Howlin' Wolf may be gone, but his spirit lives on, as this 13-track tribute album featuring members of the Wolf's own band attests. Sam Lay, Eddie Shaw, Hubert Sumlin, and the rest are as tight and smooth as they ever were playing behind Howlin' Wolf, and they've got an array of guest stars to do the Wolf proud. Taj Mahal (sounding a good bit like Wolf himself) is here, as are guitar-slinger Debbie Davies and multi-instrumentalist Kenny Neal. Lucinda Williams does a bluesy turn, and there are contributions from Lucky Peterson, James Cotton, and more. The CD features plenty of Wolf favorites, including "Saddle My Pony," "Howlin' for My Darling," "The Red Rooster," "Howlin' Wolf Boogie," and "Smokestack Lightnin'," among others. All in all, it's a fitting tribute to a man whose contribution to the blues is immeasurable.

This disc is an integral part of a series Telarc is doing – taking albums that were big sellers by prominent artists and having an innovative group of solid blues players do their interpretations of a variety of the songs from the original album. They have done this with the Beatles' White Album (calling it The Blues White Album) and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde with good success, which will probably continue with this new interpretation of the Stones' 1972 vintage album. Telarc put together a dynamite "house" band, including Brian Stoltz (ex-Neville Brothers) on guitar and former Double Trouble rhythm section members Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, and then pulled in many more celebrated artists to handle the leads. the Stones, who started out as a blues and R&B band, always maintained those roots; thus, many of the songs keep their original shape. This is a solid retooling of this classic Stones LP. Telarc has taken the original double disc and picked the songs the artists felt remained truest to their respective traditions and packaged it as a ten-song disc, complete with a cover notes that make it look the same.