Review: Howlin Wolf's 'Howlin' Blues: Selected A & B Sides, 1951 - 1962'

Sometimes I get a bit concerned that regular Psychobabble readers might be under the impression that I'm so dazzled by free records that I tend to go easy on them when it comes time to write my reviews. The truth is, most of my reviews skew toward the positive because I almost always review records by artists I really like and I've rarely encountered bungled pressings. Some mastering jobs may be too bass- or treble-heavy, or may feature some unwanted distortions, but such problems are rarely egregious, so I'll mention them in my reviews but refrain from harping on them.

Acrobat Records' new Howlin Wolf compilation Howlin' Blues: Selected A & B Sides, 1951 - 1962 is a boon for proving I'm not totally jaded by swag. Where do I start with this record? Well, a good place to begin any review is the music, and I certainly have no complaints there. Howlin' Wolf may be the greatest electric pure-blues artist there ever was or ever will be--Muddy Waters is probably his only real rival, and Muddy's voice does sound slightly tame when compared with Wolf's gravel growl. The sixteen selected songs on this comp are all stone-classics, covered by artists ranging from the Stones to Led Zeppelin to PJ Harvey, whose versions rarely surpass the master's. Any blues collection without staples such as "Smokestack Lightning", "How Many More Years", "Spoonful", "The Red Rooster", and "I Ain't Superstitious" is a joke. 

To sum up the music on Howlin' Blues: Selected A & B Sides: it's unimpeachable. Great, divine, fab, and all that. The pressing is something else. I have never before encountered new vinyl with so many ailments. Firstly, the spindle hole is way too big, so I needed to experiment quite a bit to figure out how to place the record on my turntable to get the least amount of wow. Even with that, the last couple of tracks on each side sound a bit queasy.

The record has some long gashes that cause the needle to repeatedly jump through most of "Wolf at Your Door" on Side A and through "Spoonful", "Wang Dang Doodle", "Back Door Man", and "Down in the Bottom" on Side B. It's not quite pronounced enough to cause any actual skips, but the thumping needle is audible and visible. Another flaw fooled me into believing "Howlin' Blues" was sourced from a scratchy old 78, but when all the crackle and static subsided before the end of the track, I realized pressing problems were present once again.

Not that there are no sourcing or mastering issues. The sound is very thin, and I had to pump the bass and lower the treble on my system to get it to pass muster. Some of the mixes are fake stereo. "Moanin' at Midnight" fades out suddenly some 40 seconds before the track should conclude. 

So, Howlin' Wolf may deserve better than Howlin' Blues: Selected A & B Sides, but I at least got to prove that I'm not some sort of dancing swag monkey. Hopefully I won't get another chance to prove that for a while.