Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Howlin’ Wolf performing Killing Floor.
CD Review
Chess Blues Guitar: The Chess 50th Anniversary Edition: Two Decades Of Killer Fretwork, 1949-1969, various artists, 2 CD set, Chess Records, 1998
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a good woman on your mind, all curves and cuddles, all be my daddy, daddy, build for comfort not for speed just like your daddy, your real daddy, not your long gone daddy just now serving a stretch, a nickel’s worth for armed robbery up in Joliet for some Southside heist that went sour, hell, you told long gone daddy that guns didn’t make the play any better but long gone was just a little too long gone on that twinkle dust and so when Danville Slim called the shots, long gone was long gone, told you about when you were knee high and needing instruction about who, and who not, to mess with when you got your wanting habits on. (Stay away from big women, like the song, the blue blue blue song says, don’t forget, they will wear you out, ditto, long thin gals with wanderlust eyes, and twinkle dust noses, itching, checking out every daddy, every daddy that came by her eyes, flashing five dollars bills and another twinkle line, ditto, god’s girls, Sunday morning moaners, smelling of gin, washtub gin, and juke joint slashes, some mean mama cut her up when she wrong- eyed mean mama’s daddy, now Sunday looking for, can you believe it, forgiveness, and trick, getting it, stick with curves and cuddles, an easy rider, she’ll treat you right and no heavy overhead, and no damn where have you been daddy questions.
She, Miss Lucy she, all cuddles and curves she, an easy rider, yah, a sweet and low easy rider, to make a man, well, to make a man, so far away, so far from uptown downtown Chi town, far down in sweaty delta Mississippi, maybe still in Clarksville like you left her that night, that moonless 1942 night, when you had to break-out from delta sweats, from working sunup to blasted sundown for no pay, for chits, Christ what are you supposed to do with company chits when you had your Miss Lucy wanting habits on, needed, no craved, some of Sonny Boy’s honey liquor, from the Mister on his ten thousand acre cotton boll plantation (selling every last boll too, good or bad, to the U.S. Army, for, for what else, uniforms), and strips from the Captain, for, for sassing, and grab that bus, that underground bus, out on Highway 61, and head, yah, head north following the north star, following the migrant trail up-river. Maybe a quick stop at Memphis to see if any of the guys, B.B. (no, not the one you are thinking of), the Slim, Delta Dark, Bobby Be-Bop, Big Joe, Muddy (yes, that Muddy slumming down river and on the low from some Chi town wench whose man was looking, knife looking for the guy who messed with his baby and left her blue, real blue. True Muddy story.) and if not straight to Chi town and work, work in the hog butcher to the world, work in the Casey steel driving hammering foundry to the world , work in the grain elevator to the world, work in the farm machinery equipment factory to the world , good, steady, sweaty work, five day work and done, five day work, maybe overtime, glad-handed overtime on Saturday, and done, no Captain’s strips, except maybe some rough Irish cop night stick but, mainly, just hell work, and then off to bumbling squalid three decker hovel, overcrowded, over-priced, under heated, damn, nothing but a cold water flat with about six different nationalities chattering on the fetid Maxwell connected streets.
Home, home long enough to turn overalls, sweated blue overalls, into Saturday be-bop blues master, all silk shirt, about five colors, blue blue, green green sun yellow, deep magenta, some violent purple, all fancy dance pants, all slick city boy now shoes (against that po’ boy Clarksville no shoe night to make daddy, real daddy cry, and mama too), topped by a soft felt hat, de riguer for Saturday prances. For a while singing and playing, he, mainly playing that on fire(electric) guitar first learned from daddy, real daddy, down the delta when he was from hunger and he and daddy Saturday juked for whiskey drinks (for daddy) and sodas and ribs for him, for nickels and dimes with his long gone daddy (gone daddy previously mentioned tired of nickels and thus plugging an ironic nickel’s worth) out behind Maxwell Street(only the prime guys, the guys Chess, or Ace, Or Decca, or, some race label were interested in, for a while, got to play the big street, the big attention, the big sweep, everybody else behind for nickels and maybe an off-hand stray piece, a joy girl they called them, hell he called them when he had his wanting habits on, not all black or mixed either, a few white joys looking for negro kicks, looking for kicks before Forest Lawn stockbrokers, or futures traders make their claims, looking over the new boys in order to say that they had that, had that before they headed out to Maxwell Street glare or sweet home, yah, sweet home Joliet. And Miss Lucy waited, waited down in some lonesome Clarksville crossroad, dust rolling in, sun beginning to rest, watching the daily underground bus heading north, north to her Johnny Blaze, Johnny quick on that amped-up guitar and the stuff of dreams.
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a bad woman on your mind, a woman walking in your place of work, your stage, your Carousel Club, you just trying to get that damn guitar weapon, baby, mama, sugar, main squeeze, in tune, the one just off of Maxwell Street, mecca, with her walking daddy, eyeing you that first minute, big blond blue eyes, and even walking daddy can feel the heat coming off her, animal heat mixed up with some Fifth Avenue perfume bought by the ounce , feel that he was going to spend the night on a knife’s edge. The Carousel Club got a mix, got a mix on Friday nights when the be-bop crazy white girls, not all big blond blue eyes but also mixed, decided that be-bop jazz, their natural stomping grounds, over at places like the Kit Kat Club was just too tame for their flaming 1950s appetites and so they went slumming, slumming with a walking daddy, a black as night walking daddy, make no mistake in tow just in case, in case knives came into play.
She had her fix on him, her and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now that it looked like that damn rock and roll, that damn Elvis took all the out of any other kind of music had run its course.
Then it started, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his superb playing on Look Yonder Wall according to Millie th e waitress, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying, walking daddy was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and still finishing up his nickel at Joliet. She makes her way to the stage as the first set ends. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in htta polite way they have been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition of Mean Mistreatin’Mama , and left it at that.
She had her fix on him, her and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now that it looked like that damn rock and roll, that damn Elvis took all the out of any other kind of music had run its course.
Then it started, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his superb playing on Look Yonder Wall according to Millie th e waitress, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying, walking daddy was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and still finishing up his nickel at Joliet. She makes her way to the stage as the first set ends. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in htta polite way they have been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition of Mean Mistreatin’Mama , and left it at that.
After work she was waiting for him out in back, he nodded at her, she pointed at her car, a late model, and they were off. They didn’t surface again for a week. The blues is…
