It’s been a while since we last pulled Hound Dog Taylor out of
\nthe Pierce Archives (and now, a moment of silence for Rob
\nPilatus… hey, wait a minute…), so it’s only natural that we
\njump from his debut album with his band The Houserockers to their
\nsecond album, 1974’s
\nNatural Boogie<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Taylor, second guitarist Brewer Phillips and drummer Ted Harvey
\nhad burst to national prominence in 1971 when their first album
\ncame out. Their no-holds-barred style of raucous party blues
\ncaptured the ears of an unsuspecting public, and they quickly
\nearned fame – Taylor’s coming near the end of his life. (A live
\nalbum,
\nBeware Of The Dog<\/i>, came out after Taylor’s death in
\n1975.)<\/p>\n
\nNatural Boogie<\/i> is more of the exact same style of blues that
\nwas featured on
\nHound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers<\/i>, but there’s a big
\ndifference in the two albums – the first one was more fun to listen
\nto.<\/p>\n
Oh, don’t get me wrong – there’s still a lot of material on this
\nalbum that will have you shaking your appendages with joy.
\n“Buster’s Boogie” is a kicking instrumental that is long on fun
\nwhile seemingly short on time, while the album’s opener “Take Five”
\nis almost like picking up where the last album left off.<\/p>\n
But a touch of stagnation is settling in on
\nNatural Boogie<\/i> that wasn’t there on the first disc. Taylor
\nhimself would be the first to admit that he wasn’t a great guitar
\nplayer, but you can tell that many guitar riffs are recycled
\nrepeatedly on this album. What the hell was Taylor thinking when he
\nbased a whole portion of “One More Time” on the
\n“shave-and-a-haircut” melody? Give me a break. (In defense of
\nTaylor, the writing credit on this one is for Phillips, so maybe
\nhe’s to blame for this one.) And I don’t care if that is Taylor’s
\nname as the author of “Roll Your Moneymaker,” this song owes more
\nthan a passing debt to Elmore James’s “Shake Your Moneymaker”.<\/p>\n
If there’s anything really worth cheering about on
\nNatural Boogie<\/i>, it’s the development of Phillips and Harvey
\nas true members of the band, not just additional musicians. Their
\nsound on this album is just as critical as Taylor’s slide work and
\nvocals. (And frankly, unless you read the liner notes, you’d think
\nthat Phllips was playing the bass, not just another guitar.)<\/p>\n
Oh, it’s not that
\nNatural Boogie<\/i> is a bad album – in fact, it has many monents
\nwhich make it quite good. But one would have expected a little more
\nprogress from Taylor in the three-year span between his debut
\nrelease and this one. Still, I guess that if you picked this one up
\nbefore any of the others, you’d probably fall head over heels over
\nthis album. (Ironically, the best cut from this sessions, “Don’t
\nBlame Me,” didn’t see the light of day until the first
\nGenuine Houserockin’ Music<\/i> compilation – I don’t know why
\nthis song didn’t make it onto
\nNatural Boogie<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
\nNatural Boogie<\/i> is still worth checking out, even if it’s
\nonly to discover the wonder of Hound Dog Taylor & The
\nHouserockers – but it also shows the formula was starting to wear a
\nlittle thin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5710],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38894","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hound-dog-taylor-the-houserockers","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38894","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=38894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38894"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}