"Smokestack Lightning" - Yardbirds' version *totally* different from Howlin' Wolf's?

[Buried Alien]

A song that I've really fallen in love with lately is the old Howlin' Wolf blues standard "Smokestack Lightning." My favorite rendition is the Yardbirds' live rendition, but I kind of wonder if they're even the same song. Many British bands and other performers have covered "Smokestack Lightning," and each of these artists have done the song in their own idiosyncratic styles, but it was always recognizable as a cover of Howlin' Wolf's song. The Yardbirds' version, though, sounds almost like an entirely different song.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[The Black Guardian]

Yeah. While the Yardbirds used the same basic music (just upped the tempo), they changed a lot of the lyrics. One of the Yardbirds' versions has almost entirely redone lyrics.

[Black Francis]

Nice to see another Howlin' Wolf fan on the boards

[Jonathan Bogart]

We're all Howlin' Wolf fans here, aren't we?

[Buried Alien]

The two other versions I listened to aside from Howlin' Wolf's original and the Yardbirds' live rendition were performances by the Animals and the Who. Both the Animals' and the Who's versions were immediately recognizable as Howlin' Wolf's song...same guitar riff, same melody, same lyrics, and even Wolf's characteristic "woo-ooo" moan/howl. The Animals slowed the tempo down, and the Who speeded it up, but both were recognizably covers of Wolf's song. The Yardbirds' version, however, sounded like a different song altogether. If I didn't already know it was supposed to be a cover, I never would have suspected that Wolf's version and the Yardbirds' version were the same song.


Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[jesse_custer]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Bogart

We're all Howlin' Wolf fans here, aren't we?

Most people are when they finally listen to him.

He might be my pick for voice of the 20th century.

[Adam C]

I looked it up on You Tube (only source I had for a quick check) and while there's certainly less space than in Wolf's song and more harp, the basic structure and rhythm seem similar and still recognizable as a Wolf song. A punked-up Wolf song, but Wolf's song nonetheless.

(Then again I've heard The Residents butcher "Satisfaction" into avant-garde territory and the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" done by classical vocalist and celloist, so maybe my tastes are strange enough to that the Yardbirds version just doesn't seem that strange to me. Thinking about it now I can see how their version would throw some people off.)

Originally Posted by Jonathan Bogart

We're all Howlin' Wolf fans here, aren't we?

It should be a rite of initiation for posting on the music board.

Well that and Pavement lyric interpretation.