The name Chester Arthur Burnett might not mean anything to the average music fan, but mention his famous nickname - Howlin' Wolf - and the game changes. Howlin' Wolf was one of the pioneers of the blues, a legend on the Chicago scene and a powerful force to be reckoned with on the electric guitar.
Hip-o Select celebrates his lengthy legacy through a new four-disc box set of recordings for his longtime home base, Chess Records. Wolf was signed to Leonard Chess' label in 1951, and began to craft some of the most rip-roaring tunes and performances of the genre, from "Moanin' at Midnight" to "Smokestack Lightnin'." His popularity among British blues musicians was typically sterling; The Rolling Stones got him on a 1965 appearance on the Brit variety show Shindig!, and Stones Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts joined Wolf, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and Ian Stewart on the 1970 LP The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions.
Wolf passed away in 1976, leaving behind a comfortable legacy and a loving family (he did not suffer the iniquities commonly associated with blues musicianship), and this legacy remains strong today; he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and "Smokestack Lightnin'" entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Now, Select's exhaustive collection - featuring all of his early singles for Chess as well as numerous alternates and outtakes (including 17 tracks never before released on disc in the U.S.), all in a nicely-designed box with a 45-page book of liner notes - provides the definitive Wolf pack, if ever there was one.
Order your copy and check out the track list after the jump.
Howlin' Wolf, Smokestack Lightning: The Complete Chess Masters 1961-1970 (Hip-o Select B0015309-02, 2011)
Disc 1
- Moanin' At Midnight
- How Many More Years (Alternate) *
- How Many More Years
- The Wolf is At Your Door (Howlin' for My Baby)
- California Boogie *
- Smile At Me *
- Howlin' Wolf Boogie
- California Blues #1
- Look-A-Here Baby
- Worried All the Time
- Gettin' Old and Grey
- Mr. Highway Man
- Everybody's in the Mood
- Color and Kind
- Bluebird
- Saddle My Pony
- Dorothy Mae (Alternate) *
- Dorothy Mae
- Sweet Woman (a/k/a I Got a Woman)
- (Well) That's All Right
- Decoration Day
- Oh! Red
- My Last Affair
- I've Got a Woman
- Just My Kind
- Work for Your Money
Disc 2
- I'm Not Joking
- Mama Died and Left Me
- All Night Boogie (All Night Long)
- I Love My Baby
- Highway My Friend
- Hold Your Money
- Streamline Woman
- California Blues #2
- Stay Here Til My Baby Comes Back
- Crazy About You Baby
- No Place to Go (You Gonna Wreck My Life)
- You Gonna Wreck My Life (Alternate Take)
- Neighbors
- I'm the Wolf
- Rockin' Daddy
- Baby How Long
- Evil (is Going On)
- I'll Be Around
- Forty Four
- Who Will Be Next
- I Have a Little Girl
- Come to Me Baby
- Don't Mess with My Baby
- Smokestack Lightnin'
- You Can't Be Beat
- I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
Disc 3
- Break of Day
- The Natchez Burnin'
- Going Back Home *
- Bluebird
- My Life
- You Ought to Know
- Tell Me
- Somebody in My Home (Alternate) *
- Somebody in My Home
- Nature (Takes 1/4/6) *
- Nature (Alternate)
- Nature
- Walk to Camp Hall
- Poor Boy (Alternate)
- Poor Boy
- My Baby Told Me (Alternate)
- Sitting on Top of the World
- I Didn't Know *
- I Better Go Now (Howlin' Blues) (Alternate) *
- Howlin' Blues
- I Better Go Now (Multiple Takes) *
- I Didn't Know
- Moaning for My Baby
- Moaning for My Baby (Midnight Blues) (Takes 3 & 4) *
Disc 4
- I'm Leaving You (Alternate Take) *
- I'm Leaving You (Takes #7-10) *
- I'm Leaving You
- Can't Put Me Out (Alternate #1) *
- Can't Put Me Out (Alternate #2) *
- (You) Can't Put Me Out
- Change My Way
- Getting Late
- I've Been Abused (Takes #4-12) *
- I've Been Abused *
- Howlin' for My Baby (Takes #1-7) *
- Howlin' for My Darling (or Baby)
- Wolf in the Mood (Instrumental)
- My People's Gone
- Mr. Airplane Man (Takes 1 & 2)
- Mr. Airplane Man
- Wang Dang Doodle
- Back Door Man
- Spoonful
No comments on the most intense singer in the blues tradition?
This should be very good, but I wish Hip-O would give these artists the type of treatment that Bear Family does. Hip-O's booklets are pathetic and their CD packaging is terrible. The music is great, but Hip-O had nothing to do with that.
I agree. People at Hip-O obviously think they're very clever and their products valuable and unique... while most of the times they're just pretentious and arty- farty.
Well said. Another thing: Most of the artists that Hip-O reissues are the great legendary giants of music (e.g. Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, etc.) Why should these artists principal works be limited editions? Chuck Berry's masters should all be in print all of the time. He certainly deserves to have his catalog in print in a respectable edition with proper notes. The silly cardboard fold-outs are cheap to the extreme. The cheap cardboard foldout with no real notes would not be so bad if the price was set like a European product (4 CDs for $25 in the real marketplace).
How many people here think that Chuck Berry or Howlin Wolf's estate get any REAL royalties from Hip-O from their high priced products? The answer is in the company's name ("O").
I'd be more interested, but I already have these and more as part of the Howlin' Wolf box: The Complete Recordings 1951-1969 on Charley Records.