Howlin’ Wolf – The Chess Box – MCA CHD3-9332

For the second week in a row, I have decided to test my impartiality regarding one of the blues’ most influential artists ever, certainly one of its most outsized characters, an done of my all-time favorites, Howlin’ Wolf. 

As I also said last week when reviewing the Muddy Waters box set, there is a distinct anxiety experienced when attempting to convey the significance of the impact and legacy that materialized owing to the endeavors of blues superman Howlin’ Wolf.  With guaranteed certainty, Wolf’s blues revelations and ventures endure to this day and continue to profoundly inspire immeasurable artists, over the landscape of all music, with his magnitude in the blues permanent and forever weighty.

If one is striving to surround themselves with a definitive document of Wolf’s substantial blues catalog, this far-reaching collection is it.  Period.  Spanning the entirety of this recorded assemblage, and taking into account that though his recording partners fluctuate and the very societal eras themselves changed, Wolf is the fusing connection, the unceasing dynamism, and the very framework of what even now prevails as the torch-bearing Chicago blues found here.

Wolf crawled, lurked, and alarmed his audiences in-performance, and without doubt, was one of the most impassioned bluesmen to have ever wrapped himself in the blues and presented the essence of the music in all its emotional capacities.  His intense stage act, his compelling harmonica playing, wrenching guitar exertions, possessed vocals, and his sheer will to engulf his heeding audience made Wolf a marvel of nature and the performing arts.  This 71-track compilation comes replete with a valuable 32-page booklet with full biographical and discography material.  Wolf’s original 1951 Memphis blues are located here, and the collection traces his recording crusade at Chess through 1973.  He was a musical powerhouse, and like his topmost contemporary blues rival, Muddy Waters, his bands were the other eminent proving grounds for a multitude of extraordinary blues aptitude.  Piano players such as Detroit Junior, Henry Gray, and Johnny Jones graced his stage, as did esteemed guitarists Hubert Sumlin, Jody Williams, Willie Johnson, Big Smokey Smothers, Jimmy Rogers, and Buddy Guy, among others.  Chicago sax men such as Eddie Shaw and Abb Locke plied their trade with Wolf.   Famed blues drummers including Earl Phillips and Sam Lay validated the extent of percussionists who strove for a position in Wolf’s bands. 

Wolf, the literal blues giant of over six feet three inches tall, and all 300 tough pounds of him, contributed to the blues world compositions that mirrored his gargantuan build, and this collection breathes blazing fire, fervor, and straightforward excitement not seen since. 

Wolf’s blues were post-war blues tornadic occurrences.  Reap their truths here.

Song Titles

Space constraints prohibit the listing of all titles.  Instead, the following individual disc information conveys the time period covered by each respective CD.

CD One

May 1951 to March 1955.

CD Two

March 1955 to September 1962.

CD Three

August 1963 to March 1973.

Highly-essential with the ultimate respect!  As Wolf would say, “There’s evil goin’ on” here!