Howlin' Wolf/Moanin' in the Moonlight

You must own this music one way or another
The ideal compilation is the one you assemble yourself. And at this point in technological history, you don't have to pay David Geffen for the privilege. [Yeah, that's who gets paid if you buy this thing. Maybe he can invest the money in developing the ability to fit an additional song on a 66-minute CD.] But do get the music by one means or another. The blues singing on The Rocking Chair Album is just an apocalypse... demonically powerful performances. When he sings "I AM... A BACK DOOR MAN" [the capital letters feel appropriate], he makes you believe it. Next to this, Jim Morrison sounds like a belching frat boy.

American Music. This is the Howlin' Wolf CD to get.
Great deal at just several bucks and you get two albums. Contains Howlin' Wolf's greatest work. Nobody sang like Howlin' Wolf and nobody has since. I'm a white boy, like apparently most Blues fans these days (that's another story). Being where I come from musically one thing I noticed is how much this stuff straight-up **rocks**. Yeah it is technically post-war Chicago electric Blues. Put whatever technically correct label ya want. It kicks ---. Sun Record founder Sam Phillips discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Ray Orbison, BB King, Jerry Lee Louis, Charlie Rich, and Howlin' Wolf. Phillips said Elvis was his *second* greatest discovery and Howlin' Wolf was his greatest. Sam Phillips: "When I heard Howlin' Wolf, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies'. The greatest sight you could see would be Howlin' Wolf doing one of those sessions in my studio. God, what it would be worth to see the veins on his neck, and buddy there was nothing on his mind but that song. He sang with his damn soul!..."

Excellent buy not so great packaging
Howlin' Wolf is one of the seminal blues artists. His guitar and that scritchy voice are definitive of the blues standard. This CD is actually a two-fer, a Chess compilation of his two first albums: Howlin' Wolf and Moanin' at Midnight. The packaging isn't much to be proud of. You get liner notes, but not much else and the paper's pretty disreputable. Favorites: "Back Door Man" you'll hear this one covered all over the place, but nobody does it like the Wolf. "Evil" well, doesn't the name say it? "Going Down Slow" this is an interesting perspective on the music business and money. Rebecca Kyle, August 2008

Seminal!
It's hard to over rate the impact these early HW recordings have had on rock and roll. As is well known HW and his contemporaries were hugely influential on the 60s giants like Hendrix, Clapton, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and John Mayall but countless other lesser known lights have also sprung from HW's fertile loins. Even now, 50 or so years later, these two platters still stand up to scrutiny. HW's voice is one of the most distinctive in modern music and he uses it to great effect on every track here. The lyrics are superb too, always lascivious, frequently laugh out loud funny. It's a stone classic in every way and anyone with even a remote interest in the evolution of rock music should own a copy. Also good for shaking your thang to... "We're gonna wang dang doodle ALL night long..!"

An easy must-have
A few songs from Moanin' in the Moonlight (Moanin' for My Baby, All Night Boogie, Forty-Four, Baby How Long) aren't exactly all that great, but the rest makes up for it. This is basically a set of blues classics, in fact if Killin' Floor and Sittin' on Top of the World were included you'd think it was a very in-depth best-of. Just look at how many legendary musicians have covered (or ripped off, in Led Zeppelin's case) some of these songs: The Red Rooster, Spoonful, Wang Dang Doodle, Goin' Down Slow, Back Door Man, How Many More Years, Who's Been Talkin'? Smokestack Lightin', Evil, Tell Me or I Asked Her for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline). Most artists are lucky to have two or three legendary songs. Wolf has eleven on this album alone, and this one doesn't even have Killin' Floor, Sittin' on Top of the World or I Ain't Superstitious, also part of legend. But I digress. These original recordings, taken from the old '45s rather than being the remakes spread across his career, pound any cover you can imagine into all hell. Okay, maybe Cream's version of Spoonful beats the original. Maybe not. It's a tough call. But that's beside the point. Okay, blues fans withuut this are simply doing themselves a disservice. But a rock or soul fan looking to trace the music's roots who doesn't own a copy of Howlin' Wolf/Moanin' in the Moonlight is also shooting themselves in the foot. Actually, so is anybody who enjoys good music. Plain and simple.