In 1969, Marshall Chess, son of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess, decided to bring two of the label’s biggest blues artists, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, to hippie audiences with albums that reworked their classic material in psychedelic fashion: Electric Mud and The Howlin’ Wolf Album, respectively. Both featured Rotary Connection, a group that included guitarist Pete Cosey (who would find fame in Miles Davis’s mid ’70s electric band), keyboardist Charles Stepney (who’d later work with Earth, Wind & Fire), and vocalist Minnie Riperton (not heard on the blues sessions). The Howlin’ Wolf Album is the better of the two, mostly because songs like “Spoonful,” “Smokestack Lightning,” “Back Door Man,” “Down in the Bottom,” “Evil,” and “Moanin’ At Midnight” are hard to screw up, and Wolf’s voice is as powerful as ever, the grit of old age only adding to its strength. This might not be blues for purists, but it’s absolutely worth hearing.