Howlin' Wolf - Chess Records Outtakes, Demos & Alternate Takes 1948 – 1968

Howlin' Wolf
Chess Records Outtakes, Demos & Alternate Takes 1948 - 1968
Recorded In Chicago And Memphis
Plus Chicago 1972 Live ( 1 Song )

1948
1. Bluebird #1
2. Dorothy Mae #1
3. Sweet Woman
4. Saddle My Pony
5. Worried All The Time

1950
6. Mama Died And Left Me
7. I'm Not Joking

1951
8. Highway My Friend
9. Hold Your Money
10. Streamline Woman
11. California Blues
12. Stay Here Till My Baby Comes Back
13. Crazy About You Baby
14. C.V. Wine Blues
15. Look A Here Baby

1952
16. Decoration Day
17. Well That's All Right
18. My Baby Walked Off
19. Smile At Me
20. Bluebird #2
21. Everybody's In The Mood
22. Chocolate Drop
23. Come Back Home
24. Dorothy Mae #2
25. Highway Man #1
26. Oh Red
27. My Last Affair
28. Howlin' Wolf Boogie
29. Howlin' For My Baby (Wolf Is At Your Door)

1953
30. Highway Man #2
31. Getting Old And Gray

1955
32. Come To Me Baby
33. Don't Mess With Me Baby

1956
34. So Glad
35. My Life
36. Going Back Home
37. I Didn't Know #1
38. Bluebird #3
39. You Ought To Know

1957
40. Nature
41. Walk To Camp Hall
42. My Baby Told Me
43. Somebody In My Home
44. Midnight Blues #1
45. Midnight Blues #2
46. I Didn't Know #2

1958
47. I Better Go Now #1
48. I Better Go Now #2
49. Can't Put Me Out

1959
50. Getting Late
51. Howlin' Blues
52. I've Been Abused
53. My People's Gone

1960
54. Long Green Stuff

1963
55. Joy To My Soul

1966
56. Poor Wind That Never Change

1967
57. Commit A Crime

1968
58. Dust My Broom
59. Rollin' And Tumblin'
60. Tired Of Crying

Unknown Date
61. I'm Leaving You

1972 - Live In Chicago
62. Big House

Howlin’ Wolf – harmonica, vocals
Willie Johnson – guitar
Hubert Sumlin - guitar

This chronologically arranged triple-CD set could be considered the bootleg parallel to MCA's Chess Box volume on Howlin' Wolf. Assembled here are 60 tracks by Howlin' Wolf that fall outside the official canon of his work, covering his years in Memphis and Chicago, and intersecting with his work for Sam Phillips, the Bihari Brothers, the Chess brothers, etc. Some of it has been heard before in various contexts, or in other versions, but pulling it all together in one place ends up building a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts -- across 20 years of recording, the voice and the persona blaze away and ring out like a force of nature, on numbers like "Dorothy Mae," "Blackbird," "Midnight Blues," and "I Don't Know." There are some genuine surprises here, too, including a 1968 outtake of "Rollin' and Tumblin'," that doesn't last long enough to have been considered for release -- it adjoins a surging "Tired of Crying" that is one of the highlights of Wolf's late-career work at Chess. The quality of the material varies considerably, as one would expect from the wide-ranging dates represented -- the 1940s material is from disc sources that can be very rough at times, but Wolf's vocals and Willie Johnson's guitar cut through the sonic imperfections in evidence; from 1950 onward, most of the tracks are derived from higher quality sources, mostly audiotape masters, and the fidelity on discs two and three, covering the years 1952-1968, is a match for some legitimate Chess reissues that we've seen. These platters are CD-Rs, but of a very high quality -- they play fine on most DVD players (which aren't supposed to be able to read most CD-Rs). The artwork is ambitious if ultimately a little crude, and there's no annotation to speak of, but the listening experience is beyond criticism, and this set -- which has turned up at the best collectors' shops -- is highly recommended for anyone who can't get enough Howlin' Wolf (which is, mostly, anyone who's ever heard him). --- Bruce Eder, allmusic.com

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