Back Door Wolf

Howlin Wolf, Howlin' Wolf | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 24, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Mca Special Products
• ASIN: B000002OCK
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,930 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2007. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wolf went out swinging., July 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Back Door Wolf (Audio CD)

Wolf's last album is an astonishing display of pure guts and deep, deep blues. Tracks like "Coon On The Moon" and "Watergate Blues" updated the form itself, and he re-invents the past in songs like "Moving", "Trying To Forget You", and the utterly amazing "Can't Stay Here". Some so-called purists were put out by the keyboard-simulated harpsichord on a few cuts, but it only adds to the effect of killer tunes like "Speak Now Woman". The great Hubert Sumlin is here as well, and if you're a guitar player, clean your ears and listen up. While many people point out "The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions" as the highlight of Wolf's last years, this album is an even deeper, purer document of maybe the greatest of them all. He's been gone twenty-two years, but I don't think that voice will ever be entirely dead.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars still moanin', September 23, 2000

By 

"katja_r" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Back Door Wolf (Audio CD)

I enjoy listening to the music on this CD very much. This is the last album recorded by the legendary blues giant Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin' Wolf. The CD notes provide a brief history of the man, the myth, the mighty, moanin' Wolf. I learned from them that, although he had been performing since the 1930s, he started his recording career at the age of 40 in 1951. It was in Memphis where he was discovered by Sam Phillips, as in Elvis. His first recording session resulted in a hit, "MOANIN' AT MIDNIGHT", a personal favourite, and landed him a contract with Leonard Chess. For twenty years begining in 1953, the Wolf made records with Chess. Although, success was late in arriving for him in the US, if you were at the Crawdaddy Club in London in the 1960's, you would have known who he was. He was one of the influences for the under-rated British group the YARDBIRDS which was a revolving door for legendary guitarists, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and finally, Jimmy Page. In the songs of this CD, Howlin' Wolf and Hubert Sumlin, who was his guitarist since 1954, look back over their recording career update and summarize it. As much as this is a Howlin' Wolf album, it is also a Hubert Sumlin album. If you are learning to play guitar and have yet to master one of Sumlin's leads, this is a good CD to listen closely to. He balances Wolf's low growl with treble notes which bend, slide, jab and smoothly grace a pentatonic scale. Sumlin's style depends on a solid rhythm section to keep things steady, and he is working with a fine one here. CAN'T STAY HERE, SPEAK NOW WOMAN(ALT.) and TRYING TO FORGET YOU are standouts as Sumlin showpieces. The last one is a retrospective tour through Wolf's songs as that woman who is still "trying to wreck" his life has him "moanin' at midnight". If you are interested in the Chicago Blues, or would like to learn the classic guitar solos of Hubert Sumlin, this CD will be interesting to you

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chester's New Harpsichord, October 11, 2001

By 

"leeleedee" (Lexington, Kentucky

Cincinnati) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Back Door Wolf (Audio CD)

On this 1973 effort you can hear some guy feeding Howlin' Wolf his lyrics on the opening cut "Moving." Wolf also flubs a line in the song. We must thank the guardians of blues authenticity for leaving in mistakes and off-mike cues. Nonetheless, this is a fine blues album and Howlin' Wolf is everybody's favorite artist. Bluesniks all over Sweden, London and El Cerrito still debate whether Hubert Sumlin or Buddy Guy played the classic guitar licks on Wolf's '50s and '60s Chess records. On this one Sumlin is credited so I guess it's him. Someone got Detroit Jr. a harpsichord to play on this album. Another example of that restless experimentation that characterized the Chess label. Howlin' Wolf was a master of throwaway phrasing just like Frank Sinatra but I don't believe Mr. Burnett ever got to hang out with any presidents, and if there was ever any chance of that happening his "Watergate Blues" queered that deal. But Wolf is easily as good as Sinatra or anybody else, he takes a back seat to no one, and in the ongoing debate over whether Francis Albert or Howlin' Wolf was better, I say Wolf. This was Howlin' Wolf's last album before dying in 1976. If you don't know his music, get the early stuff he cut in the Memphis area in the early 1950s, as it remains perhaps his best work. I can hear that guy off-mike right now, feeding Wolf the words, and if I could find out who it was, I'd write a letter to someone who cared.