...the coolest truth..

...in remembrance of Little Howlin' Wolf...

CansaFis Foote

Sep 21, 2023

**…this week we are taking a break from our previously scheduled programming (****The Ballad of Footeastman’s final episodes will play out in the coming weeks**) to briefly celebrate the lives of a great buddy of mine who passed over the weekend. Wolf and I shared hundreds of voicemails over the past 20 years but had only dozens of conversations and saw each other only a handful of times. It is cliche at this point but do yourself a favor and call whomever you intuit to, whenever you intuit to and share some time and care. I can look back with fondness at all of the interactions we had but I can never look forward to new moments with him. Don’t miss that opportunity with your wolf….

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**…all photos for this piece are sourced from other places on the internet and/or handed off by friends…all music linked to is written and performed by Little Howlin’ Wolf…**

“Where is your soul? It is in your feet man.”

-Little Howlin’ Wolf-

It was of no great cosmic insignificance to me that in this year 2023 that I would find myself celebrating the birth of myself by witnessing for the first time a performance of a 70+ year old band (The Sun Ra Arkestra) fronted by a 99 year old saxophonist (Marshall Allen), only to have this pyrotechnic celebration of life and space followed soon thereafter by news that my good friend, one James Pobiega (aka Little Howlin’ Wolf) had passed away on a reading chair at the age of 70+ years old. My ecstatic high of seeing one of the greatest living bands was encored by this sobering loss.

**…me and the Wolf sharing slices and serious faces in the year 2022…**

Things can be both true and not true at the same time. Wolf was old. Well, old enough to pass on from this gravity orb and pass onto the sidewalks and alleys he filled with his booming baritone howl and shouting alto saxophones. But Wolf was also young. He was a towering 6’7” hulk of a man still entertaining dreams of playing football in Joliet, and when he still felt good, carrying his sax downtown to the Chicago street corners and laying out a lifetime’s worth of original songs he wrote. Spirit is ageless.

I can’t remember the first time I met Wolf. His presence and being is so large that it overshadows the beginnings and endings of our knowing each other. You ever meet someone who becomes a brother, a father, a friend and an inspiration over the course of a handshake? Wolf’s bear mitts shook my soul like I had just met a caveman version of god sent to earth to teach me how to make fire.

Wolf was the type of guy you didn’t need to start anywhere with because he had already finished ages ago. Hanging with him you just needed to kick back your mind’s rocking chair and listen to his rap. Wolf made noise. Whether he was talking or singing or just walking into a room he was the type of presence you couldn’t ignore, because frankly he wouldn’t allow it.

Wolf was the type of man who tells a story over and over again, each time repeating the same beats and broad outlines, but with tiny moments trickling in on each retell that twist it from some unprovable myth into an unbelievable tall tale. If you hung out with Wolf then you no doubt found out at some point that he tore down the Berlin Wall, captained a boat on the Mississippi, and he helped Nancy Reagan bust John Wayne Gacy. Wolf fought a gang of twenty ninjas, wrote Bad to the Bone (and the entire Bone Symphony — p.s. George Thorogood, if you are reading this, give the man the fricking credit he deserves already) and told Steely Dan to call him Deacon Blue before they went ahead and wrote a song about him. He could have stopped 9/11, made an earthquake happen in central Illinois, helped Whitney Houston get started with free jazz, and he once thwarted a child trafficking operation at a motorcycle bar in his hometown of Justice, IL.

**…how do you tell a tall tale about a man who is 6’7”?...**

One of our first hangouts Wolf asked me what I liked to eat. I told him I was a vegetarian and he barbecued us burnt chicken. We smoked some weed in his garage and played blues while he yelled for his parents to stop telling us to turn down. He was in his 60’s, I was in my 20’s and we were both acting like troublesome teenagers. Afterwards his parents pulled out stacks of newspapers and magazines and proudly showed me pictures and written proof of all the stories he had told me earlier that day.

Wolf had been everywhere. I brought him to live with me for a week in Oakland and he spent his mornings running to the docks and seeing folks and places he had played for decades before. When you are timeless, time stands still for you. Moments become unlocked houses, ready for you to enter and stay the night whenever you need to.

Wolf spent a large majority of his life living on and playing the streets. First in Chicago, then in Canada, then in Europe and then back in Chicago again. You can hear those streets in his music. Hell, you can hear those streets and the alleys and the rivers, forests and lakes. Wolf’s music is like an ancient radio station tuning rock formations to the source melody of all creation. He was sonically without genre, though most of his songs were blues or tribal rooted. Singing with the grumble of a fictional lumberjack, Wolf’s songs stretch out and shrink as the sun plays out its day’s path casting shadows on anything tall enough to stand in its way.

Wolf was self taught and self made. Depending on who you asked he was either gifted his name by another blues musician, or he was named after Beowulf because of his towering stature. During our first hangout he told me he got the name after smoking sticks and meeting with the wolves who lived on the prairie hills behind his home.

He played nearly every instrument, and often all of them at once. After making me and my roommates homemade Chicago style deep dish pizza he grabbed a trio of horns in his mouth, and a couple of flutes in his nose, and proceeded to play us five wind instruments at once. For an encore he added a guitar and belted out a song about an old flame named Blubber [lyrics: Blubber…she’s too fat for me…bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-blubbber…].

Out of respect to Wolf’s comedy let me just say that I barely understood half of his jokes. One of his best bits was when he would squint his eyes and in a high pitch squeal pretend to be a man named Lenny from somewhere I had never heard of. I’m not even sure what the joke was but it was funny.

Wolf wasn’t only a wolf. You could have also have gotten to know him as Buccaneer Bob, Papa Doc, Bo Tom Ed, The Shadow Drifter or Mr. Power Shaker. He took on new names and personas to costume all the acts he performed on the earth, from Scuba Diver to Pirate to Shaman, from Hick to Folkster and Bluesman. He was unlimited ideas played through the brass of endless life energies harmonized to travel time.

Wolf always asked me how the playing was going. He loved playing. He loved making music and making sure I was helping do the same thing for the world. And while we jammed a few times throughout the years, I was never quite able to hit that same frequency he frequented. Wolf was so singular in sound that anything I added felt like a missed opportunity to just listen. The last time we got together to jam we just shared some stories and laughs instead.

To hang with Wolf was the truth, his nomadic artistry allows us to gaze at the unsullied and honest freedom we used to print papers with. He was an outlaw pinned to a pole with no ransom offered. A vision of how life can be lived if you end the lie that someone knows more than you. Wolf did though. He knew enormous amounts of all existent possibilities and carried that into his essence, devouring each opportunity to live life’s play as its front and center star.

Wolf wasn’t shiny. Wolf’s light was the dim smoky alley lamp of a jazz club only open after official drinking hours were done. He was a dusty skipping coin hitting the velvet case of a guitar long since lost. And like that coin he can never be truly spent. Sure he will exchange hands and moments for good and gifts amongst all the strangers who might meet him, but the perfect silty spark and shape that he possessed can only be seen by those who take the time to take him out of their pockets and hold him in their hand.

Wolf howled and haunted the streets of the world, fifty personas preaching and seeking the peace of the true earth. The physical earth, all dirt, mud and rock under our feet. Not the melting idea of one cursing the current collective mind. Maybe that was one of Wolf’s greatest presents (presence?). He was always here, grounded in the now of the moment, settled in the spirit and history of the past and guiding us safely to tomorrow.

The shadow is never going to drift and set on Wolf because his sun shines too bright. Wolf played music like it was a joke so serious you couldn’t laugh at it too long or you would miss the punchline. Maybe the joke is on me because I’m not going to be able to catch it anymore. Though I guess that is why we record the things we make. The physical medium of us is where we can be found eternally. If you want to find Wolf, well, he is right there waiting for you whenever you want to enjoy his mighty love.

Wolf registered all his music with the library of congress and you can find originals and repressings of his songs and albums at various vendors across the internet. I could write a million more words about the man but I mostly think you should just take the time to give him a listen and hear what he has to say. Wolf lived a thousand lives in his life, and I’m guessing he’ll live a few thousand more as time moves on.

Rest in power sweet brother.