Howlin’ Wolf’s second album gathered the singles he’d released between 1959 and 1962. It’s a showcase for his raucous, raspy vocals (with a few surprises, like the dramatic recitations on “Goin’ Down Slow”) and Hubert Sumlin’s stinging, inventive lead guitar, and contains many of his classic songs, including “Spoonful,” “Little Red Rooster,” “Wang Dang Doodle,” and “Back Door Man.” But sometimes the more obscure songs, like “Down in the Bottom,” a tale of running from a cuckolded husband set to the melody of “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”, really show him at his sharpest and wittiest — the Wolf of song was a ladies’ man first and foremost, after all, and this story of him running down the road shouting “I’m too young to die” is worthy of Chuck Berry, and the music has a strong enough backbeat, occasionally adorned by slapback echo, to inch it in the direction of rock ’n’ roll at times, but for the most part this is essential electric blues.

– Phil Freeman