Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers

Last updated
Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers
Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers cover.jpg
Studio album by
Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers
Released1971
Recorded1971
StudioSound Studios, Chicago, Illinois
Genre Chicago blues
Length42:38
Label Alligator
Producer Bruce Iglauer
Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers chronology
Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers
(1971)		 Natural Boogie
(1973)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [1]
Christgau's Record Guide A− [2]
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [3]

Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers is the 1971 debut album of Hound Dog Taylor.

Contents

Originally issued on LP as the first release on the Alligator label, it has subsequently been reissued on CD.

Recording

As Taylor's debut album, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers was the first recording issued on the Alligator label. The label was founded by Bruce Iglauer for the specific purpose of releasing an album of Taylor's music after he had been unable to persuade Bob Koester, then his boss at Delmark, to record Taylor. [4]

The album, recorded at Sound Studios, Chicago, [5] features only three musicians: Taylor himself on vocals and slide guitar, Brewer Phillips on guitar and Ted Harvey on drums. For solos, the two guitarists alternate between playing lead and accompanying the other guitarist. [6]

Further material from the same sessions was released on the posthumous album Genuine Houserocking Music.

Release and promotion

The record sold 9,000 copies in its first year, a large number for a blues record on an independent label, and by 1998 had sold around 100,000 copies. At the time of the recording, Taylor was playing locally in taverns, but the higher profile the album's success gave him enabled him to obtain work further afield, eventually touring as far away as Australia. [7]

Critical reception

Cub Koda, writing for AllMusic, described it as "wild, raucous, crazy music straight out of the South Side clubs", and called it "one of the greatest slide guitar albums of all time". [1] The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings describes its sound as "loud, harsh, boxy and exciting". [3] Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau called the album "electronic gutbucket from the Chicago blues bars, the rawest record I've heard in years. Taylor makes a neoprimitivist showboat like James Cotton sound like a cross between Don Nix and the Harmonicats, and about time. N.b.: a guitar-playing friend tells me the axe Hound Dog brandishes on the cover is the cheapest you can buy." [2]

Track listing

Except where otherwise noted, tracks composed by Hound Dog Taylor

  1. "She's Gone" - 3:46
  2. "Walking the Ceiling" - 3:12
  3. "Held My Baby Last Night" (Elmore James) - 4:14
  4. "Taylor's Rock" - 3:50
  5. "It's Alright" - 3:10
  6. "Phillips' Theme" - 5:27
  7. "Wild About You, Baby" (Elmore James) - 3:35
  8. "I Just Can't Make It" - 3:15
  9. "It Hurts Me Too" (Elmore James) - 3:47
  10. "44 Blues" - 2:52
  11. "Give Me Back My Wig" - 3:31
  12. "55th Street Boogie" - 2:59

Personnel

Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers

Production

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References

  1. 1 2 "Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers - Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers, Hound Dog Taylor | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic . Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  2. 1 2 Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: T". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies . Ticknor & Fields. ISBN   089919026X . Retrieved March 15, 2019.{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  3. 1 2 Russell, T. and Smith, C. (2006): The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings, London: Penguin Books, p. 631
  4. ↑ "Hound Dog Taylor | Biography & History". AllMusic . Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  5. ↑ "Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers". Alligator.com. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers - Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers, Hound Dog Taylor | Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic . Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  7. ↑ "Hound Dog Taylor". Furious.com. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
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