It’s got the same 1-4-5 progression as “Louie Louie” and you can’t perform it without strutting just a little. And as a million garage bands can tell you, the song just feels great to play. The singer is lovelorn despite the foolproof hoodoo charm in his pocket. Why does this classic reign over the top of most of these lists? For one thing, few songs ever embodied the swagger and mystery of the blues better than this one.
In 1927, Jefferson recorded three versions of this landmark tune, whose title was inspired by a line in an earlier song, Ma Rainey’s “Lost Wandering Blues.” In 1958, rock and roller Carl Perkins adapted the song to create a new number, “Matchbox,” famously covered by The Beatles six years later.
BABY BLUE SONG COVERS FULL
Though his life was short – he died of heart trouble aged 36 in 1929 – Lemon Henry Jefferson (to give him his full name) had a far-reaching impact on how the blues evolved his wailing, high-pitched vocal style and intricate guitar-picking accompaniment, which is epitomized by “Matchbox Blues,” influenced everyone from Robert Johnson to Robert Plant. But the toughness of heavy rock, not to mention its fascination with the dark side, would be nowhere without it. Unlike many Wolf numbers (“Back Door Man” for The Doors and “Smokestack Lightnin’” for The Yardbirds), “Evil” never received an iconic rock’n’roll cover (though Cactus did a perfectly solid, little-known one in 1971). Meanwhile, Willie Dixon finds the greatest metaphor ever for being cheated on (“Seems like another mule’s kicking in your stall”). Sure, “Evil” is basically a slow blues, but the sheer ferocity with which the band attacks it – not to mention the delicious menace in Wolf’s vocal – account for its influence.
– Charles Waringĭon’t waste your breath arguing whether Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath invented heavy metal, far as we’re concerned, Howlin’ Wolfwas playing it in 1954. Willie Dixon recorded his own version in 1973. The song was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 2008 and inspired over 150 different interpretations from Bo Diddley to Elvis Presley and Dr. The tune came from the pen of Willie Dixon, the poet laureate of Chicago blues, but was loosely based on a gospel tune called “This Train (Is Bound For Glory).” With its chugging, danceable R&B groove and infectious hook, it anticipated the rock and roll style that would emerge two years later. Louisiana harmonica player and singer Marion Jacobs is better known by his blues sobriquet “Little Walter,” and rose to fame in the 1950s when he racked up 15 hits for Chess Records’ Checker imprint including “My Babe,” which spent five weeks at the summit of the US R&B singles charts in 1955. The tune has been a favorite of other bluesmen (Slim Harpo, Buddy Guy, and Freddy King have all recorded it) and even rock bands Led Zeppelin once included it in a medley they recorded for BBC radio in 1969. Considered a delta blues classic, the record also epitomized the “boogie” style with its rhythmic syncopations. An original tune recorded in 1948, the song represented the minimalist aesthetic that was Hooker’s hallmark the only instrument on the record was Hooker’s guitar, on which he strummed guitar chords in a hypnotic, loop-like fashion behind his gravelly bark of a voice. Hooker’s biggest commercial success was during the years 1949 to 1951 when he was in his thirties he put six singles in the US R&B charts, the first of which was “Boogie Chillen,” which went all the way to No. It offers a quintessential example of Johnson’s soulful wail and skeletal guitar accompaniment, and became a touchstone for later blues musicians those who covered it included Peter Green Splinter Group, Eric Clapton, and Gil Scott-Heron. The fact that Johnson died in mysterious circumstances not long afterwards made the record seem prophetic. One of the last recordings he made, released on the Vocalion label in 1938, this classic fable about Satan calling in a debt, helped to fuel the long-held myth that Johnson had made a Faustian pact with the devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for musical success.
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