Smokestack Lightnin'
Context
Credited to Chester Burnett, a.k.a. Howlin' Wolf, this blues recorded in January 1956 at the Chess studio in Chicago takes up a motif that Wolf was already playing in the Delta around 1930, inherited from Tommy Johnson and Charley Patton. Its hypnotic one-chord riff, carried by Hubert Sumlin's guitar, makes it a model of Chicago blues. #11 on the R&B chart in 1956, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Recording Registry in 2009.
In the genealogy of jazz
This track belongs to Blues, spirituals, work songs.