"Evil", sometimes listed as "Evil (Is Going On)", is a Chicago blues

Chicago blues

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...

 standard

Blues standard

A blues standard is a blues song that is widely known, performed, and recorded by blues artists. The following list identifies blues standards and some of the blues artists that have recorded them...

 written by Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

. Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

, also known as Chester Burnett, recorded the song for Chess Records

Chess Records

Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....

 in 1954. It was included on the 1959 compilation album Moanin' in the Moonlight

Moanin' in the Moonlight

Moanin' in the Moonlight was the first full-length album by American blues singer Howlin' Wolf. The album was a compilation of previously-issued singles by Chess Records. It was originally released by Chess Records as a mono-format LP record in 1959...

. In 1969, "Evil" became Wolf's last charting single (#43 Billboard R&B chart) when he re-recorded it for The Howlin' Wolf Album

The Howlin' Wolf Album

-Personnel:*Howlin' Wolf – guitar, harmonica, vocals*Gene Barge – horn, electric sax*Pete Cosey – guitar, bowed guitar*Hubert Sumlin – guitar*Roland Faulkner – guitar*Morris Jennings – drums*Don Myrick – flute*Louis Satterfield – bass...

.

The 1954 song features sidemen Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer, best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing is characterized by "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic...

 and Jody Williams

Jody Williams (blues musician)

Joseph Leon Williams , better known as Jody Williams, is an American blues guitarist and singer. His singular guitar playing, marked by flamboyant string-bending, imaginative chord changes and a distinctive tone, was influential in the Chicago blues scene of the 1950s.-Career:In the mid 1950s,...

 (guitars), Otis Spann

Otis Spann

Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....

 (piano), Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

 (double-bass), and Earl Phillips (drums). Wolf achieves a coarse, emotional performance with his strained singing, lapsing into falsetto

Falsetto

Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...

. The song, a twelve-bar blues, is punctuated with a syncopated backbeat

Beat (music)

The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...

, brief instrumental improvisations, upper-end piano figures, and intermittent blues harp

Blues harp

The Richter-tuned harmonica, or 10-hole harmonica or blues harp , is the most widely known type of harmonica...

 provided by Wolf. The music heightens the meaning of the lyrics, that of the "evil" that takes place in a man's home when he is away: "you better watch your happy home", Wolf warns.

The song has been recorded by numerous artists, including: Luther Allison

Luther Allison

Luther Allison was an American blues guitarist. He was born in Widener, Arkansas and moved with his family, at age twelve, to Chicago in 1951. He taught himself guitar and began listening to blues extensively. Three years later he began hanging outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being...

, Canned Heat

Canned Heat

Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...

, Captain Beefheart

Captain Beefheart

Don Van Vliet January 15, 1941 December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12...

, Derek and the Dominos

Derek and the Dominos

Derek and the Dominos were a blues rock band formed in the spring of 1970 by guitarist and singer Eric Clapton with keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon, who had all played with Clapton in Delaney, Bonnie & Friends...

, Gary Moore

Gary Moore

Robert William Gary Moore , better known simply as Gary Moore, was a Northern Irish musician from Belfast, best recognised as a blues rock guitarist and singer....

, Cactus

Cactus (band)

Cactus is an American hard rock supergroup, formed in 1970.-Biography:Cactus was initially conceived as early as late 1969 by the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section of bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice with guitarist Jeff Beck and Xylophone player Adele Smitchell acted as the counterpart and...

, The Faces, Monster Magnet

Monster Magnet

Monster Magnet is an American stoner rock band. Hailing from Red Bank, New Jersey, the group was founded by Dave Wyndorf , John McBain and Tim Cronin...

, and Steve Miller

Steve Miller (musician)

Steven H. "Steve" Miller is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter who began his career in blues and blues rock and evolved to a more popular-oriented sound which, from the mid 1970s through the early 1980s, resulted in a series of successful singles and albums.-Early years:Born in Milwaukee,...

. Koko Taylor's

Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor sometimes spelled KoKo Taylor was an American Chicago blues musician, popularly known as the "Queen of the Blues." She was known primarily for her rough, powerful vocals and traditional blues stylings....

 version of the song appeared in the 1987 film Adventures in Babysitting

Adventures in Babysitting

Adventures in Babysitting is a 1987 American comedy film written by David Simkins, directed by Chris Columbus, and starring Elisabeth Shue, Maia Brewton, Keith Coogan, Anthony Rapp, Penelope Ann Miller, Bradley Whitford, and a brief cameo by blues singer/guitarist Albert Collins...

.

Jace Everett & CC Adcock also recorded a version of the song, which was subsequently chosen as the featured track for the third season finale of the HBO series True Blood

True Blood

True Blood is an American television series created and produced by Alan Ball. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, detailing the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional, small town in the state of Louisiana...

.