The years after the Second World War were formative for America, especially for black America and the music it played and listened to. Black Americans moved to where there was work - and Chicago, with its steel mills and auto factories, was a major industrial center. A massive influx of labor was needed to maintain the hustle and bustle created by the war, and when they weren't working, they needed to be entertained. This gave rise to a number of venues that provided live music for the workers

Chester Burnett, also known as Howlin' Wolf, was a notable personality drawn to this musical magnet. An encounter with Delta blues legend Charlie Patton at the age of 18 led him to pick up the guitar, and when Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) married his half-sister, he learned to play harmonica. His boyhood idol was Jimmie Rodgers, but he tried unsuccessfully to imitate Rodgers' "blue yodel" singing style. I couldn't yodel," he told Rolling Stone magazine, "so I switched to howling. And that did me a lot of good.