Thanks to those of you who dug at the dollar store on Saturday. I hope you found some good stuff and had a nice listen when you got home. There’s nothing like getting into a new batch of records, listening for the first time. Justin and I took some home too, after we did some drafting, and I finally got the Hound Dog Taylor 45, Christine/Alley Music, his second record from 1962 on the tiny Firma label. It had been sitting in the front office for about three years after we found it in a collection, unwilling to sell it but unable to agree on who should get to keep it.

Although this record was virtually ignored and failed to sell many copies, an un-fazed Hound Dog was re-discovered in 1971 where he was a staple in the West Side blues joints. The “Hound Dog Taylor and The Houserockers” LP was recorded shortly after, launching Chicago blues label Alligator. Hound Dog was unique in that he just wailed and rocked on a cheap Japanese made slide-guitar that usually hit the right notes but always hit the right feeling. Here is a review by Josh Steichmann that he wrote for us a few years back:

Hound Dog Taylor and The Houserockers

This is the album that Alligator Records was created to release— a smoking, gritty slide-guitar blues album that pretty much defines what electric blues is all about.

And what else is there to say? Taylor’s guitar has a squall to it that would sink ships, and the duo backing him (Brewer Phillips and Ted Harvey) are sharp and capable. They’re essentially playing Electric Delta blues, a rawer and more minimal style than the Electric Chicago blues played by B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. In that way, this album can be seen as a direct bit of music ethnography, tracing the rhythms and sound of the Dirty South as brought to the post-war North, a kissing cousin to Memphis and strangely removed from the Texas and even other Chicago blues of the time.

This is my favorite kind of blues, raw and rhythmic. While there’re a few quotes in these blues, there’s no cliche, and the ragged tones come across as unique where a lesser player might make them sound contrived. And this is one of the few albums where I can definitely say that the vinyl is better— the CD just doesn’t reflect the warmth of Phillips’s backing (which gives Taylor’s jagged riffs a fair contrast).

And “Give Me Back My Wig” is going on the very next mixtape I make, I promise.

As for the Firma 45, if Hound Dog was blue over Christine on the first side, he sure was over it on the next.

Christine:

Alley Music: