesman Johnny Shines admits that when he first met Burnett in 1932 he was afraid of him, “like you would be of some kind of beast.”
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Sometimes Solomon would sing lyrics from two or three different songs to a single melody, mixing and matching with a recklessness that sounded free associative, and between verses he added his trademark non sequiturs: “I ain’t kiddin’ ya!” or “Where’s my woman?” or “Where’s my money?” (which sometimes turned into a breathless chant of “money, money, money, money-money-money-moneymoneymoneymoneymoney!”).
According to Solomon’s widow, Eula, he was already imitating “old man Wolf” when she met him at a west-side blues club more than three decades ago. (She used to join him onstage under the name Brown Sugar, but she hasn’t sung in years.) She says he and Burnett would sometimes even share bills, and she’s got a photo of the two of them to prove it–Solomon in a bushy Afro, Burnett stolid and imposing in a striped shirt. In those days Solomon “sounded just like” Wolf, Eula insists. “If you were outside and one of ’em was on the inside, you couldn’t tell them apart hardly. When they’d get up and sing they used to tease each other–[Burnett] would tease him, like he comin’ behind him singing and all that stuff.
Solomon never entirely abandoned the club scene, though, and even after he’d become frighteningly gaunt he’d occasionally show up at one of his old haunts, like Bossman Blues Center on West Lake. If he felt up to it he’d let the band call him to the stage, where he’d reprise one of his old routines.
They’ll have the chance to do just that at a tribute to Solomon this Friday and Saturday at Bossman Blues Center. James will be out of town, but Carl Norington, Solomon’s bassist, will play in the backing band; the roster of singers includes Willie D., Bobby Too Tough, Z.Z. Hill Jr., Foxy Lady (who covers a few Wolf tunes her-self on the self-released She’s Howlin), and longtime west-side Wolf imitator Tail Dragger.
Price: Donation requested
