Birth of the Blues: Hound Dog Taylor

Birth of the Blues: Hound Dog Taylor and The House Rockers
By Hunter60

By the late 1960's, The House Rockers had landed a standing Sunday afternoon gig at Florence's Lounge (now a rather famous club on Chicago's Southside) where countless legendary Chicago blues men would stop in to jam with "The Dog". It was during this time that one night while sitting in the bar that Taylor took a knife and cut off the superfluous sixth finger he had been born with on his left hand.

By 1970, Bruce Iglauer, having graduated from college and moved to Chicago to work for Delmark Records happened upon Hound Dog Taylor and The House Rockers again. This time he saw the band that truly was Chicago's favorite local blues rockers and he was hooked. "People were dancing in the isles and on the seats … a lot of people were sitting in and the energy was fantastic. Everybody knew Hound Dog and the music was totally raw and absolutely infectious," said Iglauer.

Iglauer tried to have his boss at Delmark, Bob Koester, sign the band to no avail. So Iglauer took all the money he had left from an inheritance, $2500, and got the band into the studio and recorded an album. According to Iglauer the main reasons for wanting to record Taylor was a mix of adolescent spite to show Koester he was wrong in not signing the band and "I'm going to do this and do this now and I am going to turn people on to my favorite band."

The record was recorded in two nights during the spring on 1971. Taylor played his $50 Japanese knock-off guitar and his Sears & Roebuck amplifier (complete with cracked speakers). There were no multiple takes and no over-dubbing because as much as the band hated to rehearse, they hated playing the same song twice even more. It was recorded live and done with the same raw energy that was the trademark of a House Rockers show. Twenty songs were recorded in the two nights and the best were selected for the disc. A master was secured for a little under $1000 and with the remaining money, 1000 copies were pressed. Iglauer then loaded the discs into his beat up station wagon and began driving to FM radio stations where he would approach the disc jockeys of progressive rock stations and practically beg them to play the record. Within one year, Taylor's debut album – "Hound Dog Taylor and The House Rockers" became the biggest selling blues record on an independent label with impressive numbers of 9000 copies sold. Over the years, the album has sold in excess of 100,000 copies.

Iglauer who had continued to work his day job at Delmark was also functioning as Taylors manager, booking agent and roadie. It became apparent that something was going to have to go and it was Delmark. Iglauer quit and established Alligator Records.

Suddenly Taylor was a hot property and they began to tour heavily outside of Chicago making it to Australia and New Zealand and Europe. Once while touring the East Coast, a young George Thorogood acted as a driver for the band and opened their sets with several acoustic blues songs.

In 1973 they recorded their second album "Natural Boogie" which was received a little more warmly by critics thanks to better production and Taylor and the band trying to craft more of their own tunes.

By 1975, it was decided that a live album was what they wanted to do next so Igluaer arranged to record "Beware of the The Dog". The tracks were culled out of the three shows at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and a few shows at The Smiling Dog Saloon in Cleveland, Ohio. It appeared that Hound Dog Taylor and The House Rockers stood poised at the verge of major success yet trouble was right around the corner. In May of 1975, Phillips along with soon to be blues guitar great Son Seals were visiting with Taylor at his home when Phillips apparently said something insulting about Talyor's wife Freeda. Hound Dog left the room and returned with a .22 caliber rifle and proceeded to fire off two rounds. He hit Phillips twice, once in the leg and once in the forearm. Seals wrestled the gun away from Taylor before further harm could be done.

Phillips did recover but Taylor was charged with attempted murder and was set to be tried for the crime. The case never made it to court as Taylor was dying of lung cancer. Taylor entered the hospital and asked for Phillips to come to visit him. He asked Phillips to forgive him for the shooting, which Phillips did, and Taylor died the following day on December 17th, 1975.

"Beware Of The Dog" was released in 1976.

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Iglauer continued on with Alligator Records to great success recording countless legendary blues acts from Johnny Winter, Elvin Bishop, Roy Buchanan, Buddy Guy, Lonnie Mack, Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Albert Collins and Robert Cray, keeping the modern blues sound alive and well. In a nod to his first and, according to Iglauer, his favorite act – Hound Dog Taylor, the motto for Alligator is and always will be "Genuine House Rocking Music".

Hound Dog was no virtuoso. He wasn't a slick player. He couldn't read a note of music and he played cheap guitars pumping through cheap amps distorted almost to the point of pain. And yet he was one of the Chicago blues communities' favorite sons.

It's amazing how far a little passion and love for your art can take you.

Hound Dog Taylor is one of my favorite blues artists. I say "is" rather than "was" because many, if not most of my favorites were long gone from this world before I even started listening to the blues. Over the last 9 years blues has become my favorite genre.

I have a great appreciation for labels like Alligator, Blind Pig, and the many others that are doing their best to keep the blues alive by continuing to sell the music of the late great players and introducing new artists as well.

Hound Dog Taylors story is special to me and I only wish I had seen the Houserockers play in person.

Thanks Tehuti. I agree about Hound Dog Taylor. Like you, I never had a chance to see him play but I can imagine that he was really something live.

One of the most interesting aspects of the blues is that it just keeps on going, growing and evolving. There are a lot of tremendous fiery young blues players on their way up too.