Howlin' Wolf : Howlin' Wolf/Moanin' in the Moonlight
Genre: Blues	Dates: 1951-1961

THE Chicago blues album (actually, two on one disc), though it sure sounds a lot like rock and roll. Besides showcasing the Plato's Cave version of the Rolling Stones’ sound (they've never caught that shadow, and never quit trying), it has a few other selling points for the modern rock and roll fan. One is the Wolf himself, whose bone-shattering vocals seem to justify even the most extreme sobriquet but which often overshadow his tremendous emotional range (this is not to mention the harsh light they cast on modern "singers"). Another is the band, on most of these 24 cuts propelled by the wild lightning guitar of Hubert Sumlin. The third is the songs, most written by the Shakespeare of the blues, Willie Dixon: "The Little Red Rooster," "Goin' Down Slow," "Smokestack Lightning," "Evil," "The Killing Floor," "Down in the Bottom," "(I Asked for Water) She Gave Me Gasoline," "Wang Dang Doodle" (the wildest party in rock and roll history)," "Spoonful," "Back Door Man." Those are just the famous ones—made so in the white world by the Yardbirds, Cream, the Doors, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Dead, and others—and it's not even a greatest hits album. If I had to be stranded on a desert island with one album, it would be this one.

Playlist:

1. Shake For Me
2. Red Rooster, The
3. You'll Be Mine
4. Who's Been Talkin'
5. Wang Dang Doodle
6. Little Baby
7. Spoonful
8. Going Down Slow
9. Down In The Bottom
10. Back Door Man
11. Howlin' For My Baby
12. Tell Me
13. Moanin' At Midnight
14. How Many More Years
15. Smokestack Lightnin'
16. Baby How Long
17. No Place To Go
18. All Night Boogie
19. Evil
20. I'm Leavin' You
21. Moanin' For My Baby
22. I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
23. Forty Four
24. Somebody In My Home