Howlin' Wolf - Chess Records Outtakes, Demos, & Alternates 1948-1968

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. Read More