Chester Arthur Burnett was born in White Station, Mississippi, on June 10, 1910, to Gertrude Jones and Leon “Dock” Burnett. He would later claim that his father was “Ethiopian,” whereas Jones’ father was Choctaw.
He was named after Chester A. Arthur, the United States 21st President. As a young man, his physique earned him the nicknames “Big Foot Chester” and “Bull Cow”: he stood 6 feet 3 inches (191 cm) tall and weighed close to 300 pounds (136 kg).
Burnett’s maternal grandfather, John Jones, would chastise him for killing his grandmother’s chicks from reckless squeezing by warning him that wolves in the area would come and get him; the family would laugh. According to blues historian Paul Oliver, Burnett once claimed that his idol Jimmie Rodgers gave him his nickname.
When Burnett was a year old, his parents divorced. Dock, who had previously worked as a seasonal farm laborer in the Mississippi Delta, relocated there permanently, while Jones and Burnett relocated to Monroe County.
Jones and Burnett sang in the choir of the Life Boat Baptist Church near Gibson, Mississippi, and Burnett later claimed that she gave him his musical talent. Jones kicked Burnett out of the house as a child during the winter for unknown reasons. He then went to live with his great-uncle Will Young, who had a large family and treated him poorly.
How much did Howlin Wolf weigh?
He stood over six feet three inches tall and weighed 275 pounds.
