By 1968, Chicago blues was a dying art form and the Chess imprint desperately needed a shot in the arm. Marshal Chess, son of label founder Leonard, tackled the problem by forcing his two biggest stars, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, to record psychedelic albums. The results were messy affairs that buried their creators’ talents under layers of wah-wah and fuzz effects in the hope of sounding hip.
While Muddy’s Electric Mud (almost) succeeded because his wide grooves were easily translated into psych riffs, Wolf’s off-kilter stomp proved too eccentric for the session musicians, who replaced them with stale vamps and superfluous effects. There are a few occasions where singer and band synch up, such as the blistering remakes of Smokestack Lightning and Evil but, for the most part, he sounds uncomfortable.
Wolf hated the results, prompting Chess’ bizarre decision to address the issue on the album’s sleeve in bold text stating “This is Howlin’ Wolf’s new album. He doesn’t like it. He didn’t like his electric guitar at first either.” Four decades later, the album remains awful, but retains a curious novelty factor. Listeners in search of a psyched-out Howlin’ Wolf would be better off checking out early Captain Beefheart.
