How Howlin' Wolf Shaped the Stones and Yardbirds Differently on 'Little Red Rooster'

The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds both worshipped Howlin’ Wolf, but they heard completely different things in his music. The Stones leaned into Wolf’s swaggering, hypnotic groove—Keith Richards’ open-G slide guitar on “Little Red Rooster” mimics the lurching, behind-the-beat feel of Wolf’s original, while Mick Jagger’s vocal delivery exaggerates the snarl into something theatrical and almost mocking. The Yardbirds, especially during Eric Clapton’s tenure, treated the same song as a vehicle for blues purity and flashy soloing; Clapton’s tone is cleaner, more note-bending, and the rhythm section pushes the tempo slightly ahead, stripping away the original’s swampy drag.

The gap in interpretation is clearest in the slide guitar parts. Keith’s part on the Stones’ 1964 recording is a single-note, rhythm-and-lead hybrid that never lets the beat settle—it’s all implied tension. The Yardbirds’ version, cut the same year, features Clapton playing a more conventional slide melody over a boogie pattern, closer to Elmore James than Howlin’ Wolf. Where the Stones made “Little Red Rooster” sound like a sexual threat whispered in a dark room, the Yardbirds turned it into a straightforward blues-rock workout.

Both bands used Wolf’s song as a calling card, but the Stones’ version became a Number One hit in the UK while the Yardbirds’ version remained