Moanin' in the Moonlight
Howlin' Wolf
1959
One of the best scenarios I find myself in during this Year of Blind Spots project is when an artist ends up on the list through name recognition only, and then the exploration of that artist yields integral results. Howlin' Wolf is a name I've heard before, and gun to my head I probably could have guessed that he was an old blues singer (it would be kind of crazy to imagine a singer named "Howlin' Wolf" who was not a blues singer, right?). But what I found out this week, just by listening to him and picking up the obvious clues, is that Howlin' Wolf was pretty important to one of the foundational texts of my teenage years: Led Zeppelin.
I mean, look, the word "theft" has been thrown around plenty of times when it comes to that '70s hard rock band, and maybe that's warranted. The list of songwriting credits in Led Zep's discography experienced some really intense growing pains over the years due to various litigation. Howlin' Wolf's estate is getting some of that sweet Zep money as we speak, as "The Lemon Song" features parts of Wolf's "Killing Floor" (which is not on this week's album). "How Many More Times" is heavily influenced by "How Many More Years" (which is on this week's album), but no lawsuits have ever been filed.
We even saw "Smokestack Lightin'" covered on an earlier Jimmy Page-related project in this very column, but maybe that doesn't count. What does count is the overall sound of Howlin' Wolf is very, very clearly a huge influence on what Led Zeppelin were trying to do, at least early on. Those first two albums especially are basically just electrically-charged blues music. So: theft? No, I wouldn't go that far, even though some of it is technically theft.
Because it's my general feeling that music, to a certain extent, cannot be stolen. Sure, there are obvious cases, but just because something "sounds like" something else, doesn't mean it was stolen, per se. There is a huge gray area in between "stolen" and "influenced by," made even more confusing by the fact that there are a finite number of sounds in the universe, and that sometimes the similarities are completely at random. This is why I didn't cry wolf (sorry) in my review when I heard Hall & Oates cover "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" and the bridge sounded EXACTLY like "Summer Nights" from Grease. Do I think Hall & Oates stole from Danny Zuko? Not any more than I think Blondie did the same thing. It's all random, baby!
So I think the outcome here is twofold. One, that we don't necessarily have to feel offended for Howlin' Wolf, because his music was reinterpreted and thus connected to millions of teenage boys in a roundabout way. Two, that it's really fucking important to remember that everything you love is from somewhere else, and that nothing is original, and so at the end of the day you gotta respect the lineage. This week, Howlin' Wolf felt like the Big Bang, but even that's not true. He was picking through more traditional blues songs, and reinterpreting them himself. It's just that, if you go back far enough, the path starts to get a little murky. For now, I'm cool stopping here and planting the flag, so to speak.
All pretty unnecessary in light of the fact that this is some rough, badass, hardcore blues we got here, and that if that sounds like it could be your thing—or maybe you just wanna feel the same thrill that teenage Jimmy Page did back in the day—then this is your shit right here.
We even saw "Smokestack Lightin'" covered on an earlier Jimmy Page-related project in this very column, but maybe that doesn't count. What does count is the overall sound of Howlin' Wolf is very, very clearly a huge influence on what Led Zeppelin were trying to do, at least early on. Those first two albums especially are basically just electrically-charged blues music. So: theft? No, I wouldn't go that far, even though some of it is technically theft.
Because it's my general feeling that music, to a certain extent, cannot be stolen. Sure, there are obvious cases, but just because something "sounds like" something else, doesn't mean it was stolen, per se. There is a huge gray area in between "stolen" and "influenced by," made even more confusing by the fact that there are a finite number of sounds in the universe, and that sometimes the similarities are completely at random. This is why I didn't cry wolf (sorry) in my review when I heard Hall & Oates cover "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" and the bridge sounded EXACTLY like "Summer Nights" from Grease. Do I think Hall & Oates stole from Danny Zuko? Not any more than I think Blondie did the same thing. It's all random, baby!
So I think the outcome here is twofold. One, that we don't necessarily have to feel offended for Howlin' Wolf, because his music was reinterpreted and thus connected to millions of teenage boys in a roundabout way. Two, that it's really fucking important to remember that everything you love is from somewhere else, and that nothing is original, and so at the end of the day you gotta respect the lineage. This week, Howlin' Wolf felt like the Big Bang, but even that's not true. He was picking through more traditional blues songs, and reinterpreting them himself. It's just that, if you go back far enough, the path starts to get a little murky. For now, I'm cool stopping here and planting the flag, so to speak.
All pretty unnecessary in light of the fact that this is some rough, badass, hardcore blues we got here, and that if that sounds like it could be your thing—or maybe you just wanna feel the same thrill that teenage Jimmy Page did back in the day—then this is your shit right here.
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