Hound Dog Taylor
Oct. 19th, 2003 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2This is mostly for CD's benefit. ^_^
What I have here is the AMG entry for Hound Dog Taylor. While the information at AMG can be of dubious reliability at times, this info here sounds pretty solid. And it says what I remembered... that Hound Dog was a longtime bluesman but he didn't record much before 1971. But it also confirms what you said, that he was among the first bluesmen, starting around 1935 and moving to Chicago as early as 1942... and playing full-time electric blues in Chicago by the 1950's.
Born Apr 12, 1915 in Natchez, MS
Died Dec 17, 1975 in Chicago, IL
Alligator Records, Chicago's leading contemporary blues label, might never have been launched at all if not for the crashing, slashing slide guitar antics of Hound Dog Taylor. Bruce Iglauer, then an employee of Delmark Records, couldn't convince his boss, Bob Koester, of Taylor's potential, so Iglauer took matters into his own hands. In 1971, Alligator was born for the express purpose of releasing Hound Dog's debut album. We all know what transpired after that.
Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, Mississippi-native Taylor took up the guitar when he was 20 years old. He made a few appearances on Sonny Boy Williamson's fabled KFFA King Biscuit Time radio broadcasts out of Helena, AR, before coming to Chicago in 1942. It was another 15 years before Taylor made blues his full-time vocation, though. Taylor was a favorite on the South and West sides during the late '50s and early '60s. It's generally accepted that Freddy King copped a good portion of his classic "Hide Away" from an instrumental he heard Taylor cranking out on the bandstand.
Taylor's pre-Alligator credits were light — only a 1960 single for Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby imprint ("Baby Is Coming Home"/"Take Five"), a 1962 45 for Carl Jones's Firma Records ("Christine"/"Alley Music"), and a 1967 effort for Checker ("Watch Out"/"Down Home") predated his output for Iglauer.
Taylor's relentlessly raucous band, the HouseRockers, consisted of only two men, though their combined racket sounded like quite a few more. Second guitarist Brewer Phillips, who often supplied buzzing pseudo-bass lines on his guitar, had developed such an empathy with Taylor that their guitars intertwined with ESP-like force, while drummer Ted Harvey kept everything moving along at a brisk pace.
Their eponymous 1971 debut LP contained the typically rowdy "Give Me Back My Wig," while Taylor's first Alligator encore in 1973, Natural Boogie, boasted the hypnotic "Sadie" and a stomping "Roll Your Moneymaker." Beware of the Dog, a live set, vividly captured the good-time vibe that the perpetually beaming guitarist emanated, but Taylor didn't live to see its release — he died of cancer shortly before it hit the shelves.
Hound Dog Taylor was the obvious inspiration for Alligator's "Genuine Houserocking Music" motto, a credo Iglauer's firm still tries to live up to today. He wasn't the most accomplished of slide guitarists, but Hound Dog Taylor could definitely rock any house he played at.
More information largely in the same vein can be found at Alligator Records. They list his birth year as 1917.
Another biography at Keno's Hound Dog Website mentions part of the story you told me, that he was born with six fingers on each hand.
What I have here is the AMG entry for Hound Dog Taylor. While the information at AMG can be of dubious reliability at times, this info here sounds pretty solid. And it says what I remembered... that Hound Dog was a longtime bluesman but he didn't record much before 1971. But it also confirms what you said, that he was among the first bluesmen, starting around 1935 and moving to Chicago as early as 1942... and playing full-time electric blues in Chicago by the 1950's.
Born Apr 12, 1915 in Natchez, MS
Died Dec 17, 1975 in Chicago, IL
Alligator Records, Chicago's leading contemporary blues label, might never have been launched at all if not for the crashing, slashing slide guitar antics of Hound Dog Taylor. Bruce Iglauer, then an employee of Delmark Records, couldn't convince his boss, Bob Koester, of Taylor's potential, so Iglauer took matters into his own hands. In 1971, Alligator was born for the express purpose of releasing Hound Dog's debut album. We all know what transpired after that.
Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, Mississippi-native Taylor took up the guitar when he was 20 years old. He made a few appearances on Sonny Boy Williamson's fabled KFFA King Biscuit Time radio broadcasts out of Helena, AR, before coming to Chicago in 1942. It was another 15 years before Taylor made blues his full-time vocation, though. Taylor was a favorite on the South and West sides during the late '50s and early '60s. It's generally accepted that Freddy King copped a good portion of his classic "Hide Away" from an instrumental he heard Taylor cranking out on the bandstand.
Taylor's pre-Alligator credits were light — only a 1960 single for Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby imprint ("Baby Is Coming Home"/"Take Five"), a 1962 45 for Carl Jones's Firma Records ("Christine"/"Alley Music"), and a 1967 effort for Checker ("Watch Out"/"Down Home") predated his output for Iglauer.
Taylor's relentlessly raucous band, the HouseRockers, consisted of only two men, though their combined racket sounded like quite a few more. Second guitarist Brewer Phillips, who often supplied buzzing pseudo-bass lines on his guitar, had developed such an empathy with Taylor that their guitars intertwined with ESP-like force, while drummer Ted Harvey kept everything moving along at a brisk pace.
Their eponymous 1971 debut LP contained the typically rowdy "Give Me Back My Wig," while Taylor's first Alligator encore in 1973, Natural Boogie, boasted the hypnotic "Sadie" and a stomping "Roll Your Moneymaker." Beware of the Dog, a live set, vividly captured the good-time vibe that the perpetually beaming guitarist emanated, but Taylor didn't live to see its release — he died of cancer shortly before it hit the shelves.
Hound Dog Taylor was the obvious inspiration for Alligator's "Genuine Houserocking Music" motto, a credo Iglauer's firm still tries to live up to today. He wasn't the most accomplished of slide guitarists, but Hound Dog Taylor could definitely rock any house he played at.
More information largely in the same vein can be found at Alligator Records. They list his birth year as 1917.
Another biography at Keno's Hound Dog Website mentions part of the story you told me, that he was born with six fingers on each hand.
