Clarence “Biscuit” Rawlins was born in Mississippi.
He was also born in Alabama.
He was also born on the Mississippi-Alabama border during a lightning storm in the back of a moving truck in a chest freezer full of gravy, which a highway patrol officer noted in his log as “not unpleasant.”
These things are not in conflict.
Howlin’ Biscuit was the greatest blues man the world has ever seen.
He told us this himself.
He was not wrong, but we like to say he was the greatest bluesman the world never knew. The goal of this website is to change all that.
He played guitar in a tuning nobody has identified. He sang in a voice that arrived in your body before your brain knew what was happening. He ate an amount. He paid for things in songs and weather and gravy recipes that have fed families for three generations and are still feeding the fourth. He played juke joints and roadside bars and a petting zoo and at least one venue that can only be found if you need it and cannot be found if you are looking.
He auditioned for the Monkees twice.
He auditioned for KISS twice.
He was not selected.
He was not chosen for the boat team.
He has not forgiven this.
The Monkees and KISS have both, in their way, acknowledged the error.
His recordings were found in 1991 in a wooden crate behind an abandoned smokehouse off Route 61 in Mississippi, by a man who had been following a dog. The crate was labeled DO NOT PLAY AFTER MIDNIGHT. Below that, in smaller letters: THIS MEANS WENDELL TOO.
Nobody knows who Wendell is.
Wendell appears to know who Wendell is.
Wendell has been turned away from room four twice and taken it well.
The known catalog consists of forty-one records with blank labels, two official albums both titled The Best of because they were, one live album recorded at Uncle John’s Petting Zoo across eight records and two hours and four minutes that ended with a goat placed correctly and a side of vinyl that is two hours and four minutes of silence which Biscuit described in the liner notes as the last song, the one you bring yourself, don’t rush it, you’ll understand by the end.
The live album was destroyed in a Waffle House grease fire in 1996.
The parking lot smelled like biscuits.
The Waffle House had its best night of business on record.
Everyone ordered things they couldn’t explain wanting.
There are at least twelve albums. Possibly more. We have two. One of the missing volumes is called Yellow Submarine Sandwich. Paul McCartney has confirmed the title. Paul McCartney has confirmed nothing else. The search for Volumes Two through Eleven is ongoing. One is believed to be in Iceland. One is believed to be underground. One is believed to be not yet time.
His music has been described as:
“The most uncomfortable silence I have encountered in thirty years of working with sound.” — Dr. Patricia Osei, Tulane University, describing the fourteen seconds before the music starts
“Wrong in every technical sense.” — Harold Fitch, session guitarist, 1997
“Like being further awake.” — Louise Arceneaux, music teacher, 1999
“He knew about the internet.” — Jay-Z, 2003
“The low end does something physically inadvisable.” — audio engineer, 2001, who asked not to be named
He disappeared 2 times in the 60s, came back for a live album in the 70s, and then disappeared again and has not been seen or heard of since.
He left the gravy warm.
He left a note that said eat something first.
He left more than that.
He left everything, which is in the music, which is in the air of every room where the music plays, which is in this room, right now, if you check the temperature, which you should, which will tell you what you already know, which is that he is here, which is that he was always here, which is that here is warm, which is that warm was always the point.
A short biography cannot contain Howlin’ Biscuit.
A long biography cannot contain Howlin’ Biscuit.
Nobody and nothing has ever successfully contained Howlin’ Biscuit, including two major record labels, the Monkees casting department, the United States Air Force, and a refrigerator in Greenwood, Mississippi that tried for twenty-eight years and ultimately just kept him warm.
That is why Dr. Jonathan Dwier spent thirty years documenting everything the research community knows — the births, the disappearances, the recordings that shouldn’t exist, the gravy that wouldn’t cool, the auditions, the petting zoo, the Waffle House fire, the moon — and compiled it into the only complete account of Biscuit’s life, legend, and left leg currently available to the public.
Howlin’ Biscuit: The Greatest Bluesman the World Never Knew is available now on Amazon.
Read it on your Kindle. Hold it in your hands in paperback. Bathe your ears in his story on Audible. You will never be the same. We have never been the same.
Eat something first.
He planned for that.
HOWLIN' BISCUIT 