Search - Howlin Wolf :: Live & Cookin at Alice's Revisited

A smouldering live performance

Docendo Discimus | Vita scholae | 02/23/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This fine live album should be as easily available as MCA/Chess's "His Best" or "The Chess Box".

By far the best-sounding live recording of the Howlin' Wolf, "Live & Cookin' At Alice's Revisited" finds the Wolf nearing the end of his life, having already survived the first of numerous heart attacks. But his gravelly voice is still strong, and his band, the legendary Wolf Gang, is just about as fine a blues band as you could expect to find in Chicago in the 70s.



Wolf doesn't perform any of his signature songs, like "Killing Floor" or "Smokestack Lightnin'" or "Little Red Rooster", but don't let that deter you. Sure, it would have been great to hear this magnificent band playing some of Wolf's hits, but you don't really miss them...the magnificent band, featuring lead guitarist Hubert Sumlin, saxist Eddie Shaw, and piano player Sunnyland Slim, smoulders all the way through, and Sumlin and Shaw plays gritty solos and fills, complementing each other perfectly.



Almost all of these songs are set at a medium tempo, and Wolf stretches out comfortably like he always did when playing live...a 1950s single may have been limited to some three minutes and ten or fifteen seconds in lenght, but together these ten performances clock in at well over an hour, and four songs are over seven minutes long.

Sunnyland Slim's masterful piano playing contributes mightily to the deep grove dug by the Wolf Gang, and the Wolf himself plays great, fluid harmonica fills and several of his characteristic sparse solos.



The magnificent band plays some tremendous live blues, and honestly, how could this not be great? Sunnyland Slim at the piano, Wolf blowing the harp, Sumlin, Shaw, and blues drummer extraordinare Fred Below behind the drum kit.

Howlin' Wolf may have been in his sixties when this album was recorded, and he was certainly no longer a healthy man, but this wonderful live album proves that he could still rock like nobody else when the spirit moved him."