Posts Tagged ‘Howlin Wolf’

HOWLIN WOLF – ” The London Howlin Wolf Sessions “

Posted: August 7, 2023 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: ,
0

Sometime around 1969, record producer Norman Dayron—fresh from producing the multi-generational “Fathers & Sons” album by Muddy Waters and his younger disciples—ran into Eric Clapton, who may have been backstage at an Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield show, or perhaps it was a Blind Faith concert. No one seems to remember for sure. In either event, Dayron seized the opportunity to ask Clapton if he’d like to record an album with master bluesman Howlin’ Wolf.

Dayron was a staff producer at Chess Records, and that the offer was indeed legit, arrangements were made by Chess Records. Howlin’ Wolf—born Chester Burnett on June 10th, 1910, in White Station, Miss. would come to London. Clapton was over-the-moon excited, yet agreed under one condition: that Howlin’ Wolf’s longtime guitarist, Hubert Sumlin, be involved as well. There was some initial balking at Chess regarding the expense of flying two players from Chicago O’Hare to Heathrow. 

Howlin’ Wolf was another Chess Records mainstay, releasing numerous singles and “best of” LPs on the label. This 1971 album consists of recordings Howlin’ Wolf made with the popular British blues musicians of the time, all of whom had been inspired by the early days of Chess Records. Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts all feature prominently on the album, and are credited on the LP’s cover.

From May 2nd-10th, 1970, at London’s Olympic Studios home of sessions for the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie, among others—the house was rockin’ with Howlin’ Wolf and British rock royalty. Clapton was enlisted to play lead guitar on each of the 20-some songs, some being alternate takes) with Sumlin on rhythm guitar. Thankfully, Clapton yielded to Sumlin in establishing the songs’ grooves, although Sumlin’s rhythm work dominates “Do the Do.” And on “The Red Rooster,” Clapton nods not only to Sumlin, who played on Wolf’s 1961 original, but also to Keith Richards and Mick Taylor’s guitar moods.

The highlight of the LP is the “false start” rehearsal track for “Little Red Rooster,” which is essentially a peek into the artists’ studio session. The song starts, then stops, and then listeners get a peek into the ensuing conversation between Howlin’ Wolf and his British collaborators. It’s not 100 percent intelligible, but it breathes a new sense of life into an already vibrant work.

The Rolling Stones’ rhythm section was enlisted: Bill Wyman, bass; and Charlie Watts, drums, with Klaus Voormann on bass for one song (five if one counts the bonus tracks that saw the light of day on the 2003 expanded reissue), and Ringo Starr on drums on one track from the original album (plus three reissue bonus tracks). When Voormann laid down the song-defining bass riff on “I Ain’t Superstitious,” Wyman played the cowbell. And yet another Rolling Stone (albeit not an official band member), Ian Stewart, played piano on “Rockin’ Daddy.”

British keyboard legend Steve Winwood (Traffic, Blind Faith) overdubbed piano and organ on five tracks while on tour in the U.S. At certain points, it’s impossible to distinguish between Clapton and Sumlin (apart from Clapton playing most of the solos) and between Winwood and first-generation Chicago blues pianist Leake. John Simon, a popular producer in the late ’60s (Leonard Cohen, The Band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Janis Joplin) takes a turn on piano on ‘Who’s Been Talkin’.”

As for the Wolf, he could do no wrong. The year 1970 found him in excellent voice, spirits and energy, able to moan, growl, snarl, roar and bellow as he’d done since his earliest Sun Studio sessions in 1951. Were there London Sessions songs on which he excelled more than others? Absolutely. “Worried About My Baby,” on which Wolf played his own harmonica, comes to mind. (There are two additional outtake versions of “Worried About My Baby” on the expanded reissue, the most intriguing of which features Wolf, Clapton and Wyman, with no drummer.)

And the groove of Willie Dixon’s “Wang Dang Doodle” and, on the expanded reissue, “Killing Floor,” come to mind. The Wolf saved some of his best howlin’ for the Willie Dixon-penned classic, which closes the original LP, released in August 1971

HOWLIN WOLF – ” This is Howlin’ Wolf’s New Album. He doesn’t like it. He didn’t like his electric guitar at first either “

Posted: January 31, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

The Howlin Wolf Album psych cover 820

Jim Sclavunos of Grinderman says: “It is one of rock history’s more baldly self-explanatory album titles; and any lingering doubt as to the artist’s disdain for the project is abundantly clarified by Howlin Wolf’s subsequent summary of the album as “dog shit”. Howlin’ Wolf was one of the first Mississippi Delta blues musicians to make the transition from acoustic to electric guitar, and he led one of the first all-electric blues combo in fifties; but This Howlin’ Wolf’s album finds him well outside his comfort zone.

The same session musicians from classic Electric Mud made this album, so it’s just as good.

The acclaimed bassist Phil Upchurch played with jazz greats and the blues legends BB King and John Lee Hooker, and even starred on Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall. But he counts as his strangest sessions the two he did in the late 60s with Muddy Waters (Electric Mud) and on The Howlin’ Wolf Album, for Chess Records subsidiary Cadet Records.

In 1968, Marshall Chess, the innovative son of label owner Leonard Chess, placed Waters, and then Wolf, in a setting of psychedelic sounds. Chess Jr wanted “to get them out with the hippie crowd”, according to Upchurch, and brought in the Chicago psychedelic soul group Rotary Connection as the backing band. The results in both cases were controversial. Waters described his album as “dogs__t”, while the Wolf fell out with his fellow musicians.

The blues legend born Chester Arthur Burnett, does his best to sing the Delta blues over a backdrop of wah-wah and fuzz effects. Singer and band certainly synch on a new version of ‘Smokestack Lightning’, a song Wolf used to sing as a boy watching the trains go by in the Mississippi town where he was born, on 10th June 1910. His old musical partner Hubert Sumlin, who played on the magnificent 1959 Chess album Moanin’ In The Moonlight, joins him on this track, recorded in November 1968.

Wolf’s own composition ‘Evil’, in which the blues man sounds like a ghost of Tom Waits’ future, growling and rasping his way through some potent lyrics. Waits, incidentally, was inspired by Wolf’s “otherworldly singing.

The band members, aware of Wolf’s status, did their best to make The Howlin’ Wolf Album work, as they recorded new versions of some of his most memorable songs, including ‘Spoonful’, ‘Red Rooster’, ‘Moanin’ At Midnight’ and ‘Built For Comfort’. Gene Barge, who was well known in the music world as Daddy G – he had played on ‘Rescue Me’ by Fontella Bass and was the man who persuaded Chess to take a chance on the young Buddy Guy – played electric saxophone on the album. He recalled, “Howlin’ Wolf didn’t like it, didn’t want to do it. He would cuss and fuss the whole time. He questioned the fact that we were taking him out of his orbit. He was a traditional blues boy, with traditional music, and he was concerned about whether he could do it or not. We told him, ‘Regardless of all this stuff, don’t change your style. We’ll just drop this stuff in all around you.’”

Howlin Wolf’s unease about the project prompted a bold marketing gamble by Marshall Chess, who addressed the issue on the album’s sleeve. The design, with black text on a white background, stated: “This is Howlin’ Wolf’s new album. He doesn’t like it. He didn’t like his electric guitar at first either.”

HOWLIN WOLF – ” Moanin’ in the Moonlight ” Classic Blues Albums Released 1959

Posted: August 7, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

Growing up around the Mississippi Delta blues, Chester Burnett cut an imposing figure at well over 6 feet tall and somewhere around 300 pounds. After finding success in Memphis with help from Sam Phillips, he moved to Chicago in the ‘50s to team up with Chess brothers, with guitarist Hubert Sumlin following him. His debut album, Moanin’ in the Moonlight, highlighted his rough and raw vocals and intimidating persona, with backing from legends like Willie Dixon and Otis Spann, as well as a young Ike Turner who played piano on “How Many More Years.” But the standout track is still “Smokestack Lightning,” with its hypnotic riffs and the Wolf’s high-pitched bawling.

Moanin’ in the Moonlight was the debut album by American blues singer Howlin’ Wolf. The album was a compilation of previously issued singles by Chess Records. It was originally released by Chess Records as a mono-format LP record in 1959 (see 1959 in music). The album has been reissued several times, including a vinyl reissue in 1969, with the playing order changed, titled Evil. The two earliest songs onMoanin’ in the Moonlightwere “Moanin’ at Midnight” and “How Many More Years”. These two songs and ‘All Night Boogie’, were recorded in Memphis, the first two at Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service in Memphis, Tennessee in July 1951, and, ‘All Night Boogie’, the last track on side one, in Memphis in 1953.

“How Many More Years” (recorded May 1951, unissued at the time, but later issued by Bear Family cited as the first record to feature a distorted power chord, played by Willie Johnson on the electric guitar.