Bruce Iglauer | |
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| Born | July 10, 1947 Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Record producer |
| Known for | Founder and CEO of Alligator Records |
Bruce Iglauer (born July 10, 1947) is an American businessman and record producer who founded Alligator Records as an independent record label featuring blues music.
Iglauer was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, [1] United States and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Wyoming, Ohio. He became interested in the blues during the mid-1960s while attending Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and began hosting a college radio show, then moving on to promoting concerts at Lawrence by Howlin' Wolf and Luther Allison. He came to Chicago in 1966 as a “blues pilgrim” who wanted to check out the University of Chicago Folk Festival. [1] He came to the attention of Bob Koester, and joined the staff of Delmark Records in Chicago as a shipping clerk in 1970. He was a co-founder of Living Blues magazine in 1970. When Iglauer's advice to sign Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers was declined by Delmark, he recorded the group himself, and in so doing created Alligator Records in 1971. [2]
Nine months after the release of the first Alligator Records album, he left Delmark and continued at Alligator, making acclaimed recordings from Big Walter Horton, Son Seals, Fenton Robinson, Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Lonnie Brooks and many others. A breakthrough came in 1975 with Koko Taylor's "I Got What It Takes", which earned Alligator its first Grammy Award nomination. In 1978, he signed Albert Collins, and in 1982 Clifton Chenier's "I'm Here!" won a Grammy. [3] Recordings on Alligator by Hound Dog Taylor, Fenton Robinson, Albert Collins, Johnny Winter, Roy Buchanan, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, James Cotton, Charlie Musselwhite, Luther Allison, Shemekia Copeland, Roomful of Blues, Marcia Ball, Buckwheat Zydeco and others have been Grammy nominated. Showdown! by Albert Collins, Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland won a Grammy for Best Blues Recording of 1987 [4] and Buckwheat Zydeco's Lay Your Burden Down won a Grammy for Best Blues Cajun or Zydeco Recording of 2009. [5]
Iglauer has produced or co-produced over 125 albums in the Alligator Records catalog, including albums by Hound Dog Taylor, Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Fenton Robinson, Albert Collins, Johnny Winter, Roy Buchanan, Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials, James Cotton, Kenny Neal, Saffire--The Uppity Blues Women, Jarekus Singleton, Carey Bell and Billy Boy Arnold. [6]
The Alligator catalog contains over 300 albums, ranging from electric Chicago blues and blues rock to acoustic Piedmont blues and West Coast jump blues. By the 1990s, Alligator was established as one of the largest contemporary blues labels in the world. [7] According to Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Chicago blues saw its best documentation during the 1970s thanks in part to Iglauer and Alligator Records. [8]
Chicago magazine honored Iglauer with the 2001 Chicagoan of the Year award. [9] In addition, Iglauer was a founder of the National Association of Independent Record Distributors (NAIRD, later the Association For Independent Music (AFIM)). He has served on the boards of the Blues Foundation, the Blues Community Foundation (of which he is a founder) and the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), which replaced AFIM as the main organization of the U.S. independent music industry. In 2014, A2IM presented Iglauer with its Lifetime Achievement Award. [10] Iglauer has also been presented with two "Keeping The Blues Alive" awards from the Blues Foundation, one as an artist manager and one for his producing. He was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1997. [11]
In 2018, Iglauer wrote a book, Bitten by the Blues: The Alligator Records Story, published by University of Chicago Press. [1] In November 2022, Iglauer was honored by the Recording Industry Association of America at their Washington, D.C. headquarters with a concert by Shemekia Copeland for his work with Alligator Records and Chicago's Blues scene. [12]
Iglauer is married to Jo Kolanda of Mequon, Wisconsin. They have a daughter and two grandchildren, Rachel Beaudry, Hailey Montalbano, and Gabrielle Montalbano, of Glencoe, Illinois, and he has a stepdaughter, Rebekah Beaudry of Mequon, Wisconsin.
Stanley Dural Jr., better known by his stage name Buckwheat Zydeco, was an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He was one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success. His music group was formally billed as Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Partis Band, but they often performed as merely Buckwheat Zydeco.
Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor was a Chicago blues guitarist and singer.
Koko Taylor was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues and soul blues. Sometimes called "The Queen of the Blues", she was known for her rough, powerful vocals. Over the course of her career, she was nominated for 11 Grammy Awards, winning 1985's Best Traditional Blues Album for her appearance on Blues Explosion.
Albert Gene Collins, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Breakers, was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. He was noted for his powerful playing and his use of altered tunings and a capo. His long association with the Fender Telecaster led to the title "The Master of the Telecaster".
Alligator Records is an American, Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971. Iglauer was also one of the founders of the Living Blues magazine in Chicago in 1970.
Charon Shemekia Copeland is an American electric blues vocalist. To date, she has released ten albums and been presented with eight Blues Music Awards.
Lonnie Brooks was an American blues singer and guitarist. The musicologist Robert Palmer, writing in Rolling Stone, stated, "His music is witty, soulful and ferociously energetic, brimming with novel harmonic turnarounds, committed vocals and simply astonishing guitar work." Jon Pareles, a music critic for the New York Times, wrote, "He sings in a rowdy baritone, sliding and rasping in songs that celebrate lust, fulfilled and unfulfilled; his guitar solos are pointed and unhurried, with a tone that slices cleanly across the beat. Wearing a cowboy hat, he looks like the embodiment of a good-time bluesman." Howard Reich, a music critic for the Chicago Tribune, wrote, "...the music that thundered from Brooks' instrument and voice...shook the room. His sound was so huge and delivery so ferocious as to make everything alongside him seem a little smaller."
Carey Bell Harrington was an American blues musician who played harmonica in the Chicago blues style. Bell played harmonica and bass guitar for other blues musicians from the late 1950s to the early 1970s before embarking on a solo career. Besides his own albums, he recorded as an accompanist or duo artist with Earl Hooker, Robert Nighthawk, Lowell Fulson, Eddie Taylor, Louisiana Red and Jimmy Dawkins and was a frequent partner with his son, the guitarist Lurrie Bell. Blues Revue called Bell "one of Chicago's finest harpists." The Chicago Tribune said Bell was "a terrific talent in the tradition of Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter." In 2023, he was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.
C. J. Chenier is the Creole son of the Grammy Award-winning "King of Zydeco", Louisiana musician, Clifton Chenier. In 1987, Chenier followed in his father's footsteps and led his father's band as an accordion performer and singer of zydeco, a blend of cajun and creole music. With five previous albums to his credit, by 1994, Chenier began to record for Chicago-based Alligator Records.
Lurrie Bell is an American blues guitarist and singer. His father was renowned blues harmonica player Carey Bell.
Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers is the 1971 debut album of Hound Dog Taylor.
Showdown! is a collaborative blues album by guitarists Albert Collins, Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland, released in 1985 through Alligator Records. The album is mostly made of original material, with cover versions of songs like T-Bone Walker's "T-Bone Shuffle", Muddy Waters's "She's into Something" and Ray Charles' "Blackjack". Collins, Cray and Copeland were supported by Johnny B. Gayden and Allen Batts, who at the time were members of Collins' Icebreakers, and Alligator's household artist Casey Jones. In the album's sleeve notes, producers Bruce Iglauer and Dick Shurman observe how Copeland and Cray were both given support by Collins early in their career, and how the three musicians have often crossed paths since then, making this collaborative effort a "thirty years in the making" project. Showdown! was one of Alligator's most successful albums, peaking at n. 124 on the US charts and selling over 175,000 units worldwide. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Recording in 1986. It was re-released on CD by Alligator in 2011.
Somebody Loan Me a Dime is a 1974 studio album by blues singer and guitarist Fenton Robinson, his debut under the Alligator Records imprint. Blending together some elements of jazz with Chicago blues and Texas blues, the album was largely critically well received and is regarded as important within his discography. Among the album's tracks is a re-recording of his 1967 signature song, "Somebody Loan Me a Dime". It has been reissued multiple times in the United States and Japan, including with bonus tracks.
Aron Burton was an American electric and Chicago blues singer, bass guitarist and songwriter. In a long career as a sideman he played with Freddie King, Albert Collins and Junior Wells and released a number of solo albums, including Good Blues to You. His recorded work was nominated four times for a Blues Music Award in the category Blues Instrumentalist—Bass.
Natural Boogie is the second studio album released by Hound Dog Taylor and his band the HouseRockers. Released on Alligator Records in 1974, it was the follow-up to their 1971 debut album Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers.
Richard L. Shurman is an American record producer, sound engineer, music journalist, music historian, and backing vocalist.
Toronzo Cannon is an American electric blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. He grew up on the South Side of Chicago near the Robert Taylor Homes and Theresa's Lounge where he heard blues artists including Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.
Cold Snap is an album by the American blues musician Albert Collins, released in 1986. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best Traditional Blues Recording" category.
Queen of the Blues is an album by the American blues singer Koko Taylor, released in 1985.
I'm Here! is an album by the American musician Clifton Chenier. It was released in 1982 via Alligator Records. Alligator licensed the album in the hope that label head Bruce Iglauer could produce the follow-up. Chenier is credited with His Red Hot Louisiana Band. The album was reissued in 1993.
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