The Red Rooster
| The Red Rooster | |
|---|---|
| Howlin 'wolf | |
| publication | 1961 |
| length | 2:25 |
| Genre (s) | Chicago blues |
| Author (s) | Willie Dixon |
| Label | Chess Records |
| album | Howlin 'wolf |
| Cover versions | |
| 1963 | Sam Cooke |
| 1964 | The Rolling Stones |
The Red Rooster (with cover versions often Little Red Rooster ) is a blues standard, which by Willie Dixon written and directed by first time in 1961 Howlin 'Wolf for Chess Records was recorded.
The song was a successful single for Wolf, but the piece became known beyond the limits of the blues through numerous cover versions. Other Howlin 'Wolf pieces have also become known through reinterpretations by rock-oriented artists, such as Back Door Man ( The Doors ). As Little Red Rooster , the piece was a first successful single for the then newly formed British rock band The Rolling Stones . The Stones version is probably the best known version of the song next to Wolf's original, although a large number of blues singers like Big Mama Thornton or Otis Rush tried their hand at the piece. Another well-known cover version is by Sam Cooke . The Doors also played the song at some of their concerts, but it didn't make it onto a studio album with them.
Although Willie Dixon is credited with the sole authorship of the song, it is evident that The Red Rooster is based on earlier blues songs . Similarities in music and text are obvious. Music research found the origins of the piece in a large number of blues songs from the 1920s and 1930s, such as Charley Patton's Banty Rooster Blues or Memphis Minnies If You See My Rooster (Please Run Him Home) . Howlin 'Wolf should also have been more involved in the adaptation than the sole authorship of Dixon seems to allow. The wife of guitarist Hubert Sumlin , Evelyn Sumlin, is said to have complained that Wolf rewrote old pieces, but Dixon took the credit for it. Wolf's original version is a slow blues in A with the AAB rhyme scheme typical of the blues. He himself plays the dominant slide guitar . The version of the Rolling Stones contains a harmonica outro , played by Brian Jones .
swell
- ↑ Segrest 2004 pp