Artist: Howlin' Wolf
Author: Chester Burnett
Label: Chess
Year: 1959

Recorded in '56. He remembered the raging fire in 1940 in the Rhythm Club, a black shack in Natchez, MS taking more than 200 lives, including half of the line-up on the bandstand that evening, including leader Walter Barnes. The fire was short but intense, spread in a flash across the spanish moss decorating the ceiling, causing panic at the gates which were all locked or blocked. A few days after the disaster the first thematical songs popped up: by The Lewis Bronzeville Five (Mississippi Fire Blues and Natchez Mississippi Blues), Leonard 'Baby Doo' Caston (The Death Of Walter Barnes) and Gene Gilmore (The Natchez Fire). Howlin' Wolf who knew some of the victims personally, at least was respectful enough to wait another 16 years before coming up with his account.