Some classics from Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf will be the next works released on Chess Records’ Acoustic Sounds Series. Both musicians have an album titled The Real Folk Blues, and both are now officially available from the esteemed imprint’s series. The audiophile reissues are remastered from the recordings’ original analog tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl.
In the mid 1960s, Chess Records released a series of Real Folk Blues records, which were made to tap into the growing popularity of folk music in the United States at the time. Howlin’ Wolf’s take on the genre consists of recordings he made between 1956 and 1965. Today, the record is considered one of the best compilation albums in the Chess Records catalog. The compilation marked the first time singles, like “Killing Floor” and “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” first appeared in an album format. Other well known tracks from the album include “Three Hundred Pounds Of Joy,” “Tail Dragger,” and “Built for Comfort.”
Muddy Waters’ take on The Real Folk Blues is, in fact, the one that started it all, becoming the first of these releases for Chess Records. The compilation features some of the blues forefather’s earliest recordings, including some that appeared on Chess’ predecessor, Artistocrat Records. Beyond their musical virtues, Waters’ recordings here preserve a moment in history, before blues music entered its electric era. The compilation features tracks like “Mannish Boy,” “Forty Days And Forty Nights,” “You Can’t Lose What You Never Had,” “Walking Blues,” and “Walking In The Park.”
Both Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf have appeared in the Chess Records’ Acoustic Sounds Series before. For Waters, it was his albums Folk Singer and The Best Of Muddy Waters, while Wolf has been previously represented in the series with Moanin’ In The Moonlight. Other beloved records to have appeared in the series are Etta James’ At Last, Chuck Berry’s Berry Is On Top, and Sonny Boy Williamson’s The Real Folk Blues.
