Eric Clapton FAQ: All That's Left to Know About Slowhand

Copyright © 2013 by David Bowling

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2013 by Backbeat Books

An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation

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Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices

33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

The FAQ series was conceived by Robert Rodriguez and developed with Stuart Shea.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Print ISBN 978-1-61713-454-8

epub ISBN 978-1-61713-574-3

Kindle ISBN 978-1-61713-575-0

www.backbeatbooks.com

To Josef Casimir Hofmann and Thomas Edison

Contents

Introduction

1. Hellhound on My Trail

2. The Mojo Travels North

3. The Midnight Special Hops the Pond

4. Those Cotton Fields Back Home

5. I’m Gonna Leave Here Running

6. This Train Is Bound for Glory

7. I Hate to Leave You, Baby

8. I’ll Give You Everything and More

9. I’ll Give You Diamonds Bright

10. It Hurts So Bad for Us to Part

11. I Really Hate to Leave You, Baby

12. You Got a Boy-Child Coming

13. You Told Me You Was High Class

14. The Hoochie Coochie Man Arrives

15. I Finally Learned My Lesson

16. It’s Getting Near Dawn

17. Meet Me at the Crossroads

18. Worked All Summer, Worked All Fall

19. Another Spoonful

20. Vanish from This Place

21. I Know I Don’t Have Much to Give

22. What’ll You Do When You Get Lonely

23. When You Finally Get Back on Your Feet Again

24. I Tried to Give You Some Consolation

25. I Swear It Was Self Defense

26. How Many Bridges Have I Crossed

27. The Healing Rain Which Restores the Soul

28. You Give ’Em a Smile and They Melt

29. All Around My Home Town, They’re Trying to Track Me Down

30. Way-Out Willie and Rocking Millie

31. Drink Some Brew and Find a Safe Place

32. Oh Lordy Lord

33. I’ll Sleep in This Place with the Lonely Crowd

34. I’ll Really Sleep in This Place with the Lonely Crowd

35. Deep Down in the Dead of Night, I Call Out Your Name

36. Tell Me Who’s Been Fooling You

37. So There I Was in Hollywood

38. How Many Times Must We Tell the Tale

39. All Along, We Had to Talk About It

40. Guess There’s Nothing Left for Me to Explain

41. Then I Can Change the World

Selected Bibliography

Introduction

When I started this project, I googled the name Eric Clapton. I received 10,400,000 responses. It was not 10,400,401 or 10,399,999 but a nice round number. No matter how you look at it, that’s a lot of information about one person. There is more to come, as his career shows no signs of slowing down.

Amazon also had 650 books dealing with him in some manner or other, and that is not counting compilation or omnibus-type volumes. All this calls for the question, is another book about Eric Clapton really necessary?

The answer, up until this point, has always been yes. There has been an insatiable urge by millions of his fans for more and more knowledge about the man, his life, and his music. I feel it’s a combination of the type of society in which we live and the magnitude of the career he has carved out for himself.

He has been a fixture on the music scene for half a century. The Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominos are all testament to his talent and creativity. If he had retired in his mid-twenties after folding Derek and the Dominos, he would have left a lasting imprint on the music world. It turned out he was just warming up, as his solo career now spans four decades.

Eric Clapton is still alive and well and adding to his legacy and bank of information. He continues to be active in the studio and on the road. He released his latest studio album, Old Sock, in 2013. He has already scheduled a number of concerts for 2013 that may well have been completed by the time this book is published. He is constantly adding to the information files about his life. His own book Clapton: The Autobiography and Pattie Boyd’s tell-all autobiography just whetted the appetite for more information, as they are only the tip of the iceberg.

FAQ books are a gathering together of just that. They are not all-inclusive, nor are they biographies in the normal sense of the word. I have divvied his career into different components, so in a sense they are a number of mini biographies centered around different parts of his professional life. While this led to some repetitiveness in places, I felt it was a good way to present the material.

I also decided to go a little further afield and present some of the people who have meandered through his life and even some who influenced it but had passed away before he was born. They are important components to his life and thus his story.

No one fan knows everything or every fact about Eric Clapton, and I realize there are people whose knowledge is much vaster than mine. So we are back to a gathering of pertinent, and hopefully interesting, information in one place.

While this is a book based on the presentation of facts, at times I have tried to make it more accessible and folksy, if you will, by using a more interactive style such as is used in reviews.

Clapton’s story is constantly changing, and any person, whether a public figure or not, creates quite a history during his or her lifetime. I am confident others could write about his life from a different perspective and create an entirely different book. If you are so inclined, I say have at it, as there is always room for more.

In the final analysis, if this book entertains or educates you in some way, it will have been a success and a worthwhile endeavor. Above all, as you turn the pages, enjoy.

Who, Me?

It was an average day in 2010 when the phone rang, and much to my amazement, it was not a telemarketer. It was Robert Rodriguez asking if I had any interest in writing the Eric Clapton book for Backbeat Books’ FAQ series.

It seemed like an exciting idea at the time. What I didn’t consider was the time and effort that would go into accomplishing my simple yes to his question.

I have been aware of Clapton since his time with the Yardbirds. We are of the same generation, although he does have a few years on me. I became a fan during his time with Cream and have followed his career since that time. I was not obsessive about Clapton but rather about his music as I have a complete run of his singles and albums in my collection, including most of his work with other artists. When I began researching the man and all he entailed, I was stunned at how much was out there. It was reduce, reduce, and reduce.

I had just completed a series of reviews about each of his studio albums, so I had listened to them fairly recently. There was a lot of material, however, that had not graced my stereo system in years, and so I became a veritable Eric Clapton roadie in my record room, as singles, live albums, and collaboration efforts were continually blasting from my speakers. It was a virtual trip down memory lane as his career just about spans my lifetime of listening to and collecting music. It was a trip worth taking for my own sake.

I realized I could have added more material to the story and introduced additional chapters almost ad infinitum, but there always comes a point when you say enough is enough. It’s like a term paper in school where you add, delete, adjust, but eventually there comes a point where you must have the resolve to say I have done my best and submit the finished product with hope and a little faith as well. I finally reached that point.

In My White Room

The closer I got to my submission date, the more I burrowed into my computer/record room, which is indeed white. There are a number of people to thank for this project and some whom it will affect in the future.

To my wife Susan, who, against her inclinations, did not disturb my piles of stuff that were accruing at an alarming rate in my little hideaway. She has also humored my passion for collecting vinyl records, which now number in the tens of thousands, and has only skimmed one or two out into the backyard when the impulse became too much to overcome.

To my grandparents, Guy and Edith Fish, who, although born in the late 1890s, established a love of music within my soul. It may not have been music they could relate to at the time, but it was music nevertheless. They also gave me a small allowance each week plus the ability to do odd jobs, allowing me to begin purchasing music.

To Herioux’s Music Store in downtown Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It was a small mom-and-pop operation that is long gone and forgotten by most, but it was there I spent many Saturday mornings flipping though the latest releases. The first record I ever bought was from that store. The Little Old Lady from Pasadena by Jan & Dean still holds a place of honor in my collection. Support your local record stores, as they are the heart and soul of the music industry. They make music personal, which is an important component of the experience.

To Rob Rodriguez, who gave me that first call and provided guidance through the process. Check out his FAQ books, Fab Four FAQ and Fab Four FAQ 2.0.

To the Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group and Backbeat Books, including publisher John Cerullo, who took a flyer on a person who had never written a full-length book.

To my daughters Stacey and Amy, who when they were growing up always thought my music collection was cool and now in adulthood have settled into a supportive if bemused outlook concerning my passion. They will like the book no matter what the outcome, and it’s important to have people like that in your life.

Finally to Grandmaster T, Rockin’ Rylan (with an L), Charismatic Camden, and Bubba Chubs; my grandchildren, more commonly known as Tyler, Rylan (still with an L), Camden, and Ashley. They are the next generation of music lovers. I have no idea what their musical tastes or journeys will be like, but I do know one of them will inherit a great music collection.

1

Hellhound on My Trail

The Delta Blues

The primordial ooze of the Louisiana bayous has produced any number of rare and dangerous creatures but none so exotic as the group of primarily black musicians who were born around the turn of the twentieth century. They were a generation or two removed from slavery, and their parents still worked the dirt farms of the South. They would make, acquire, borrow, and steal their instruments and play on street corners and in smoke-filled honky-tonks, only being paid by passing the hat around for donations. Those talented and lucky enough would record their songs on old shellac 78s, which were called race records and would receive no play on mainstream radio stations. They endured and created the blues.

The blues, or the Delta blues, were raw, primitive, sexual, and passionate. Black rhythms from the Delta would support lyrics about life’s trials, death, religion, and culture. The instruments were acoustic, and the best of the early blues artists were some of the most technically adept musicians to ever walk this earth.

And so God created the Delta blues, and it was good.

Robert Johnson

Much of the life of Robert Johnson remains shrouded in mystery. There are two authenticated pictures of him that have survived. His music sold poorly during his lifetime even among the black audience at which it was aimed. Very little of his music remains as very few 78 rpm records were released during his lifetime and one more after his death. His complete recorded catalog consists of only forty-one tracks, and that includes a number of alternate takes. Yet today he is regarded as one of the seminal figures of American music, and artists such as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Keith Richards, and a host of others worship at his musical altar.

Robert Johnson began his musical journey on May 8, 1911, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, as the son of Julia Dodds and Noah Johnson. He accompanied his mother as she spent the next couple of years employed as a migrant worker and living the rough and tumble life in various labor camps. When he was three years old, he was left at the home of Charles Spencer, where for the next four years he lived with Spencer’s wife, mistress, and assorted children. He was reunited with his mother in 1914, in Robinsonville, Mississippi, where she married Willie Willis in 1916.

Robert Johnson was the influence on Eric Clapton and the generations of blues artists that have followed him. Author’s collection

Johnson’s interest in music began to blossom as a teenager, and he became proficient on the Jew’s harp and harmonica. After marrying and losing his sixteen-year-old wife in childbirth during 1929, his life changed forever when blues legend Son House moved into town. Johnson trailed behind House and cohort Willie Brown as they performed their brand of raw blues in local bars and saloons. He crossed paths with Charley Patton, who did not think much of his still developing guitar skills. As the Depression deepened, he returned to his birth town of Hazlehurst to search for his father, earn a living, marry Colletta Craft, practice his guitar skills, and if legend has it correct, keep an appointment with the devil at the crossroads.

Highways 61 and 49 intersect at the crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and it was there that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play the guitar as few people have ever been able to do. While this legend has been changed, enhanced, and twisted through the years, the Robert Johnson who returned to Robinsonville several years later proved to be one of the most adept and creative guitar players in blues history. Even Son House quickly realized that Johnson was now the master. Whether it was the pact with the devil or his constant practicing in his hometown, the stage had been set for one of the most influential blues players in American history to assume his throne.

He established his home base in Helena, Arkansas, and for the rest of his short life he traveled the juke joint circuit, playing with many of the premier bluesmen of the day and leaving his mark on them; they would in turn pass it on to others.

He would only record two times during his lifetime. The first was in San Antonio in November 1936 and the second was in Dallas in June 1937. A little over a year later he was dead.

The twenty-nine different songs he left behind form a powerful legacy and a jumping-off point for the thousands of blues and rock musicians who would follow him. He took a primitive art form and while remaining true to its roots, fleshed it out and passed it along to the next generation. His place in the evolutionary process of the blues and American music remains secure.

His original releases were all on the Vocalion label, and these old brittle 78s are now some of the rarest and most treasured in music history and bring huge prices from music fanatics and collectors.

1936

• Kind Hearted Woman/Terraplane Blues (Vocalion 03414)

• 30-20 Blues/Last Fair Deal Gone Down (Vocalion 03445)

• (I Believe I’ll) Dust My Broom/Dead Shrimp Blues (Vocalion 03475)

• Rambling on My Mind/Cross Road Blues (Vocalion 03519)

• Come On in My Kitchen/They’re Red Hot (Vocalion 03563)

• Walking Blues/Sweet Home Chicago (Vocalion 03601)

1937

• From Four Till Late/Hell Hound on My Trail (Vocalion 03623)

• Malted Milk/Milkcow’s Blues (Vocalion 03665)

• Stones in My Passway/I’m a Steady Rollin’ Man (Vocalion 03723)

• Stop Breakin’ Down Blues/Honeymoon Blues (Vocalion 04002)

• Little Queen of Spades/Me and the Devil Blues (Vocalion 04108)

1938

• Preaching Blues/Love in Vain (Vocalion 04630)

If you do not have the time, money, or inclination to collect these old pieces of shellac, his entire forty-one-track catalog was issued in the classic box set The Complete Recordings, which was released by the Columbia label in 1990.

When you listen to his music today, his passion and intense attitude are still present. Also of note is how much he packed into a few minutes. All of his material was written with the 78 rpm format in mind, and none of his songs exceed three minutes in length. While his material has been covered by hundreds of artists, very few are able to get it right.

Robert Johnson’s music is not for the faint of heart as it is a primitive and ominous ride through the mind of a hard-living blues genius. But if you stay with it and pay attention, it will be well worth the price of admission.

Charley Patton

No one person can lay claim to being the originator of the blues but if you had to place the mantle on someone it would probably be Charley Patton.

Charley, or sometimes spelled Charlie, Patton was born in Hinds County, Mississippi, circa 1891. Only one picture of him remains, but legend has it he was part African American and part Native American. He was a child at the end of the post–Civil War South, and his music reflected multiple cultures and influences. While he was deeply rooted in the black rhythms of his surroundings, he also incorporated such disparate sounds as early country, or hillbilly as it was known; traditional folk music; and even elements of white vaudeville music.

Patton was a traveling man who lived a hard life. He was probably an alcoholic and was prone to violence. He married on eight different occasions and was a difficult man to get along with. He almost died in 1933 when his throat was slit in Holly Ridge, Mississippi. Through it all he remained a popular attraction on the early honky-tonk and blues circuit. Likewise, many of his releases met with commercial success as race records, which were aimed exclusively at the black market of the day.

He did meet and play with many of the leading blues musicians of his era. Since he was their senior he was given respect, and his bottleneck style of playing and his impassioned singing were copied, changed, and ultimately incorporated into the evolution of the blues. Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Son House, and hundreds of musicians who would follow can trace elements of their sound and style to him.

Patton’s entire recording career consisted of four recording sessions between 1929 and 1934. I find his recordings even more primitive than those of Robert Johnson. His vocal style is almost unintelligible upon occasion, and it overpowers his guitar at times. Though he was considered one of the premier guitar technicians of the era, his disciples would be much more technically adept.

If you want to hear the recorded blues near the beginning, you need to hear many of the songs he recorded during his first sessions in Richmond, Indiana. Mississippi Boweavil Blues is the blues at its basic foundation. Screamin’ and Hollerin’ Blues is just that, and more accomplished vocalists would hone the style presented here. A lot of people have sung the blues, but Lord I’m Discouraged is an example of a man who lived the blues and is able to put his heartbreak and hurt into words and music.

His 1929 and 1930 recording sessions in Grafton, Wisconsin, find him at the height of his powers. The 1929 sessions include Henry Sims giving support with some southern fiddle playing, which provides an odd and effective base for Patton’s guitar sound and vocal. The 1930 tracks find the legendary Son House and Willie Brown adding their guitars to that of Patton’s. Thousands of blues recordings to come would pick up on this primitive guitar interplay.

His last recording session took place in New York City in 1934, shortly before his death from a heart attack. He would cut twenty-six sides between January 30 and February 1. I can’t help but think he recorded just about every song in his repertoire, and as such it is more hit or miss than his other sessions.

If you want to explore the legacy of Charley Patton and have some funds to invest, and by that I mean quite a bit of money, I would recommend his 2001 seven-disc box set, Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton. This is the best compilation of his material that I have heard, as the Revenant label has done an extraordinary job of remastering and enhancing the sound quality. Paramount records were famous for the poor quality of their releases as their old 78s hiss and crackle even when in good condition. The set is an excellent look into the evolution of Patton’s music and the elements that would be gathered and enhanced by his disciples. The extra bonuses are the Paramount recordings of Son House, Willie Brown, and Lonnie Johnson.

Charley Patton’s fame and legacy are secure among serious blues and music enthusiasts, but to the general music-buying public it has been superseded by the likes of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and those whose own legacies have directly influenced many of the music legends of the sixties and beyond.

There can be little doubt that Charley Patton is near ground zero for the American blues. His early recordings are primitive even by twenties and thirties standards, but they remain some of the most influential in American music history.

Son House

Eddie James Son House Jr. entered the world March 21, 1902, in Riverton, Mississippi. He was born into a devout Christian household and felt the call of ministry, preaching his first sermon at the age of fifteen. In his twenties a music calling proved stronger than the church, and he learned to play the guitar before setting off on a career that would elevate him to the top of his new profession and solidify his fame as an influential American blues performer.

In 1928–1929, he would spend time at Parchman Farm Penitentiary for killing a man in self-defense. Luckily for him the final thirteen years of his sentence were commuted. What was truly amazing was that unlike many of his twenties and thirties blues counterparts, he lived well into his eighties.

Son House was a close friend to Charley Patton as he constantly toured primarily with him and Willie Brown. He would also serve as a second guitarist for a number of his recordings. He acted as a mentor to Robert Johnson for a time but ultimately would be surpassed by his former student in guitar virtuosity.

His Baptist ministry would influence him for the rest of his music career. His live shows were wild musical sermons as he pounded his guitar and played it in various positions. They were emotional presentations and suited for the dance hall as his music was based on repetitive rhythms and howling vocals, which would demand an audience response. He was more powerful in a live setting than on record, especially with the technology of the day. In some ways he was one of the first rock ’n’ rollers, at least in spirit, as he was the forerunner of Pete Townshend’s windmilling style and Jerry Lee Lewis pounding away with abandon on his piano.

House cut nine sides for the Paramount label in 1930, but they sold virtually no copies. Songs such as My Black Mama, Preachin’ the Blues, and Dry Spell Blues remain some of the rarest records in history. He did not record again until Alan Lomax brought his three-hundred-pound recording machine to the Delta in 1941–1942 and recorded nineteen tracks by House for the Library of Congress.

His definitive release today is titled The Complete Library of Congress Sessions, (1941–1942). He brings to life the raw emotion of his vocals and his slide guitar technique along with sidekicks Willie Brown and Joe Martin. He whales away on Delta Blues, Pony Blues, and American Defense. Listen for the railroad noise in the background.

Son House would fade from the music scene as many of his contemporaries passed away, but his legacy remained as one of the original wild men of American music.

Memphis Minnie

Who says only men can play the blues?

Lizzie Douglas was born on June 3, 1897, in Algiers, Louisiana. She was one of the few blueswomen to play the guitar and sing, as most females were just vocalists.

Make no mistake that Lizzie, who became known as Memphis Minnie, lived the hard blues life just like her male counterparts. She ran away at thirteen and began playing the guitar in nightclubs and even joined the circus for a short time. Her songs were about life from a female perspective, which was unusual in the honky-tonks of the south. Illicit love, cheating men, life’s difficulties, and sexual lyrics made her music both relevant and interesting.

She had one of the best voices of the pre–World War II blues singers. When you listen to her recordings, it is immediately apparent that you are hearing a superior vocalist. Her lyrics are clearly understood; the tone is superior and the presentation dramatic. That voice graced a large catalog of recordings.

One of her greatest contributions was her experimenting with an electric guitar sound in 1942, which paved the way for the generations of blues artists who would follow.

These old 78s by the blues masters have become highly collectable. Author’s collection

Her second major contribution was her move to Memphis and the fusion of the blues with a country sound. The blues have undergone a number of transformations during the last century, and her foray into the heartland of country music was an important step in this process.

The best example of her work is Queen of Country Blues: 1929–1937, which is a five-disc, 124-track CD box set. Her music sounds much more contemporary than many of her blues companions from the era. Songs such as Hoodoo Lady, Bumble Bee Blues, Me and My Chauffeur Blues, and the fun-filled I’m Gonna Bake My Biscuit, plus 120 others, represent her talent well.

Memphis Minnie many times remains an afterthought in the evolution of the blues, which may be because of her sex, but she was an excellent vocalist/guitarist who pushed the boundaries of her chosen profession, and that is what the blues are all about.

There were thousands of musicians who called the blues their own in the years prior to the Second World War. Many just faded into the mists of time, but a few left a lasting imprint on the musical landscape. Their disciples would spread across the United States, but the hub of the post–Delta blues era would center in Chicago.

2

The Mojo Travels North

Sweet Home Chicago

The year 1948 found millions of former soldiers settling into civilian life. The economy was good, and factories were booming. Tens of thousands of rural Americans were moving to the cities of the North. Against that backdrop, a seemingly insignificant shellac 78-rpm record was released by the Aristocrat Label as number 1305. (I Feel Like) Going Home/I Can’t Be Satisfied by Muddy Waters briefly appeared on the rhythm and blues charts of the day and disappeared. It would turn out to be one of the most influential releases in American music history as Muddy Waters electrified his guitar by plugging it into an amplifier. The blues would be forever changed and the road to rock ’n’ roll was now open.

Many of the Delta bluesmen would travel the dusty roads north with the sprawling metropolis of Chicago as their destination. Little did they realize that a new generation of blues players was waiting for them with not only guitars in hand but also bass, drums, piano, and even saxophones, which had all been plugged in. Their primitive rhythms and stories would be enhanced and changed through the power of amplification. It would allow their style of music to be recorded in ways they could not have imagined and attain a commercial popularity that would have been beyond their expectations just a short time before.

Many of the old bluesmen never made it to Chicago, and their legacy is confined to old juke joints and rare 78-rpm records. Their music has been collected and released on CDs, a format they could not have envisioned. Some did make it, fewer still became commercially successful, and a very few would become legendary and change the course of the musical landscape.

Howlin’ Wolf

The twentieth president of the United States, James Garfield, was shot in the back by Charles Guiteau July 2, 1881, and died a little over two months later. His vice president, Chester Arthur, would assume the presidency, serve with little distinction, be denied his own party’s nomination to serve another term, and quickly become one of America’s forgotten presidents. Today very few Americans know anything significant about Chester Arthur.

It is not known how many children were named after him, but one would achieve more popularity and lasting fame than the old president.

Chester Arthur Burnett entered this world June 10, 1910, in the Mississippi town of White Station, about a quarter century after his namesake’s demise. How a Southern, future Hall of Fame bluesman came to be named after a white, Northern politician is not known and in the long run did not matter as his grandfather would tell the young boy stories about behaving or the wolf would come and get him. Little Charles Arthur took the nickname Howlin’ Wolf and set off to live a life that would resonate through music history.

He would be estranged from his mother all of his life; first for not wanting to work on their farm and finally for playing the devil’s music. He would live with an uncle and at age thirteen with his father, who had left his mother when he was a young child. By the time he was twenty, he had met Charley Patton, who taught him to play the guitar.

If there was ever an intimidating presence onstage, it was Howlin’ Wolf. He was well over six feet tall and usually weighed in the range of 275–300 pounds. His gruff vocals and physical presence made him a dominant and at times terrifying performer.

He learned his craft the same way as many of his Delta contemporaries by continually playing on street corners, small clubs, and bars. Many times he crossed paths with the likes of Robert Johnson, Son House, Johnny Shines, Charley Patton, and Sonny Boy Williamson II.

The five-year period 1948–1953 would set the foundation for Howlin’ Wolf’s commercial success and popularity. He would have his own radio show in West Memphis, Arkansas, which allowed him to promote himself. He always had the ability to attract the top blues talent to his bands, mainly because he paid well and on time. In 1948, he formed his first great band, consisting of guitarists Willie Johnson and Matt Guitar Murphy, harmonica player Junior Parker, and drummer Willie Steele. Nineteen fifty-one found the legendary Sam Phillips signing him to a recording contract. Finally, in 1953, guitarist Hubert Sumlin joined his band and would play for Wolf for the rest of his career. Rolling Stone magazine would honor Sumlin as #65 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Howlin’ Wolf’s first two albums are essential for understanding the blues. Moanin’ in the Moonlight, released in 1959, gathered twelve previously released songs and issued them in LP format. The music is elemental, powerful, and dark. Highlights include the title track I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline), which was based on Tommy Johnson’s Cold Drink of Water Blues, and the immortal Smokestack Lightning, which is one of the historic blues songs. Rolling Stone would rank the album #153 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Howlin’ Wolf Sings the Blues, also known as the Rocking Chair album, was released in 1962. It is a virtual all-star lineup of early Chicago blues songs as The Red Rooster, Spoonful, Back Door Man, and Shake for Me are all found here.

The good news for modern blues aficionados is that both albums were rereleased on one CD titled Howlin’ Wolf/Moanin’ in the Moonlight. Why they were issued in reverse order I have no idea. I prefer this release to his many compilation albums as it presents his music in the manner originally intended. If you want an introduction to his music, this is the place to start.

If you would like to explore his early legacy a little deeper, I would recommend any or all of the following. Saddle My Pony and Worried All the Time are both from 1948 Memphis and catch him in his evolutionary period between the Delta and Chicago. The first is stark and primal, while the second features the piano work of Ike Turner. Howlin’ Wolf Boogie matches the title well as Willie Johnson’s guitar lines drive the song along. Oh Red, recorded in 1952, finds him expanding his musical horizons by adding brass to the mix. My Last Affair is an excellent early example of his expertise at a slow blues song. If you want to move to the late fifties, I Better Go Now is another fine example of a Howlin’ Wolf band at its best driven by Sumlin’s guitar.

Howlin’ Wolf not only helped to establish the Chicago blues but lived to