Although his tenure with
Willie Dixon at Chess Studios is what made him a star,
Howlin' Wolf's short-lived association with
Ike Turner,
Sam Phillips, and Sun Studios in the early '50s produced some of the most powerful and raucous music ever recorded. (
Muddy Waters' first electric recordings are downright tame in comparison.)
The Wolf Is at Your Door is a sizeable chunk of
Howlin' Wolf's Sun sessions -- a diverse slate of music recorded over the span of 11 months. Seven of these songs (including the legendary "Moanin' at Midnight" b/w "How Many More Years") were leased to Chess, while the rest were left unissued until the late '70s. This is about as unrestrained as
Wolf ever got in a studio setting, thanks in part to the crude backing he got from guitarist
Willie Johnson and drummer
Willie Steel.
Wolf often stuck to the same themes in his songwriting (he constantly gripes about getting old), but as a singer he could mix it up, at least to the extent that his producers let him. Only in Memphis -- and with
Phillips at the helm -- would you be able to record
Wolf doing a swinging,
Louis Jordan-style rap (on "Look-a-Here Baby") or take after take of boogie-woogie. The material here will always be overshadowed by
Wolf's Chicago recordings, but that doesn't make it any less vital.