HOWLIN’ WOLF – This Is Howlin’ Wolf’s New Album

(Get On Down) LP/CD

The Wolf said, “These electric guitars, they got them queer sounds,” and the full name of this funky, fuzz-filled fantastic footlong is This is Howlin’ Wolf’s new album. He doesn’t like it. He didn’t like his electric guitar at first either. This LP’s the famous financial folly (along with Muddy’s Electric Mud) by Marshall Chess on his Cadet imprint, trying the youth turn-on via throwin’ the roots in the sketch, with fruits like Hendrix in the foreground. The blues purists slagged it, but like much of producer Charles Stepney’s work, was later embraced by hip-hop producers and diggers of all stripes.

BUT, when speakin’ on this mess-terpiece the cast of cats adept in jazz, blues and soul that form the group is generally left outta the equation. This psychedelic solid-sender carries no less than four guitarists (Phil Upchurch, Pete Cosey, Roland Faulkner), including long-time sideman and geetar goliath Hubert Sumlin. The funky, frisky and free rhythm section, Louis Satterfield (bass) and Morris Jennings (drums), along with Upchurch carried backup duties for many Chess, Cadet and outside artists including Terry Callier, Jimmy Reed, Donny Hathaway’s debut, Shel Silverstein, Curtis Mayfield and the Rotary Connection; while Cosey did time in the wild mid-‘70s with Miles Davis amongst others. The fevered flights are handled with finesse by this fab group and never descend into overwrought jamminess, while not kid-glovin’ the Wolf classics but bringin’ a new light to ‘em. The “Back Door Man” hisself also shines migh-tee brightly on the insistent-grooved, reverb-drenched track this sentence began with; the plaintive, slinky “Little Red Rooster” and the wah-wah’ed stutter funk of “Down in the Bottom.”

The fave-rave of the platter is the haunting, backwoods electric burn take of “Moanin’ at Midnight,” where you could hear crickets off in the distance if the amps were turned down a notch or two, but this whole disc begs repeated listens. So, if you’ve got an appetite for the wild, untamed and raucous, pick up this platter that matters! (jeremy nobody, esq)

(Originally published in Ugly Things #33, Spring/Summer 2012)