Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers

Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers - Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers - 1971 - Alligator


Great Chicago electric blues album This is a raw, and unpolished album of blues, boogie, rock and instrumentals. A great no frills recording from this almost unknown artist. Highly recommended by A.O.O.F.C. Buy his great "Natural Boogie " album.

TRACKS

SHE'S GONE (Taylor)
WALKING THE CEILING (Taylor)
HELD MY BABY LAST NIGHT (James)
TAYLOR'S ROCK (Taylor)
IT'S ALRIGHT (Taylor)
PHILLIPS THEME (Taylor)
WILD ABOUT YOU BABY (James)
I JUST CAN'T MAKE IT (Taylor)
IT HURTS ME TOO (James)
44 BLUES (Taylor)
GIVE ME BACK MY WIG (Taylor)
55TH STREET BOOGIE (Taylor)

BAND

Hound Dog Taylor, Brewer Phillips (guitar).
Ted Harvey (drums).

REVIEWS

A talent so mighty and so criminally overlooked that Bruce Iglauer started Chicago's Alligator Records just to put out his debut full-length, Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor may be as important to blues and roots postmodernists as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters were to the classic blues rockers. With a heavily distorted, highly amplified electric sound that eschewed the standard time-keeping of a bassist for the more propulsive chug of a rhythm guitar player, Taylor and his Houserockers brought the grimy juke-joint boogie back to the fore with this 1973 release. Influenced by Elmore James' loud and hard slide-guitar attack (James' standard "It Hurts Me Too" is given a rather fierce reading) and Freddy King's sweet melodicism, Taylor specialized in good-time dance-floor burners at a time when Chicago blues were sliding into a state of overblown reverence. Most of Taylor's originals are rocked-up party calls, greatly served by the minimal recording production they are given (it is a great lo-fi blues prototype for much of Fat Possum's work in the '90s). And while they may never be as lauded as the anthems of a John Lee Hooker or a Howlin' Wolf, chances are that purists are far more likely to boogie to 'em. ©1996 - 2007 CD Universe; Portions copyright 1948 - 2007 Muze Inc., For personal non-commercial use only. All rights reserved.
A lot of record companies talk quite a Bit about their blues "product" but it's always been the small-label independents who really record and release the best blues discs. Alligator is a new company out of Chicago, where Chess and Vee Jay used to operate from. Needless to say, this disc is far superior to the most recent B.B. King or Muddy Waters albums– if you're really into the blues, labels like Alligator and Adelphi, as well as Blue Goose, Jewel, Arhoolie and Duke, are well worth the checking out.
Hound Dog Taylor and his band are regulars at the Expressway Lounge on 55th Street in Chicago and this album vividly distills all the live-wire exuberance and hard-as-nails force of his Elmore James-oriented brand of the blues, exactly as performed live. From Taylor's slow, John Lee Hookerish boogie "She's Gone" and his beautiful re-doings of James' "Held My Baby Last Night" and "It Hurts Me Too" to wild instrumentals on the order of "Walking the Ceiling" and "55th Street Boogie" to originals like "Give Me Back My Wig," Taylor and his two-piece band (second guitar and drummer) demonstrate all the thrust and immediacy of the Chicago blues tradition at its apogee. Taylor's slide-guitar playing is nonpareil and incisive (Freddy King "borrowed" a Taylor tune and turned it into his best-seller "Hideaway"), he has worked literally every blues club in Chicago, broadcasted "live" on Big Bill Hill's blues show on WOPA and has been trying to make a living as a full-time bluesman since 1957. Up until this album his recording career consisted only of two local-label 45 (one re-collected on Blue Flame LP 101), and I sincerely hope that this disc is the turning point in his career. Re-issue efforts are wonderful, but let's not neglect the still volatile bluesmen still in operation, such as Hound Dog Taylor. © GARY VON TERSCH, Feb 3, 1972, © 2007 Rolling Stone

BIO (Wikipedia)

Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor (April 12, 1915 - December 17, 1975) was an American blues guitarist and singer. Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1915 (some sources say 1917). He began playing guitar when he was 20 and moved to Chicago in 1942. He became a full-time musician around 1957 but remained unknown outside of the Chicago area. After hearing Taylor with his band, the HouseRockers (consisting of Brewer Phillips, second guitar, and Ted Harvey, drums) in 1969, an idealistic young white man named Bruce Iglauer attempted unsuccessfully to get him signed by his employer, Delmark Records. Iglauer then decided to become Taylor's manager, formed a small record label with a $2500 inheritance and recorded Taylor's debut album, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers, with Alligator Records in 1971. It was the first release on Alligator records, now a major blues label. It was recorded live in just two nights. Their second release, Natural Boogie, was culled from the same 1971 recording sessions and led to greater acclaim. His third Alligator album, Beware of the Dog, was recorded live in 1974 but only released after his death. More posthumous releases occurred as well, all on the Alligator label. Hound Dog Taylor was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984. Hound Dog Taylor is best known for his raw vocal style and searing slide guitar, using a cheap Teisco guitar and Sears Roebuck amplifier to great advantage. He was not a smooth virtuoso on either of his instruments (guitar or vocals), and was known to say, "When I die, they'll say, 'He couldn't play shit, but he sure made it sound good!'" The HouseRockers were also unique in the fact that they had no bass player; rather, Taylor and Phillips would take turns playing the rhythm/bass line while the other soloed. Freddie King admitted when interviewed that his classic, Hideaway, later covered by Eric Clapton, was inspired by an unnamed Hound Dog Taylor instrumental he had heard Taylor perform at the south side Chicago club Mel's Hideaway in the late 1950s. Stevie Ray Vaughan also covered Taylor's best known song Give Me Back My Wig, both in concert and in studio. Hound Dog Taylor died of cancer in 1975 and was buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.