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Baker's Dozen

The Ideal Copies: Graham Lewis Of Wire's Favourite Albums
Luke Turner , April 15th, 2015 13:44

As Wire continue their five-night London residency as part of the tQ co-curated DRILL:LEXINGTON festival, their bassist and lyricist gives Luke Turner a tour of his top 13 records

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Howlin' Wolf - Greatest Hits
In the same way as I chose Al Green I chose this because they are the first real electric blues band, they are just magnificent: the songs are great, the singing's great, the arrangement's are great, the sound is great - they invented it, pretty much. I got really familiar with this round about '83, '84. I was breaking up with someone and breaking up with myself really. For about a year that was all I listened to, I put it on and it never disappointed me. It was after all the Wire work and all the Dome records and all the various things. I put that on and was absolutely sold. Things were up for grabs, I wasn't really sure about anything else really, but this seemed really pretty solid for me. Incredible. Talking of John Peel, the last time I saw him before he died, he came up to me and said: 'What was the most disappointing gig you ever went to of someone you really liked? For me it was Howlin' Wolf with a pick-up band and I wish I'd never gone.'