CD Review
Hound Dog Taylor
Release The Hound
(Alligator 4896)
by Tony Glover
Review date: July 2004
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"Keeping the Blues Alive Award" Achievement for Blues on the Internet Presented by The Blues Foundation
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There ain't nothing subtle about Hound Dog-he plays nasty, sweaty, alcohol laced music that reeks of Saturday night funk-and does it with a belly-laugh pleasure. Mississippi born, a veteran of the King Biscuit radio show, he came in the shadow of slide guitar master Elmore James-but added his own special brand of high octane boogie to the Chicago scene. When Bruce Iglauer first heard him he was a clerk at Bob Koester's record store, and he tried to talk Koester into recording Taylor for his Delmark label. Koester wouldn't, so Iglauer started Alligator Records with an inheritance, and put out 3 albums before Taylor's death in 1975. By then Taylor had hit the college concert circuit and been overseas as well-he was a favorite with hard-drinking white youth for his raunchy guitar stomp, and his habit of starting a set by yelling "lets have some fun!".
In the album promo notes Iglauer mentions that he'd resisted putting out more Taylor material because "much of it was live versions of songs cut in the studio, and some of the live recording quality was pretty dubious.but with studio magic the technical problems became pretty much irrelevant.and the music just took over."
Despite the fact that most of the titles ARE familiar; "She's Gone", Walking The Ceiling". "Gonna Send You Back To Georgia", and Elmore James covers "Wild About You Baby", "It Hurts Me Too" this previously unreleased stuff doesn't smack of barrel scraping. Instead of just pointless rehashes of worn material these numbers feel more like joyful revisitations. Six of the tunes come from the same November 1974 gig originally taped for FM radio that made up the bulk of the BEWARE THE DOG live album, three from a Harvard College concert, one from Australian TV, and three are early studio out-take tracks. On all Taylor leads The Houserockers with Brewer Phillips on "bass" /rhythm guitar, inter-twining and prodding Taylor along. Three cuts feature Brewer's distorted, manic lead work; "Sen-Sa-Shun" lifts the riff from "Got My Mojo Working" and pummels it well. The guitar inter-play aside, Brewer & Taylor had a somewhat tumultuous relationship, which took a screeching 180 a few months after the latest tracks here were recorded-Taylor used his rifle to shoot Phillips twice. Phillips pressed charges and the men didn't speak again until late fall at a Chicago hospital-where Taylor died of cancer three days after they reconciled.
Like I said, there's not much nuance here, just some blatant all-out blues stomping going on, and its a welcome relief in these days of lavishly produced but ultimately sterile music.
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