[2] It was included on the 1959 compilation album Moanin' in the Moonlight.

When he re-recorded it for The Howlin' Wolf Album in 1969, "Evil" became Wolf's last charting single, reaching number 43 Billboard R&B chart.

[3] Howlin' Wolf first recorded the song at Chess' studio in Chicago on May 25, 1954,[4] with sidemen Hubert Sumlin and Jody Williams on guitars, Otis Spann on piano, Willie Dixon on double-bass, and Earl Phillips on drums.

[5] Wolf achieves a coarse, emotional performance with his strained singing, lapsing into falsetto.

[6] The song, a twelve-bar blues, is punctuated with a syncopated backbeat, brief instrumental improvisations, upper-end piano figures, and intermittent blues harp provided by Wolf.