Howlin' Wolf - The Definitive Collection

The best songs by one of the greatest bluesmen in history....

This album simply cannot be beat. You get some of the greatest songs from one of the all-time great post-war bluesmen, Chester Burnett, a.k.a. Howlin' Wolf. If BB King is a fine wine, Howlin' Wolf is a shot of strong scotch. The CD starts out with Moaning at Midnight, a song which will send chills up your spine the first time you hear it....if anyone can be said to have an inimitable voice, it can be said of Chester Burnett.

Personally, I was not sure I would like Howlin' Wolf as I was just getting into the genre of the blues, and so purchased this album instead of his 3 CD box set. Later, I also added His Best, Volume 2, to my collection. In any case, this album (or the box set), is a must have for anyone who loves the blues. Though it must be said that this is a must have for any lover of the blues, it is also probably just as true that it is a must have for any lover of music in general.

Highly recommended. August 23, 2008

Hoy Hoy I'm your boy!

Even before college I was grooving to the Wolf. When I got to the University of Rochester, my dreams came true. I got to produce a show with Wolf and his band in 1969. A dance/concert. It was extra special because before the show, we had a picnic thing...ribs, chicken etc., with the band and a surprise guest...Eddie 'Son' House!
Thirty years later, I saw Hubert Sumlin at a festival in Maryland, and asked him to re-sign the poster from that '69 show. He told me the band, and Wolf, in particular, were blown away by the gig. 'Best show they ever did'!
Muddy could do many things, but Wolf was the most visceral guy out there.
I'll never forget the ladies' reactions to 300 Pounds of Heavenly Joy and Built for Comfort. August 11, 2008

Flawless... but

There is absolutely no way to fault the material on this collection of masterpieces but... if you are a blues fan, you will want the box set or even more. There is just no one like the Wolf. I love a broad range of blues, from the earliest country blues pickers to the West Side soul crew, but not a one of them can stand up to the Wolf. The primal energy in these tracks has never been matched by any other artist and never will be. The band is almost supernatural in how well they play together and read each other, and, as if having the best songs to choose from (many of them written by legendary Willie Dixon) weren't enough, the icing on the cake is one of the most influential, inimitable, nastiest, just indescribably awesome guitar players of all-time HUBERT SUMLIN!!! April 16, 2008

Unsurpassed!

This is really just MCA/Chess' Howlin' Wolf-compilation "His Best" in new guise, but that's not a bad thing. "His Best" was by far the greatest single-disc Wolf-compilation on the market, and now this one is simply taking its place.

But do you know what you are getting into here? Even people who like Muddy Waters are sometimes turned off by the "sound of heavy machinery operating on a gravel road" that was Howlin' Wolf's voice.
Chester Arthur Burnett, the Howlin' Wolf, stood about 6'4" and weighed close to three hundred pounds in his prime, and his raw, throat-shredding vocals sound positively frightening on early cuts like "Moanin' At Midnight" and the clanging, piano-driven boogie of "How Many More Years", his first R&B hit, and the one which allowed him to proudly state that "I'm the onliest one drove out of the South like a gentleman!"

This is electric blues of the highest order, rough and tough and extraordinarily powerful. The songwriting credits are shared about equally by the omnipresent Willie Dixon, who plays bass on most of these cuts, and the Wolf himself, and while few of these songs are as well-known as Muddy Waters' "Hoochie Coochie Man" or Elmore James' "Dust My Broom", they are quite as magnificent.
Wolf's tough "Who's Been Talkin'" is an incredibly gritty tour de force set to a thumping rhumba beat, and Dixon's horn-driven rave-up "Hidden Charms" features perhaps the greatest guitar solo ever comitted to tape, courtesy of Jimmy Page's and Eric Clapton's great hero, the extraordinary Hubert Sumlin.

Other highlights include "Forty-Four", the eerie "Smokestack Lightnin'", the slide guitar-driven "Little Red Rooster" and the phenomenal "Killing Floor", written by Howlin' Wolf, shamelessly stolen by Led Zeppelin and covered by several others, but never surpassed, and featured here in the ultimate version, propelled by an incredibly catchy guitar riff by Hubert Sumlin, and with Buddy Guy on acoustic rhythm guitar.

Almost every song is a highlight, actually. This CD is a corner stone in any serious blues collection...hard-rocking, bone-crunching electric blues, burning with the sheer ferocity of Chester Burnett's incredible voice.
There was never anyone quite like the Wolf, and it doesn't seem likely that there will be. January 13, 2008

Some of the best blues that money can buy

With his demonic charisma and bone-chilling voice, Howlin' Wolf was one of the towering figures of the blues, a performer whose greatest moments served as electric counterparts to the incantations of Robert Johnson. As this 20 track compilation proves, the Wolf was one of the Chicago blues' most distinctive and darkly brilliant figures; his performances (and those of his superb backing bands) were pure atmosphere, full of late-night swagger and claustrophobic paranoia, with distorted guitars sneaking their way through gin soaked piano lines and uneasy rhythms. It was a raw, cathartic sound, characterized y manic joy and barely subdued fear. The result is one of the greatest bodies of work in the history of blues music.

These 20 tracks can attest to that- the apocalyptic "Moanin' At Midnight" kicks off the proceedings wonderfully, setting the stage for the furious surrealism of "Smokestack Lightnin''" and the hulking sexuality of "Back Door Man." "Wang Dang Doodle" is as divinely deranged as any rockabilly track, and "Spoonful" is an absolutely spine-shredding slow burner, with a vocal performance that drips sexual innuendo. "Killing Floor" is a slinky, rhythmic strut, and "Evil" is as menacing as its title. This is a classic blues disc, and an essential purchase for anyone who doesn't already have these songs. December 25, 2007

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