LISTEN, BABY, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN LOVED BY A MAN THEY CALL THE WOLF?

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THE LONDON HOWLIN' WOLF SESSIONS
Howlin' Wolf (with Clapton, Winwood, etc.)
1970
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Don't listen to the so-called Blues purists! 'THE LONDON HOWLIN' WOLF SESSIONS' will rock your socks off. And if you go barefooted, then you'd better hang onto your hat!

I remember when the eponymous 'Van Halen' album was released in 1978, some writer for a music magazine reviewed it and criticized the song 'You Really Got Me' for being spunkless. "Spunkless"?! There's a lot of things one might say about that song, but "spunkless" damn sure ain't one of them. (Idiot writer!)

Similarly, this Howlin' Wolf album has been frequently denigrated by Blues fans who like to appear highbrow and above the "adulterated" late-period Blues that found White wannabes collaborating with the genuine articles. It doesn't seem to matter to these people that the songs here are so damned hot they're smokin'!

In the very early 1980s when I was first considering buying this album (in the vinyl form), I saw a review in which the writer said that the "tepid" playing from the famous English Rock instrumentalists backing Howlin' Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett, 1910-1976) on this recording suggested that the young White boys were intimidated by the huge, old Black Bluesman (Wolf was over 6 feet and about 300 pounds). I nearly passed on this record because of that asinine comment. (Yeah, the playing is "tepid" exactly like Van Halen's 'You Really Got Me' is "spunkless". Idiot writers!!)

Fortunately, curiosity got the best of me, I purchased the "Licorice Pizza" (I now own it in the CD format), and I've been happily rockin' out to this bad-ass boy for about 33 years now! Aside from the tremendous Wolf, it also features Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and the great Hubert Sumlin. And although I am well-educated in The Blues (I was probably drinking copious amounts of Kahlua late at night to Robert Johnson's, 'King Of The Delta Blues Singers' before you were born), this is still one of my most frequently spun Blues sets -- and when I do spin it, I crank it up LOUD because it scares the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons off of my front porch!

Sure, Wolf was old and ill when these tracks were cut (1970), but can you find a single young, White or Black contemporary rebel singer who sounds even half as ferocious as the Wolf does here? Don't bother answering -- that was a rhetorical question because "NO" is the obvious reply.

From the opening track, 'ROCKIN' DADDY', with its thick rhythm, Eric Clapton's fiery guitar licks, and the Wolf singing enticements to a woman (trying his best not to scare her off), it's clear that this quasi-Blues/Rock amalgamation is going to kick rump. And boy does it ever!

"YES, THEY CALL ME THE ROCKER; I CAN REALLY ROCK YOU ALL NIGHT LONG. I CAN LET YOU DOWN EASY WHEN I THINK YOUR MONEY'S GONE."

'Rockin' Daddy' moves right into the slightly slower, but no less rhythmically chunky and no less ferocious 'I AIN'T SUPERSTITIOUS'. The one-two punch of the piano and horns is enough to frighten the fainthearted, and that's without even mentioning the menace in Wolf's deep howl and the sexual tension throughout.

"WELL, THE DOGS ALL HOWLIN' ALL OVER THE NEIGHBORHOOD. THAT'S A TRUE SIGN THINGS AIN'T NO GOOD... PLAY IT ON! GO 'HEAD AND HOWL UNDER THE MOONLIGHT, 'CAUSE I GOT MY BABY BY MY SIDE. BOYS, SHE THE SWEETEST THING YOU EVER SEEN. YOUR DOGS IS HOWLIN', AND THE HOUNDS. PLAY! LISTEN, BABY, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN LOVED BY A MAN THEY CALL THE WOLF?"

"I'M WORRIED ABOUT YOU, BABY. AND YOU'D BETTER BE WORRIED ABOUT ME!"

"I'M GONNA LEAVE YOU, WOMAN, BEFORE I COMMIT A CRIME."

The dialogue between Wolf and the White Rockers before they launch into 'THE RED ROOSTER' is classic: Trying to get Wolf to play the acoustic guitar on the track, Clapton feigns an inability to grasp his part unless he can follow the Wolf's fingering. After some cajoling, Wolf -- indisputably the alpha in this pack -- puts an end to the discussion when he emphatically says, "Alright, let's get on it!" And do they ever! And borrowing from the Wolf's command, I've been using that phrase, "Let's get on it", for the last 33 years.

"SOME FOLKS BUILT LIKE THIS; SOME FOLKS BUILT LIKE THAT. BUT THE WAY I'M BUILT, DON'TCHA CALL ME FAT. BECAUSE I'M BUILT FOR COMFORT; I AIN'T BUILT FOR SPEED. BUT I GOT EVERYTHING, OH, A GOOD GIRL NEEDS."

"WE GONNA PITCH A WANG DANG DOODLE ALL NIGHT LONG. LET ME HOWL TO YA: WA-OOO! WA-OOO! WA-OOO! ALL NIGHT WA-OOO!"

If you're already a Blues enthusiast, there's no reason for you not to own the Wolf's early, rawest material found on the "twofer", 'Howlin' Wolf / Moanin' In The Moonlight'. That collection includes his standards, 'Spoonful', 'Smokestack Lightnin'', 'Evil', and 'Goin' Down Slow'. But if you're coming straight from the Rock genre, then 'THE LONDON HOWLIN' WOLF SESSIONS' is a perfect place for you to get introduced to this mountain of a man and one of the true giants in Blues.

Either way, this album should be kept within easy reach of everyone who wants a surefire way to answer the door when the proselytizers show up on the porch. At the first knock, crank up 'The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions' and then watch how fast they skedaddle. One time, two women dropped their 'Watchtower' pamphlets and outran their undergarments -- left 'em right there in an indecorous heap on my stoop. And I had one Mormon man bolt so fast that his toupee was still hanging in midair when I opened the door!

No doubt about it, ya simply MUST have this Wolf album in yer collection. "ALRIGHT, LET'S GET ON IT!"
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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ADDENDUM:
Do these recordings sound "tepid" to you? (Crank 'em up!)
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Link: ROCKIN' DADDY
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Link: I AIN'T SUPERSTITIOUS
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