In 1985, the song was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in the "Classics of Blues Recordings" category and, in 2009, it was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry of the U.S. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at number 291 in its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it in its list of the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". Wolf truly sounds like a man in otherwise inexpressible agony, flailing for words." In 1999, the song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, honoring its lasting historical significance. a pleasingly primitive and raw representation of the blues, pure and chant-like. In a song review for AllMusic, Bill Janovitz described "Smokestack Lightning" as "almost like a distillation of the essence of the blues. It was later included on the albums Moanin' in the Moonlight and The Howlin' Wolf Album. Due to the song's renewed popularity, Pye International Records issued it in the UK on a moderately successful EP in late 1963 and then on a single the following year, where it peaked at number 42 in the singles chart. As the UK experienced an R&B boom in the early 1960s, British R&B groups regularly covered "Smokestack Lightning" in their live acts.
In 1956, "Smokestack Lightning" reached number 11 on the Billboard R&B chart. Howlin' Wolf sang and played harmonica, backed by pianist Hosea Lee Kennard, guitarists Willie Johnson and Hubert Sumlin, bassist Willie Dixon, and drummer Earl Phillips. Longtime Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin is credited with the distinctive guitar line. The song takes the form of "a propulsive, one-chord vamp, nominally in E major but with the flatted blue notes that make it sound like E minor", and lyrically it is "a pastiche of ancient blues lines and train references, timeless and evocative". It contains the line "O-oh smokestack lightnin', shinin', just like gold, oh don't you hear me cryin'", similar to the Mississippi Sheiks' lyric "A-ah, smokestack lightnin', that bell shine just like gold, now don't you hear me talkin'".Īt Chess' studio in Chicago in January 1956, Howlin' Wolf recorded "Smokestack Lightning". That was smokestack lightning." In 1951, he recorded the song as "Crying at Daybreak". Wolf said the song was inspired by watching trains in the night: "We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. The song, described as "a hypnotic one-chord drone piece", draws on earlier blues, such as Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues", the Mississippi Sheiks' "Stop and Listen Blues", and Charley Patton's "Moon Going Down". Wolf had performed "Smokestack Lightning" in one form or another at least by the early 1930s, when he was performing with Charley Patton in small Delta communities. It is based on earlier blues songs, and numerous artists later interpreted it. It became one of his most popular and influential songs. " Smokestack Lightning" (also "Smoke Stack Lightning" or " Smokestack Lightnin'") is a blues song recorded by Howlin' Wolf in 1956. For other uses, see Smokestack Lightning (disambiguation). This article is about the Howlin' Wolf song.
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