My asshole stepfather (who voted for George Wallace in '68, if you're still alive out there die you vile prick) never had much to say about the Beatles but the site of the Stones on our b&w tv would send him into a red faced drunken Irish rage. "Dope fiends"! It was the first time I'd ever heard of dope. But I knew, from that moment that some day I'd be a dope fiend. Anything that made him mad had to be good.
Anyway, it was because of this cameo I picked up on Howlin' Wolf and even got my grandmother to buy me his Evil album for Christmas the next year, setting off another life long obsession--- old blues records. Seeing this clip now brings all that back, but I never realized that James Burton, star of Dale Hawkins' "Suzi Q" and many Ricky Nelson, Bob Luman, Elvis, Gram Parsons, Merle Haggard, etc. hits was backing up the Wolf. He sure sound good, no? It's a bit of a long clip but it reminds me of just how the right bit of stimuli could change a kid's life. I knew I'd never have a 9-5 job or house and family in the suburbs as soon as that first door to another world was cracked open just an inch. If you watch the whole clip there's a funny Righetous Brothers ripoffs doin' a pretty cool version "Work With Me Annie", them I don't remember.
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