Howlin’ Wolf was already a giant, both literally and in the world of blues, when his debut album Moanin’ in the Moonlight was released a half-century ago, in 1959.
For Chess Records, Moanin’ was a way to cash in on the LP craze. For Wolf — who was born Chester Burnett on June 10, 1910, in White Station, Miss., just outside Meridian — the album was a summary of his accomplishments: a collection of R&B chart smashes that included “Moanin’ At Midnight,” “How Many More Years,” “Smoke Stack Lightning,” and “I Asked for Water” (all top 10 hits), plus “Baby How Long,” “Forty Four,” “I’m Leavin’ You,” and five more.
For a generation of budding British guitarists and singers that included Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, John Mayall and Eric Clapton, Moanin’ was the first concentrated dose of an artist whose voice his first producer Sam Phillips described as coming from a place “where the soul of man never dies.”
Wolf’s singles had been hard to find in the U.K., but Moanin’ in the Moonlight struck the nascent British blues scene like a lightning bolt, much as the LP debut of Robert Johnson’s sides would several years later. The disc — which was ranked 153 on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time — was especially inspiring to the young musicians who aimed to start bands, because it featured arguably the finest ensemble playing the blues in Chicago.
When Wolf was recording his first singles with Phillips in Memphis in 1951 – represented by “Moanin’ At Midnight” and “How Many More Years” (which features Ike Turner on piano) on the LP — Muddy Waters was already in Chicago fronting the band that established the electric group blues sound that became synonymous with the Windy City. But when Wolf arrived there and began recording for Chess in 1953, he quickly established himself as a bandleader to be reckoned with.
Wolf was exacting and unshakeable when it came to getting what he heard in his head onto tape. It helped that he wrote the majority of the songs he recorded. Wolf also demanded absolute commitment from his players and committed to them in return. He was one of the first leaders to offer health insurance to his band.
Obviously, Howlin’ Wolf was also an extremely formidable talent. He was a high-energy performer with a sense of humor on stage, given to appearing in janitor’s overalls with a mop and bucket, or crawling around on all fours while he played and sang. But the music always came first. Besides the house-shaking rasp of his voice, Wolf was a capable guitarist and blew harmonica in a lean, raw Delta-style inspired by Sonny Boy Williamson.
In the studio, producer/label boss Leonard Chess paired Wolf with some of the same great drummers who played with Waters, including S.P. Leary and Fred Below. And for “Baby How Long,” “Evil” and “Forty Four,” Chess replaced Hosea Lee Kennard, Wolf’s regular piano player, with Otis Spann, the instrument’s leading blues exemplar. But the lynchpin of Wolf’s band and his personal creative foil was a young guitarist named Hubert Sumlin. Wolf pried teenaged Sumlin from his Arkansas mama’s house to enlist him in his band, and their pairing was one of the greatest partnerships in blues.
Although the tracks on Moanin’ in the Moonlight frequently teamed Sumlin with fellow guitarists Jody Williams and Willie Johnson, the disc’s classic guitar riffs, still part of the blues lexicon, are Sumlin’s. His style is distinguished by string sliding, alternating high and low notes, and daredevil bends that often play call and response with Wolf’s vocal or harmonica lines.
Moanin’ is home to Sumlin’s bend-and-slide riff for “Smoke Stack Lightning,” which Clapton assimilated into his vocabulary. Sumlin used a variation on the lick for “I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline),” which was a highlight of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s live sets. And then there are Sumlin’s shambling, distinctly fingerpicked spines for “No Place to Go” and “Moanin’ for My Baby,” plus the hammer-ons and clustered bent notes of “Evil.” When Sumlin solos his phrases frequently end in chiming vibrato. And he displays a preference for the low notes on “Forty Four” and elsewhere that still serves as a reminder to contemporary players that gold can be mined from every part of the fret board.
After Moanin’ in the Moonlight Wolf’s influence expanded, and his next album, 1962’s Howlin’ Wolf with the hits “Wang Dang Doodle.” “Goin’ Down Slow,” “Spoonful,” and “Little Red Rooster” increased his fame abroad to the extent that he was the headliner of the 1964 American Folk Blues Festival tour of Europe. And, of course, Jagger, Jones, and Richards’ Rolling Stones covered “Little Red Rooster,” and Clapton arranged Cream’s version of “Spoonful.”
Wolf and Sumlin continued their partnership until Wolf’s death in 1976. Today, Sumlin is enjoying a renaissance at age 77. He continues to tour and record, and was featured in the 2004 concert film Lightning in a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues. His latest album is 2005’s About Them Shoes, which features Richards and Clapton. Sumlin is also a regular in the line-up of the annual Experience Hendrix Tour, where he is featured along with Buddy Guy for his influence on Jimi Hendrix, whose live sets often featured a raging rendition of Wolf’s “Killing Floor.”