Back Door Man
Chess Records' resident genius Willie Dixon understood exactly how to write for Howlin' Wolf's massive, menacing persona. Dixon handed Wolf "Back Door Man," a song steeped in Southern folklore about a secret lover who sneaks out the back when the husband comes home. Wolf delivered the vocal with a terrifying, hyper-masculine growl, backed by Hubert Sumlin's stinging guitar and Otis Spann's rolling piano. It perfectly captured the danger and illicit thrill of Chicago's late-night blues clubs, famously finding a whole new audience when The Doors covered it on their 1967 debut.
The floating-verse lineage for this recording (who else recorded it, where the melody or lyric traveled, and how it was adapted) is still being mapped. This section will trace the song's DNA across the archive.
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