Recorded 1959-1962
Released Jan. 1962
Shake for Me
The Red Rooster
You'll Be Mine
Who's Been Talkin'
Wang Dang Doodle
Little Baby
Spoonful
Going Down Slow
Down in the Bottom
Back Door Man
Howlin' for My Baby
Tell Me
Recorded 1951-1959
Released 1959
Moanin' at Midnight
How Many More Years
Smokestack Lightnin'
Baby How Long
No Place to Go
All Night Boogie
Evil
I'm Leavin' You
Moanin' for My Baby
I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
Forty-Four
Somebody in My Home
Mississippi terror, Chicago Back Door Man, the late Chester Burnett rode the blues like a man breaking a mustang; the blues never gave an inch, but the Wolf was never thrown. The purest rock in blues dress -- this album, with the famous rocking chair on the cover, inspired a generation... (Greil Marcus)
You can call me a cheat, choosing a tie, and a blues artist, no less, for the top spot. But Marcus was right - this is, undeniably, blues. But any listen will tell you, it's also "the purest rock," all pounding drums and slashing, stabbing guitars courtesy of Hubert Sumlin (all of the "rocking chair" album) and Willie Johnson (most of Moanin'), punctuated at times by blasting harmonica, usually from himself, who's harp playing was as overpowering. And then, of course, Wolf's voice - howling, rasping, moaning, groaning, snarling, smirking. Larger than life in the recording studio and on magnetic tape as he was in the flesh. You can hear the inspiration all the way from the early Stones and Yardbirds records (covered his songs), The Who (Roger learned to snarl from him), Them, down through The Stooges, Capt. Beefheart, The Gun Club, Tom Waits and on out to the The White Stripes.
Plus it's my list.
"Rocking Chair" is the masterpiece. If you've never heard Wolf, this is the place to start. From the rattling kick-off, "Shake For Me," where Wolf extols the virtues of a gal who "shakes like Jello" through his sly sexual boasts ("Little Red Rooster," "Back Door Man," both done well by the Stones and Doors, respectfully, but nonetheless Wolf, who understood Dixon's lyrics better than Mick or Jim, dealt the definitive), Wolf philosophizes about life ("Going Down Slow" - "I have had my fun, if I never get well no more" and the stone classic "Spoonful," which could be coffee, tea, diamonds, gold, your sweetest love - but men have cried, lied, and died about it), pledges his undying love ("You go to work, I'll hold the money" he tells his sweetie in "Little Baby"), but loses her ("Howlin' For My Baby") and blames only himself ("I'm the causin' of it!" all he rasps over and over as "Who's Been Talkin'" fades), but still has time to run from jealous husbands/lovers ("Down In The Bottom" - "bring me my running shoes!" he shouts as he flees) and throws a party ("Wang Dang Doodle," one of Willie Dixon's greatest songs - I'd still like to know who Peggy and Caroline Dime are, not to mention Kudzu-Crawlin' Red and Abyssinian Ned). But it ends with a classic stab of Wolf's favorite topic - paranoia. "Tell me," he shouts "what in the world can be wrong?" There are no answers forthcoming, but the Wolf knows one thing for sure: "trouble is knocking" he shouts over and over, as the disk, and the story, come to an end.
I made a mistake the first time I listened to Moanin' in the Moonlight. It was a summer night. One of those summer marked by an unbearable heat wave that gives way to cool, cool evening. And you keep all the windows open, even though the air is chilly now. And bugs bat against the window screens. And you leave the lights off. Aaah, this Howlin' Wolf album I just bought'll be perfect.
I never knew a record could be scary before.
Wolf opens it with a distorted hum (or moan, or ululation, or whatever you want to call it) that sounds like it's echoing out a crypt ("an eerie wordless vocal -- a sound effect for a graveyard scene in a Hollywood scare flick" as Ted Gioia put it). Then tears into some harp that presages Van Morrison's harmonica flip-out on "Mystic Eyes" about 15 years later. "Somedody knockin' on my door!" he shouts. Who's knocking? Who's calling. Wolf never shares. Maybe he doesn't know. But it can only be one thing: trouble.
Moanin' mixes Wolf's storming Chicago sides with bouncier, jump-blues-ish cuts from his days in Memphis, but the emphasis is all on dread and doom. Lovers are cruel: "How many more years" he shouts, "am I gonna have to let you dog me around?" ("How Many More Years"). And they cheat: "you better watch your happy home" he warns in "Evil." He harks back to his oldest roots with Tommy Johnson's "I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)" (which only tells us wimmens aren't to be trusted) and Rooselvelt Sykes' "Fourty-Four" (which turns Sykes' piano moaner into a roadhouse stomp). Running doesn't help; Wolf's own "Smokestack Lightnin'," one of the greatest of all train songs, and a signature tune of Wolf's, evokes hopping a ride on the rails. All rolling down to "Somebody In My Home," with it's evocations of cheating, intruders, and uninvited visitors, an homage to paranoia and terror that sums up the Wolf nicely.
Bitter, angry, frightened, hurt, joyful in the face of inevitable disaster. That was the Wolf. This was him at his finest.
