LGM Film Club, Part 62: Howlin’ Wolf

I’ve been reading Ted Gioia’s Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music. I’ll talk a bit more about the book next time I have a Music Notes post. One story in the book is that Howlin’ Wolf appeared on a television show exactly one time, when the Rolling Stones were asked to appear on Shindig, an ABC show, in 1965. They agreed on the condition that the show also have either Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf on. The show went for the latter. And even though Howlin’ Wolf put on about the most conservative performance of his career, it was still too way too wild for network executives, who found the giant of a man shaking his finger at the camera and gyrating his hips way too suggestive and threatening. But hell, Wolf in a regular show would do thing like shake up a bottle of Coke, put it in his pants, and then take the cap off, spraying the audience. So…he was quite the performer. Anyway, here’s the performance.