The Wolf of The Malveneurs

This three-CD box set currently rates as the best - and most digestible - overview of Howlin' Wolf's career. Disc one starts with the Memphis sides that eventually brought him to the label, including hits like "How Many More Years," but also compiling unissued sides that had previously only been available on vinyl bootlegs of dubious origin and fidelity. The disc finishes with an excellent cross section of early Chicago sessions, including classic Wolf tracks like "Evil," "Forty Four," "I'll Be Around," and "Who Will Be Next?" Disc two picks it up from there, guiding listeners from mid- to late-'50s barnburners like "The Natchez Burning" and "I Better Go Now" to the bulk of the Willie Dixon classics. The final disc runs out the last of the Dixon sessions into mid-'60s classics like "Killing Floor," taking the listener to a nice selection of his final recordings…

This three-CD box set currently rates as the best – and most digestible – overview of Howlin' Wolf's career. Disc one starts with the Memphis sides that eventually brought him to the label, including hits like "How Many More Years," but also compiling unissued sides that had previously only been available on vinyl bootlegs of dubious origin and fidelity…

This three-CD box set currently rates as the best - and most digestible - overview of Howlin' Wolf's career. Disc one starts with the Memphis sides that eventually brought him to the label, including hits like "How Many More Years," but also compiling unissued sides that had previously only been available on vinyl bootlegs of dubious origin and fidelity. The disc finishes with an excellent cross section of early Chicago sessions, including classic Wolf tracks like "Evil," "Forty Four," "I'll Be Around," and "Who Will Be Next?" Disc two picks it up from there, guiding listeners from mid- to late-'50s barnburners like "The Natchez Burning" and "I Better Go Now" to the bulk of the Willie Dixon classics. The final disc runs out the last of the Dixon sessions into mid-'60s classics like "Killing Floor," taking the listener to a nice selection of his final recordings…

In the mid-'60s, Chess Records released a great series of compilations of '40s and '50s singles by some of its best blues artists, all of them called The Real Folk Blues. The Howlin' Wolf entry is possibly the best of the batch, and one of the best introductions to this mercurial electric bluesman. Opening with the savage "Killing Floor," the album doesn't let up in intensity, and it happily focuses on Wolf's less-anthologized sides, which gives the album a freshness a lot of blues compilations lack. From the sly "Built for Comfort" and "Three Hundred Pounds of Fun" to the apocalyptic "Natchez Burning," every track is pure Chicago blues at its finest. The album's only flaws are its skimpy 32-minute running length and the inexplicable omission of perhaps Wolf's greatest single, the amazing "How Many More Years."

The legendary SUNS OF ARQA release their 40th album 'The Wolf of Badenoch', an epic masterpiece based on the life of Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan who was the third surviving son of King Robert II of Scotland, making him the great-grandson of Robert the Bruce. This album takes you on a deep hypnotic journey through the life of one of Scotland's most notorious historical figures.

The legendary SUNS OF ARQA release their 40th album 'The Wolf of Badenoch', an epic masterpiece based on the life of Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan who was the third surviving son of King Robert II of Scotland, making him the great-grandson of Robert the Bruce. This album takes you on a deep hypnotic journey through the life of one of Scotland's most notorious historical figures.

In the mid-'60s, Chess Records released a great series of compilations of '40s and '50s singles by some of its best blues artists, all of them called The Real Folk Blues. The Howlin' Wolf entry is possibly the best of the batch, and one of the best introductions to this mercurial electric bluesman. Opening with the savage "Killing Floor," the album doesn't let up in intensity, and it happily focuses on Wolf's less-anthologized sides, which gives the album a freshness a lot of blues compilations lack. From the sly "Built for Comfort" and "Three Hundred Pounds of Fun" to the apocalyptic "Natchez Burning," every track is pure Chicago blues at its finest. The album's only flaws are its skimpy 32-minute running length and the inexplicable omission of perhaps Wolf's greatest single, the amazing "How Many More Years."

Musical institutions have their funny ideas, and the quirk of the Prague Conservatoire in the 1880s was that if you were an instrumentalist you couldn't be a composer, too (evidently no one had told them about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin et al). At his father's insistence Léhar was enrolled as a violinist, but his real interest lay in composition. He took a few secret lessons from Fibich and had the opportunity to play his D minor sonata to Dvorak, who urged him to give up the violin and switch to the composition classes. But Léhar senior was adamant and Lèhar is to be considered as practically a self-taught composer.