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The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions

Blues / Blues rock & the British blues boom · 1971

The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions

Howlin' Wolf

Why listen

A rehearsal conversation placed beside a finished performance reveals how familiar repertoire had to be learned again inside a new ensemble.

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Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions includes a false start and conversation immediately before the full Red Rooster performance. That choice makes the work of reaching an arrangement part of the album. Knowing a famous song and playing it beside its singer are different experiences; the sequence gives that difference a concrete place. It is more revealing than the impressive list of guests alone, because the players still have to discover how their parts belong together.

Recorded in London in 1970 and released in 1971, the album brings British rock players into Wolf’s working musical world. Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts are prominent names, but Wolf’s longstanding guitarist Hubert Sumlin is an essential connection. Norman Dayron produced and Glyn Johns engineered the London sessions. Further work in Chicago makes this a constructed studio album, not a record of every credited musician sharing one uninterrupted jam.

Experience beyond celebrity

Clapton later acknowledged that Sumlin knew the necessary parts better than he did. That recollection changes the emphasis from a star guest revitalising an older musician to experienced collaborators learning their respective positions. Wolf and Sumlin already shared a musical language. The visitors entered that relationship rather than creating it from nothing.

A changing rhythm section

I Ain’t Superstitious features Ringo Starr and Klaus Voormann. The original sleeve’s Richie drum credit connects with the participants’ later accounts. Wyman and Watts therefore do not form an unchanging rhythm team across the entire record. Even the move from the opening Rockin’ Daddy to the second track contains a change of personnel behind Wolf’s unmistakable singing.

Beyond the rehearsal anecdote

On the original second side, Built for Comfort and Who’s Been Talking? lead into the two Red Rooster entries. Do the Do and Highway 49 follow, before Wang Dang Doodle closes the programme. The conversation is consequently one episode within a continuing set, not the album’s final explanation. Different short performances return attention to how the group actually plays, and the relatively spacious finale gives their encounter a sustained closing shape.

The album through its tracks

Compare the rhythm team on I Ain’t Superstitious with the slower full Red Rooster performance to hear different ensemble proportions within the project.

  1. I Ain't Superstitious

    The second track features Ringo Starr on drums and Klaus Voormann on bass. Those specific credits are more informative than the service’s broad guest-name subtitle. Wolf’s phrasing gives the performance its shape while the accompaniment maintains a pulse without turning every gap into an extended solo. Its early position also makes the album’s changing personnel relevant from the outset: this is not one rhythm section playing every selection. The interest lies in how a newly assembled group supports a singer with an already established style. Recognisable repertoire provides a shared starting point, but the length of each vocal phrase and the placement of the instrumental replies still require collective adjustment.

    Reference · Original 1971 Chess sleeve: archived track list and personnel transcription

  2. Red Rooster

    This selection is the full performance after the false start and dialogue, not the preceding conversation itself. The slow movement exposes how the guitar phrases and vocal lines occupy different lengths within a shared progression. The original sleeve also credits Wolf with acoustic guitar here, giving him an instrumental role as well as the central vocal presence. Knowing the preceding rehearsal changes the way the finished arrangement can be understood: it emerges from negotiation rather than effortless agreement. Dayron’s recollection places the demonstration and the band performance on different days. Their adjacency on the album is therefore an editorial construction, bringing the process and its result into one useful listening sequence.

    Reference · Original 1971 Chess sleeve: archived track list and personnel transcription

Listen next

Continue with Johnny Winter’s Second Winter to compare another musician’s reshaping of blues repertoire within the design of his own band album.

Second Winter ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.