One of the most intense and arresting recordings I have ever heard is Howlin’ Wolf’s recording of “Spoonful” by Willie Dixon.
This is on my list of classic songs with no chord changes, along with “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin, “India” by John Coltrane, “I’m Bad Like Jesse James” by John Lee Hooker, “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” by the Temptations, and “Shhh/Peaceful” by Miles Davis.
Howlin’ Wolf’s recording features Hubert Sumlin and Freddie Robinson on guitar, Otis Spann on piano, Fred Below on drums, and Willie Dixon himself on bass. Every chord chart for this song on the internet says to play Em the whole time, or maybe G and Em. The thing is, when you listen closely to the track, the few times you hear an unambiguous chord, it’s consistently E7. We are not in E minor here, we are in E blues, and that means dominant chords. Howlin’ Wolf sings some unambiguous G-sharps too.
Once again, I have made a chart, knowing that it is at best a simplification of all the pitch slides and blue notes. Listen to the recording for the truth. The guitar part I wrote is my best attempt to distill the sound of the backing band.
It’s fascinating to me that Howlin’ Wolf never sings the main guitar riff. When he does get to the line “that spoon, that spoon, that spoonful”, he sings a fourth below the riff instead, and leaves off the last syllable. That’s also how Willie Dixon sings it on his own recording of “Spoonful”, though Dixon plays it in unambiguous minor.
There are several older blues tunes with the word “spoonful” in the title, most notably “Spoonful Blues” by Charley Patton.
In this instance, the spoon in question is full of cocaine. Blues fans tend to assume that Willie Dixon is making a drug reference too, probably to heroin. Willie Dixon himself vigorously denied that, however.
Etta James and Harvey Fuqua recorded “Spoonful” as a more conventional R&B number, and it’s cool that way too, though not as heavy as the Howlin’ Wolf version.
Fun facts about Harvey Fuqua: he introduced Marvin Gaye to Berry Gordy, and he also wrote and produced “You Are What I’m All About” by New Birth, which I adore.
Cream recorded several versions of “Spoonful”, and they are uniformly terrible. Rather than link to any of them here, I’ll instead refer you to the band they most remind me of, Blueshammer from the movie Ghost World.
Cream hardly has a monopoly on bad white covers of “Spoonful”. I do want to recognize Chris Whitley’s version, which at least has the virtue of being extremely anxious and weird.
Anyway, let’s cleanse our palate by thinking about how when the Rolling Stones were booked on Shindig, they made it a condition that Howlin’ Wolf appear too. Even in this grainy video, he’s a colossal stage presence; imagine being in a room with him.
I also want to shout out the Grateful Dead, whose album Bear’s Choice introduced me to Howlin’ Wolf through its inclusion of a very long and not-terrible cover of “Smokestack Lightning.” That album also introduced me to Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bill Browning, the Everly Brothers, and Otis Redding. Thanks, Grateful Dead!
I love playing “Spoonful”, and nerd that I am, I even came up with a whole chromatic reharmonization. I think it sounds pretty cool, but it certainly doesn’t improve on the original.
Really, who could have anything meaningful to add to this song? Just go listen to Howlin’ Wolf again.
Update: someone recommended Gil Evans’ arrangement of “Spoonful.” It’s extremely cool! If you are going to take Howlin’ Wolf in a more abstract direction, this is how you do it.