Customer Reviews
An essential pairing - By: Laurence Upton, 30 Dec 2005 
Like the two long-players before it (Moanin' In The Moonlight & Howlin' Wolf - the "rocking chair" album), these two albums, releasedin 1966 & 1967, were collections of material recorded over a period of more than a decade, mostly previously available on singles. The series of Folk Blues albums had been designed by Chess Records to package the blues to a new, younger audience, & were compiled & annotated by Willie Dixon, who produced a number of Howlin' Wolf records as well as playing bass & writing some classic songs.
Both albums present a coherent overview of the Wolf's distinctive visceralityin the company of the most simpatico & skilled players he could have found.
The Real Folk Blues consists of A-sides & B-sides recordedin Chicago from July 1956 onwards, including two recent singles, Killing Floor/Louise & Ooh Baby/Tell Me What I've Done, from 1965; & My Country Sugar Mama, a single releasedin December 1964. All five of these sides arein full stereo, the rest of the album being mono.
More Real Folk Blues (1967) draws exclusively from an earlier pool of recordings made between September 1953 & January 1956, all mono, & kicks off with three previously unreleased recordings made for Sam Phillipsin Memphis. Two tracks from a session with Willie Dixonin March 1954 were also previously unreleased, Neighbours & I'm The Wolf (the latter being a remake of a 1952 RPM single), the rest all having being available on singles. I Love My Baby also dates from the Sam Phillips period, all others having been produced by Leonard & Phil Chess & Willie Dixon. No Place To Go (You Gonna Wreck My Life) was an alternate take found on the B-side of The Natchez Burningin 1959, also found on Moanin' In The Moonlight, & came outin its original form (from the same session) on the flip of Rockin' Daddyin 1954.
There are excellent new liner notes as well as reprints of the original notes by Willie Dixon & Paul Williams from Crawdaddy, & as some of its finest tracks are rarely anthologised, this is highly recommended alongside the Moanin' In The Moonlight/Howlin' Wolf CD.
Nice rarities collection - By: Docendo Discimus, 16 Nov 2003 This CD brings together Howlin' Wolf's two original "Folk Blues" LPs on one disc.
Most of these songs are lesser-known tracks, with the exception of the great "Killing Floor" & a couple of others, & "Real Folk Blues/More Real Folk Blues" doesn't really work as a definitive Wolf compilation. If you just want one Howlin' Wolf CD, go for MCA/Chess' "His Best", but if you already have that one, this CD would be a nice addition, since it features some tracks not on "His Best" vol. II, including the great slow blues "I've Got A Woman" & "My Country Sugar Mama".
Wolf's "Chess Box" & the two "His Best" CDs do remain the best introduction to his music, however, but "Real Folk Blues/More Real Folk Blues" is a nice, if not essential, collection of (mostly) rarities.
