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Music CD - Howlin' Wolf: Howlin' Wolf/Moanin' in the Moonlight
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Music CD: Howlin' Wolf/Moanin' in the Moonlight
Artist: Howlin' Wolf
List Price: $11.98
Our Price: $5.57
Your Save: $ 6.41 ( 54% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Chess
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Tracks:
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1. Shake For Me
2. The Red Rooster
3. You'll Be Mine
4. Who's Been Talkin'
5. Wang Dang Doodle
6. Little Baby
7. Spoonful
8. Goin Down Slow
9. Down In The Bottom
10. Back Door Man
11. Howlin' For My Baby
12. Tell Me
13. Moanin' At Midnight
14. How Many More Years
15. Smokestack Lightnin'
16. Baby How Long
17. No Place To Go
18. All Night Boogie
19. Evil
20. I'm Leavin You
21. Moanin' For My Baby
22. I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
23. Forty Four
24. Somebody In My Home
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0076732590829
Label: Chess
Manufacturer: Chess
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Chess
Release Date: 1990-10-25
Studio: Chess
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: An easy must-have
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Doesn't Get Any Better
Comment: My friends, this is the real deal, it just doesn't get any better than this. This is Howlin' Wolf at his gritty, slashin', terrifyin' best, and just about nothing matches the greatness and intensity of the Wolf at his best. Nearly every track is a classic and all of them are superb. "Red Rooster" "Wang Dang Doodle" "Spoonful" "Back Door Man" "Evil" "I Asked For Water..." are among the most well known clasics in the entire genre, but every track is top notch. His voice was truly original (even tho Capt. Beefheart managed to imitate it uncannily well) and likely shocked the pants off the first to hear him. This is such down and dirty, greasy, slicin' blues that it's impossible to think of it as being as "old" as it is. The Wolf was so far ahead of his time that time still hasn't caught up. Though he's had many admirers among rock stars, such as the Stones, he's really never quite received the fame and recognition that he deserves for having been such a genius. THe musicians are wonderful, Hubert Sumlin may be the nastiest blues guitarist ever to grace a track, but it is the monumental, legendary, godlike Wolf who stands out the most.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing music, terrible packaging.
Comment: Let's get my only gripes out of the way now--a drunk monkey could've come up with better packaging than what comes with this 2-albums-in-one set. The cover art is sloppily integrated and cheap, the albums are oddly in reverse chronological order (the self-titled album was released in 1962, Moanin' In The Moonlight in 1959), the liner notes are minimal given Chester Burnett A.K.A. Howlin' Wolf's importance to modern blues and the sound quality is so-so (Chess offers a remastered single disc titled His Best, if this bothers you). They even left off a track due to what they claim is CD length limitations, which is B.S. since the whole thing is under 70 minutes and most of the existing tracks are under three. Who are they trying to kid?
Other than that, this is SEMINAL electric blues from one of the best in the business. Wolf is quite simply the finest blues vocalist ever--his gravelly, soulful, cavernous growl is unmistakable and awesome, befitting a man of such huge girth and power (listen to the microphone nearly detonate on the beginning of Moanin' In The Moonlight from trying to handle his voice). His lyrics exude passion and grit, but not without a touch of humor--this is blues to party to. The band behind him is equally potent, with Hubert Sumlin's iconic riffs and Willie Dixon's bass playing and songwriting acumen.
Every song from the self-titled is a classic--the boogie-blues of Shake For Me, innuendo-drenched Little Red Rooster, party stomper Wang Dang Doodle, slow-burning and funny Goin' Down Slow, and the catchy backbeat of Down From The Bottom being my favorites. Moanin' In The Moonlight isn't quite as memorable, but it too has its share of historical blues singles such as How Many More Years, Smokestack Lightnin', Forty Four, and the Dixon-penned Evil.
This is the real stuff, and an essential buy. Let's just hope this package gets updated for a new generation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Essential Wolf
Comment: This is the most essential single Howlin' Wolf CD there could possibly be and would make an excellent first purchase for a Howlin' Wolf novice. It comprises The Wolf's first two long-player releases, both what we would now regard as compilations, and was put out by Chess/MCA in 1986.
Moanin' In The Moonlight came out in America in 1959 and was made up of 12 selected A-sides and B-sides from the many 78's he released between 1951 and 1958, all monaural, including such classics as Smokestack Lightnin' and I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline). The LP kicks off with Moanin' At Midnight and How Many More Years, comprising both sides of his first Chess single, recorded in Memphis by Sam Phillips at what would become the Sun studios, long before Howlin' Wolf moved to Chicago. The songs on this LP are among the most elemental, eerie and powerful pieces of music ever committed to tape.
Equally compelling is the second collection, usually known as the Rocking Chair album, released in the US in January 1962, when the genre was presented as the root of "Music Americana". It contained 3 previously unreleased songs recorded between May and December 1961, and 9 that were on 45's released in 1960 and 1961 (though two were recorded in 1957), but all in stereo.
Famous songs include The Red Rooster, Wang Dang Doodle, Back Door Man and the Wolf's famous variation of Spoonful (he would have learned the original, fairly dissimilar Spoonful Blues from Charlie Patton) - though all staple fare for a million blues and rock bands ever since, none could match the intensity and darkness of these originals (although the Rolling Stones' Little Red Rooster came close). Most were written by Willie Dixon, who plays bass throughout, though there are a couple credited to Howlin' Wolf and a cover of St Louis Jimmy Oden's Goin' Down Slow, on which, unusually, the recitation is spoken by Willie Dixon.
The division of stereo and mono recordings is not declared anywhere on the CD and seems somewhat arbitrary, especially since Who's Been Talkin' (stereo), Tell Me (stereo) and Somebody In My Home (mono) were all recorded on 24 June 1957.
A note in the sleeve reads, "In our effort to bring you the originals for the cost of a single CD, we have omitted one selection due to the length of the combined original albums." Given the playing time of 66 minutes this is a very irritating message, but in my quest to discover the identity of the missing selection, after consulting several online discographies as far as I can tell it seems that all tracks are present and correct
Customer Rating:
Summary: Look at me- reviewing something twice--
Comment: ..and that's just how important this album is to me and should be to you. Time has only made it more clear that THIS is the root from which rock 'n roll sprang. This man was eccentric in an era where eccentricity of any kind was frowned upon. Just listen to that voice. What can be more rock 'n roll than that?? Pure emotion- gravel- grit- life. You gotta respect the Wolf!!!!!!
-H
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Editorial Reviews:
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This package combines blues giant Howlin' Wolf's first two albums, themselves compilations of his singles released between 1951 and 1962. Apart from two tracks cut in Memphis with Ike Turner, these Chess Studios recordings are landmarks in the development of electric Chicago blues. The Mississippi Delta native's gruff persona towers over "Smokestack Lightnin'," "Red Rooster," "Spoonful," "Evil," "Wang Dang Doodle," "Back Door Man," and others that have become standards since being "discovered" by the Rolling Stones, Clapton, The Doors, et al. Almost as influential as Wolf's bottomless growl are the guitar playing of Hubert Sumlin and the writing and direction of Willie Dixon. An exceptional twofer value for such a weighty slice of American musical history. --Ben Edmonds
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