Memphis Howlin

These are the recordings that prompted Sun Records chief Sam Phillips's oft-repeated assertion: "This is where the soul of a man dies." Phillips oversaw sessions by the likes of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and B.B. King, but the guttural electric blues of Howlin' Wolf captured his fancy like nothing else–and it's not hard to see why. The Wolf of these '52 sessions was just a few years off the farm, having begun to play West Memphis, Arkansas, juke joints, and cat houses following World War II. Working with a small but feral band highlighted by lead guitarist Willie Johnson (called by some the Jimi Hendrix of his day), the already middle-aged singer and harmonica player created a sound in the early '50s that bridged the Mississippi blues that were his roots with the amped Chicago blues that were his destiny…

His Best is a greatest hits compilation album by American blues musician Howlin' Wolf. The album was originally released on April 8, 1997 by MCA and Chess Records. The album was a part of the 50th anniversary of Chess Records, which was in that same year (see 1997 in music). Ten years later, on April 17, 2007, the album was re-released by Chess and Geffen Records as The Definitive Collection.

Various Artists - Let Me Tell You About The Blues - Memphis: The Evolution Of Memphis Blues 1927-1958 (2009) {3 CD Box Set}
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© 1927-58, 2009 Fantastic Voyage / Future Noise Music Ltd. | FVTD022
Blues / Regional Blues

Memphis was the town blues musicians passed through on their way to Chicago. But some of them stayed and the record companies sent their mobile units to record them. Over a three-year period from 1927, an astonishing amount of talent was recorded: local stars like the Memphis Jug Band, Frank Stokes, Cannon’s Jug Stompers, Jim Jackson, Furry Lewis, Robert Wilkins, Bukka White, Memphis Minnie, Joe Callicott and Sleepy John Estes.

While both Bear Family sets deal with a largely unissued wealth of material, this collection is devoted in the main to all the Memphis recordings from 1951 and 1952 that saw the light of day on a number of Los Angeles-based labels owned by the Bihari Brothers, being issued and reissued and reissued again on a plethora of $1.98 budget albums. Featuring recordings done in Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service and surreptitious sessions recorded by a young Ike Turner in makeshift studios, these 18 sides are the missing piece of the puzzle in absorbing Wolf's early pre-Chess period. It also helps that this just happens to be some of the nastiest sounding blues ever recorded.

You can't possibly fault the material aboard this 12-song collection of Howlin' Wolf's Memphis recordings cut for Sam Phillips. The title track features some truly frightening guitar work from Willie Johnson,and all the material here is loaded with feral energy and a sense that it could fall apart at any second. It's totally intuitive music, with Wolf seemingly making it all up as he went along, which Sam Phillips had the patience to capture as it all went down. These are some of the great moments in blues history, but this part of Wolf's career is better documented on the two Bear Family volumes of the same material and the Flair/Virgin single disc of Memphis and West Memphis recordings.