Bluesman Willie Dixon Dies; Songs Shaped Rock ‘n’ Roll

Willie Dixon, whose ribald riffs, earthy humor and street-tough lyrics permeated an array of melodies performed by artists ranging from Mose Allison to the Rolling Stones to Elvis Presley, died Wednesday.

The artist--destined from boyhood to be called “Big Willie” because of his girth--was 76 and died at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank of heart failure.

He had been in deteriorating health and had been in and out of the hospital since June, said hospital spokeswoman Patty Starkey.

A family friend, Mary Katherine Aldin, added that he had long suffered from complications of diabetes.

With such colorful phrases as “I’m drinkin’ TNT, smokin’ dynamite/I hope some screwball starts a fight,” Dixon’s bawdy lyrics and rocking music played a singular, preeminent role in creating the urban blues style that became so meaningful to rock ‘n’ roll.

Although he had appeared in public infrequently in recent years, not a single day could have passed in the last four decades in which several of his classics were not heard by thousands of blues lovers somewhere.

Such songs as “Back Door Man,” “Spoonful,” “Little Red Rooster,” “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” “My Babe,” “I Can’t Quit You Baby” and “The Seventh Son” were in constant play on radio stations.

Dixon said even he was unable to keep up with who had recorded his songs.

“I can’t listen to all the people that do my songs or I won’t have time to write,” he told The Times last June shortly before a performance at the Pacific Amphitheater in Costa Mesa.

He was unaware, for example, that a group as famous as the Doors had recorded his “Back Door Man.”

“Little Red Rooster” was recorded by the Rolling Stones and the Doors; “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” by Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters; “My Babe” by Presley and the Everly Brothers; and “I Can’t Quit You Baby” by Led Zeppelin and Otis Rush.

His extensive song list also included “Bring It on Home,” “Born Too Late,” “Wang Dang Doodle,” “Insane Asylum,” “You Shook Me,” “My Hoodoo Doctor,” and “Violent Love” (recorded by Oingo Boingo).

Many produced changes in the basic blues format.

“People used to brand the blues as just a 12-bar music; but you can’t give a complete story in those 12 bars and have a decent beginning or ending,” he said in 1983.

“When I started to make up songs out of various terms I had, I couldn’t get all the words in. I had to change it around and make the song longer by putting a four-bar introduction and eight bars of music to the same old blues pattern.”

The bassist and singer, whose raspy voice was featured on such albums as “Hidden Charms,” a 1988 Grammy winner, published his autobiography last year. He titled it, fittingly, “I Am the Blues: The Willie Dixon Story.”

Appropriately, it was published first in Britain where American blues musicians have long received more recognition than in the United States.

In it he told of growing up black, poor and musically gifted in Vicksburg, Miss., where he “got up to be a pretty good size” by age 12. He earned a dollar a day hauling anything heavy and, for extra cash, let anyone hit him for a nickel. After a local prizefighter broke an arm hitting him in the stomach, Dixon turned to fighting himself. That was in Chicago, where he had moved in 1936.

But he was suspended after a scuffle over fees and decided to concentrate on his music.

He had been selling songs to other musicians (for $30 each) since he was a youth but had to earn his living playing bass and singing with such bands as the Big Three Trio before white audiences.

He recalled that the blues were so sadly misunderstood in that era that he once found himself performing them with polka players.

He spent 50 years in Chicago before moving to Southern California (he lived in North Hollywood and Glendale) in 1982. Most of his better-known tunes were written in the 1950s and recorded for Chess, a label he stayed with until the early 1960s.

There he played on many classic rock recordings, among them 20 of Chuck Berry’s early hits, including “Maybellene,” “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Johnny B. Goode.” He also recorded “Mona” and “Hey, Bo Diddley” with Bo Diddley.

In the late 1960s he finally received individual recognition when British bands introduced his material to rock audiences and he made his “I Am the Blues” album.

Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn said Wednesday that “Dixon was outdistanced as a performer by many of the Chicago blues artists of the ‘50s and ‘60s, but he stands as the single most important songwriter in the entire blues-rock spectrum.

“In his most memorable numbers, he brought a freshness and passion to the classic blues themes of hard days and good nights in a sexy, frequently witty way that made the music relevant to a whole new generation of fans.

“His music inspired scores of British musicians, from Eric Clapton to Keith Richards, who used much of what they heard in Dixon’s songs to revolutionize rock in the ‘60s by adding a layer of blues intensity to rock’s lighter and more innocent ‘50s foundation.”

Dixon himself said he found a certain sense of immortality in his music.

“Time makes everything change,” he was quoted as saying in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. “But the blues are basically about the facts of life. This is why they hang around so long, because everybody practically faces the same things in life sooner or later anyway.”

Dixon is survived by his wife, Marie, and several children. Funeral arrangements are pending.