What would make an artist so special that someone would found a
\nrecord label to record them?<\/p>\n
Back in 1971, transplanted Chicagoan (and, from the few times he
\nand I talked, a real nice guy) Bruce Iglauer founded Alligator
\nRecords to record a little three-piece blues band, Hound Dog Taylor
\n& The Houserockers. And for that, fans of the genre should be
\nlining up to shake his hand. Taylor’s devil-may-care style of
\nplaying and his band’s looseness is what made them popular, even
\npast Taylor’s death in 1975.<\/p>\n
Released on CD for the first time a few years ago, The
\nHouserockers’s debut album still captures the magic that Iglauer
\nheard in the band in small blues clubs on the South Side.<\/p>\n
At first listen, one senses something is different with this
\nband. And, sure enough, there is something “missing” – a bass
\nplayer! The “bass” lines were played by second guitarist Brewer
\nPhillips (who also proves himself to be a competent lead player on
\ntwo tracks).Drummer Ted Harvey eschews the traditional hi-hat to
\npound out his rhythms on ride cymbal. And in the middle of it all,
\nthere is Taylor playing a mean slide guitar (and even pounding out
\na few simple leads) and having a good time singing.<\/p>\n
Cuts like “It’s Alright” and “Give Me Back My Wig” are not your
\ntypical blues numbers (whatever typical is with this genre) – these
\nare genuinely fun to listen to, as are some of the numerous
\ninstrumentals on
\nHound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers<\/i>. “Walking The
\nCeiling” is an exercise in musicianship, though one wishes Taylor
\nhad gotten a little more creative with his leads. (Trivia time:
\nwhat famous blues guitarist was once Taylor’s roadie? Answer:
\nGeorge Thorogood, who pays tribute to Taylor on his
\nLive<\/i> album.)<\/p>\n
Both guitarists take their turns sharing the lead work on this
\nalbum – Phillips shines on “Phillip’s Theme” and “44 Blues”, while
\nTaylor shows wanna-bes the right way to play a mean slide guitar on
\n“Taylor’s Rock”. The band even manages to cover a blues classic
\nwith “It Hurts Me Too.”<\/p>\n
What is amazing about this band was the way they were able to
\ncapture their unique sound through rather simple instruments. While
\nsome “musicians” can barely operate their thousand-dollar Les Paul,
\nTaylor played a no-name guitar and was able to wring the notes out
\nof it.<\/p>\n
The scary thing to realize is that had Iglauer not invested in
\nthis recording, we probably would have lost The Houserockers’s
\nmusic to the ages. What is even scarier is that every day, this
\nexact same thing is happening to dozens of blues artists who don’t
\ndeserve such a fate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5710],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-35586","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hound-dog-taylor-the-houserockers","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35586"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35586"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}