Back Door Man

Howlin Wolf recorded Back Door Man in Chicago in June 1960 with a Chess studio band including Otis Spann on piano, Hubert Sumlin and Freddie Robinson on guitars, Willie Dixon on bass, and Fred Below on drums. Willie Dixon wrote the song and shaped its stop-time arrangement around Wolfs vocal presence. Released by Chess in 1961, Back Door Man became one of Howlin Wolfs major Willie Dixon songs. Its menacing vocal, spare groove, and sexual double meaning made it a defining Chicago blues record of the early 1960s. Back Door Man became a blues standard and reached a wider rock audience through the Doors 1967 cover. The song remains one of the best known examples of Willie Dixons writing for Howlin Wolf.