A brief history of Wolfman
According to legend, Wolfman lived the first 5 years of his life with a Wolf pack in the Great Plains of the U.S.A. during the 1940's. After having been abandoned by the Wolves, a small hairy creature was found scavenging through waste bins behind a general store on the Sioux reservation, and as American Indians revered the Wolf, the Lakota Sioux adopted him.
The tribal shaman taught him well and told fantastic tales from native Indian folklore. Wolfman grew to value his surrogate family, living on his wits and cunning being second nature to him, he had distant echoes of living with Wolves.
In time, the call of the wild beckoned and he left the stability of the reservation and he scratched a living by busking, playing a guitar he had fashioned from an old petrol can. However, his physical appearance and wild behaviour seemed to have had an adverse effect on the local population and for many years he lived a feral life, shunned by society.
Wolfman drifted South, he had a deep affinity with the Blues and the Mississippi Delta area seemed to suit him. Although his incredibly hairy appearance and distinctive smell made him few friends, there was grudging respect for this wild man from nowhere. He sat in on gigs with local musicians, his gruff vocals and unique songs gaining him many fans along the way.
British Blues/Rock band Stoned Deaf, touring in 2012, heard Wolfman playing in a 'Juke Joint' near Memphis and were determined to get this ageing Blues legend recorded for posterity. Offered a change of clothes and a bottle of whiskey, Wolfman agreed to co-write one song with the band. 'Hey You!' is a protest Blues/Rap and the lyrics reflect his abhorrence for technology, the modern world being an anathema to him. The song features his haunting howls and unique guitar licks and was a digital release in 2015.
Never easy to get along with, Wolfman was a solitary and difficult creature often 'lashing out' in confined spaces. With his alcohol dependency, wild mood swings and the fact that he wasn't housetrained, there were many sticky situations in his company. He disappeared shortly after finishing the recording, breaking up the studio in a wild drunken rage and storming out into the woods, howling.
Nobody knows if Wolfman is still alive but his legacy lives on with recently unearthed tapes containing 4 songs written by Wolfman - 12 Bar Blues - I Cry Wolf - I'm A Wolf - World Blues - crudely recorded but capturing his essence. This amazing discovery is believed to be the missing link between the indigenous American Indians and Blues music.
The songs are to be released sometime in 2017 on Vinyl, the format which Wolfman would have been proud to share his music on. The history of the Blues will have to be re written.