Chess
1997
His Best
About This Album
With the exception of a vinyl compilation issued in the early '80s (His Greatest Sides, Vol. 1), there'd never really ever been a single-disc Howlin' Wolf best-of package available. That all changed with this entry in MCA/Chess' 50th Anniversary series, a 20-track retrospective that serves as the perfect introduction to the man and his music, some of the very best the blues has to offer. While some naysayers will always decry the exclusion -- or inclusion -- of any given number of tracks on any artist's best-of compilation, it's pretty hard to fault what's been collected here. Starting with the two-sided smash that brought him from Memphis to Chicago ("Moanin' at Midnight" b/w "How Many More Years"), this compilation hits all the high points and essential tracks, illustrating how his music developed into the mid-'60s. Eleven of the 20 tunes on here are either written or co-written by Willie Dixon, and Wolf's original takes on "Back Door Man," "Spoonful," "The Red Rooster," "Wang Dang Doodle," and "I Ain't Superstitious" are truly the definitive ones, a place where personality and material symbiotically become as one.
Track List (try tracks 1,6,9,12,15,16,17 and 18)

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