From Publishers Weekly
This fluid, fascinating and thoroughly researched biography is a long overdue tribute to one of the two giants of post-WWII Chicago-style electric blues music. Music writers Segrest and Hoffman do a superb job of capturing the many facets of Wolf's long career, making it a worthy companion to Robert Gordon's recent book on the other Chicago blues giant, Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. But while Waters was controlled and sexy, Segrest and Hoffman show, in contrast, how Wolf was ferocious, angry and unpredictable, a large man with a powerful, raspy voice and a keen intelligence. Born Chester Burnett in Mississippi in 1910, Wolf, as the authors show, endured "crushing poverty" and almost constant physical abuse, the source of much of the anger in his music. The authors nicely detail the important musicians who influenced Wolf, from Charlie Patton, the acknowledged master of country blues who taught Wolf to play the guitar, to Reggie Boyd, the brilliant but obscure guitar teacher who encouraged Wolf's desire to expand his already enormous musical vision. Best of all, the authors wonderfully describe Wolf's inimitable style on the many recordings he made in Chicago for Chess Records, such as "Smokestack Lightnin," Wolf's masterpiece: "Over a hypnotic guitar figure and a driving rhythm that subtly accelerates like a locomotive, Wolf sang a field holler vocal, interspersed with falsetto howls like a dread lupine beast just down the road at midnight." Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Billed as the first full-length biography of Howlin' Wolf, the strapping (six-foot-three and 300 pounds) bluesman with the lyrical growl, this engrossing study is a must-have for blues-concerned collections and, indeed, a worthy acquisition for any pop music collection. The Wolf (Chester Burnett offstage) stands with Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker among the giants in the blues pantheon. A student of Charlie Patton and the first Sonny Boy Williamson, he rose from the poor sharecropper's life that was pretty much obligatory for blacks in Mississippi's Delta region to stardom in first Memphis and then Chicago. He helped define the blues sound that many of the English-invasion rock bands of the 1960s based their styles on. A worthy shelf mate for Robert Gordon's Muddy Waters biography, Can't Be Satisfied (2002), Segrest and Hoffman's book is a distinctive survey of the Wolf's life and career and a valuable blues history resource in general by virtue of its limning of many of the Wolf's fellow bluesmen--Little Walter, Willie Dixon, and others. Down-home, gritty, and comprehensive. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“He was one of a kind. Nobody I heard before him or after him has had that fantastic delivery–that certain something in his voice that seemed like a sword that’d pierce your soul when he’d sing. Wolf was already a great singer and musician when I first met him. To my mind, he’s one of the greatest ever. We’ll never see another like him.”
–From the introduction by B. B. King

“Talk about best-kept secrets! There are no rumors in this book–not a one. It says everything there is to say about the Wolf. I’ve been looking for this one for a long, long time.”
–Taj Mahal

"Things folks have done in the dark are going to come out in the light. Nobody else has ever dug up what these guys have found–and it’s right.”
–Hubert Sumlin

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Howlin' Wolf was a musical giant in every way. He stood six foot three, weighed almost three hundred pounds, wore size sixteen shoes, and poured out his darkest sorrows onstage in a voice like a raging chainsaw. Half a century after his first hits, his sound still terrifies and inspires." "Born Chester Burnett in 1910, the Wolf survived a grim childhood and hardscrabble youth as a sharecropper in Mississippi. He began his career playing and singing with the first Delta blues stars for two decades in perilous juke joints. He was present at the birth of rock 'n' roll in Memphis, where Sam Phillips - who also discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis - called Wolf his "greatest discovery." He helped develop the sound of electric blues and vied with rival Muddy Waters for the title of king of Chicago blues. He ended his career performing and recording with the world's most famous rock stars. His passion for music kept him performing - despite devastating physical problems - right up to his death in 1976." There's never been a comprehensive biography of the Wolf until now. Moanin' at Midnight is full of information about his mysterious early years, and entertaining stories about his decades at the top, and never-before-seen photographs. It strips away all the myths to reveal - at long last - the real-life triumphs and tragedies of this blues titan.

FROM THE CRITICS

David Gates - The New York Times

… this book offers more than enough information to satisfy anyone who loves the music, and it might tantalize some of the uninitiated into seeking out Wolf's scary, magisterial recordings.

Publishers Weekly

This fluid, fascinating and thoroughly researched biography is a long overdue tribute to one of the two giants of post-WWII Chicago-style electric blues music. Music writers Segrest and Hoffman do a superb job of capturing the many facets of Wolf's long career, making it a worthy companion to Robert Gordon's recent book on the other Chicago blues giant, Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. But while Waters was controlled and sexy, Segrest and Hoffman show, in contrast, how Wolf was ferocious, angry and unpredictable, a large man with a powerful, raspy voice and a keen intelligence. Born Chester Burnett in Mississippi in 1910, Wolf, as the authors show, endured "crushing poverty" and almost constant physical abuse, the source of much of the anger in his music. The authors nicely detail the important musicians who influenced Wolf, from Charlie Patton, the acknowledged master of country blues who taught Wolf to play the guitar, to Reggie Boyd, the brilliant but obscure guitar teacher who encouraged Wolf's desire to expand his already enormous musical vision. Best of all, the authors wonderfully describe Wolf's inimitable style on the many recordings he made in Chicago for Chess Records, such as "Smokestack Lightnin," Wolf's masterpiece: "Over a hypnotic guitar figure and a driving rhythm that subtly accelerates like a locomotive, Wolf sang a field holler vocal, interspersed with falsetto howls like a dread lupine beast just down the road at midnight." Agent, Sandra Choron. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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