smokestack lightning
i've been meaning to do this for a while -- have i already done it? i don't remember, but i'm doing it again, anyway. transcripts of the four "howlin' wolf talks" tracks on the chessbox sets. --- obviously denotes things where i just can't tell what he's saying




how i'd i start to make records? it was ------ on the plantation and uh, a man come through there picking the guitar called charley patton, and i likeded his sound. so i always did wanna play the guitar. so i got him to show me a few chords, you know, and so - every night that i'd get off work i'd go over to his house and he'd learn me how to pick the guitar. so i got good with it, so i went out for myself, and i got out there and everything was great, seeing that peoples went for what i was putting down. and i decided that uh, i would play. so i asked my father to get me a guitar. nineteen twenty-eight, the fifteenth day of january, he went and got me a guitar. and uh, i started picking the guitar first, then along come sonny boy with the harp, rice miller, then he learned me how to blow the harp. then i went to playing from there. and i been playing ever since - i played all through arkansas, mississippi, louisiana, alabama, and uh, and round in kentucky and places. but uh, i never was uh, in texas, but i played all over the cotton-belt country, you know. so that's what started me to playing the blues. then i had a woman once, she was kinda nice to me, she pulled off and left me, and that give me the blues sure enough. i went to howling like a dog ever since, you know what i mean.

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my grandfather give me that name, before he died. john jones, his home was at ---- mississippi, he give me that name. he used to sit down and tell me tall stories about what the wolf would do, because i was a bad boy, you know, i was always in devilment. so he'd sit down and tell me about what the wolf would do. so he'd tell me the story about how the wolf done to little red riding hood, y'know. every time he would uh, every time the girl would ask 'mr wolf, what make your teeth so big?' he said 'the better i can eat you, my dear.' then he said 'what make your eyes so red?' 'the better i can see you, my dear.' and so you know, and then they finally kill the wolf. and he drove me up to the house, you know, and showed me the wolf, and i thought it was a dog. he said 'no, that's a wolf.' and i said 'well what do a wolf do?' and he said 'it howl', he said '[blues howl]'. you know, and so i got afraid of this wolf, y'know, and every time i'd kill some of my mother's chickens she'd say '[same howl]' so that it'd scare me, you know, and it made me mad, and this is why they're calling me wolf. and i gets mad about this so they just kept on calling me wolf and i got to this place where i don't care what they call me, they can call me penny if they want, you know what i mean. but at first i was afraid of the wolf - oh i was three years old, you know, when they started calling me wolf. and ever since, because you know how it is, some people, y'know, when they find out you get mad about something they always slip that in. and then wolf, you know, and it upset me. i didn't know it was going to be a great name.

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well i'd just be in the field plowing, you know, and songs come to me, you know, and everything. what smokestack lightning mean is a train, you know, that uh, burn and runs on the rails, you know. and a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people. s'got a little smokestack about that long. [interviewer talking about 'i asked for water (she gave me gasoline)'] i asked the woman for some water. well she was mad with me, when she brought me it, yeah. well what i mean, you see, she said well i'll kick your [meaningful noise] but i had to put it 'she gave me gasoline', you know. [chuckle] that's when i stayed out all night, you know what i mean, running around with some other broads, you know. and i come in and say 'baby, would you give me a drink of water' and she meant uh, you know, but i, i said smokestack lightning, i ask for water, you know.

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my reputation is too high to let somebody drag me with the weed. i'll take a drink of whiskey, but long as the day i live you'll never hear tell of me fooling with no cigarettes, you know, something that ain't good for me. police catch me, then they gonna write a big story, 'the wolf chained the moon, pulled the stars down, and i think he had the shining pain', you know what i mean, that hurts me. [laughing]