The Story Behind the Photos

Part 5: Visit to Chicago,
late summer or early fall of 1969

Despite his “tail-dragger” stage persona and beyond his incredible creative talents, he was clearly a family man…sweet and caring, to friends and family alike, and very politically astute and conscious!

I visited Wolf in Chicago the next summer, his at home and his club, while driving through to New York City with a buddy in his slowww VW van. We showed up basically unannounced, as I’d called about 20 minutes before coming there. No problem! We’d been driving nearly non-stop for three days, with only one night’s rest somewhere, and Wolf’s wife Lillie almost immediately made us a fantastic breakfast, which I may still own fat cells from. During breakfast, Wolf offered me money, asking if I had enough for my trip to New York. Even though I was living unemployment check to unemployment check at that time, and would have loved some extra cash, I could not accept it from Wolf. He’d done so much for me already, and I didn’t even yet know how much. But even then, it was a lot. And the fact he’d offered is just more evidence of this man’s generosity and unconditional caring.

Next, I photographed Wolf and Lillie, and Wolf and his dogs, and also daughters Barbra and Bettye, who were themselves a lot of fun to “play photographer” with, especially Barbra, who showed me some radical model’s poses. The shots I got of Wolf with Lillie virtually radiate the tremendous love and partnership between them, beyond any words.

One of these pictures was used for Lillie’s funeral a while ago (which makes me both sad and yet proud to have taken it, and that it meant that much to the family - - or, actually, “captured” it, because with a photo like that it’s all one can do...see it, frame it, catch it.) It was for photos such as this and a few other subjects who’s intensity and my ability to connect to it and capture its energetic image that I later called my photography business not simply “Reflections Photography” but “Reflections of the Soul, Through a Glass Eye.”

My friend Patrick Bandler, with whom I’d been driving east (who was also a very good white Delta-style blues guitar player (whom I’d been drumming with in a short-lived latin flavored blues and blues rock band) was totally blown away that I could just “go visit Howling Wolf, “ dropping in “like that” and, much less, bring him along for the visit, and he seemed somewhat in “shock and awe” the whole time we were there.

Then, later that afternoon, with conversations done for the time being and photos taken, Barbra and Bettye took us on a driving tour all around Chicago. First we went to the North Side and then we even parked for a while on West Side where, occasionally getting some quizzical looks from some passers-by, we watched The Black Muslim’s First Annual Parade pass by. The actor known once as “Stepin Fetchit” threw a commemorative be-ribboned button and a whistle from a float, which I rushed out and recovered, and that was one of my first of about 3000 buttons that I’ve collected, mostly from that timeframe.

Later that same night, we went to see Wolf perform and also hung out with him and the band members at a small club he co-owned on West Roosevelt called “Key Largo.”

Finding this club…I drove around the neighborhood on the West Side for about half an hour, and as we circled around a few square blocks looking for the club and a place to park, there was the frequent and continuous sound of glass breaking in the background! I don’t think we were near any “recycling center” at the time.

At the club, after the band played a set, we bought them drinks, or maybe they bought US drinks, more likely so… most of the conversation we had there at that moment was about the violent or near-violent episodes that had happened to them lately on the West Side. One member mentioned how a guy had stuck a gun in his window to rob him when he stopped at a red light, and how he’d shown the stick-up guy HIS gun, saying, “Mine is bigger AND has dumdums in it” to dissuade him.

We had to leave directly for New York from the club, because Patrick had to meet his mother in New York as soon as possible, having arranged to take some job at her new nightclub. Wolf offered that we could spend the night at his place, and of course I hated to leave.

Earlier that day, in Wolf’s backyard and garage, we’d had a long conversation about society, racial and class disenfranchisement, social change, and more. I was very impressed by his awareness and humanism.

At some point he told me that he wanted his next song to be “about astronauts!” I commented that I wished the government would instead focus on equitably fixing some problems right here, and not waste money going to the moon, with such economic disparity in evidence. Wolf agreed, saying, “What do we need to go to the moon for, man? We’re not even growing enough corn here on earth to feed all the people!” I could tell he felt this deeply.

Then – as I’d him know at times that I was also a writer and had written some songs. (some published and recorded, since, with more pending, and... played harmonica on some) – well, this may sound more and more like a dream - - or, given that it never got to happen as planned, a nightmare - - but Wolf asked me to write him a song! about going to the moon, something involving astronauts. I said I would, and was really moved and honored again by his direct request and faith in my abilities.

It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life that I did not complete that task. I started writing it but it became hard for me. I was traveling, plus I had issues I was unaware of at the time that kept me from being all that disciplined. So at some point in the writing, this song I’d begun turned it into a more easily-created “political poem.” I planned to write a new one when I got back to California.

I returned to San Francisco 3 months later (after scaring crashers out of my vacant but rented apartment) and got back into college. Then… as I was young, and not wise at all about such things, I just “took for granted” that Wolf would be around forever, that I could always do that song, and that I could always just connect with him, whenever I needed to.

As many know, Wolf later recorded the intensely dynamic, anti-racist “Coon on the Moon.” (Yeah -- astronauts! And, hey -- political, too.)

I was going through a lot during these years, became very involved in grass-roots social change, community organizing, grad school, personal demons battling and growth, all at once, hell, maybe I still am. Ironically, at the time, and in some regards therefore sadly for so many as well as myself, I never gave a thought to my photos of Wolf being “worth anything” in any way to anyone BUT myself, for whom they were a rare, rich very personal emotionally-healing linkage with this great person and incomparable and influential blues legend. (How many times I heard his songs covered or his style copied without credit!)

I can only guess this was because those photos meant so much to me PERSONALLY, that therefore they seemed so solely personal in such ways that I simply didn’t consider their benefit to others who may value Wolf as an artist and person, much less their “commercial value”). But, of course, now I know otherwise.

© 2004 Sandy Guy Schoenfeld