fR312 PAGES 45-46-47 29/4/09 00:44 Page 3
47 f
D
ixon’s Wang Dang Doodle, a song originally recorded
by Howlin’ Wolf (in admittedly inferior form), possess-
es a brilliantly labyrinth lyric about a bull dyke ball in
New Orleans and has gone on to influence Tom Waits
(amongst others). When cut by Taylor (in 1966 with
Buddy Guy on guitar), it sizzled so hard the song gave Chess their
last ever big blues hit on the R&B charts. What can Koko tell me
about the mighty Wang Dang?
“When Willie gives me that song I think it’s the craziest thing
I’ve ever heard. I mean, what’s all this stuff ‘bout Butcher Knife
Annie an’ Fish Wife Fannie? Crazy! But he insisted an’ when the
band kicked in I knew I had to sing it. An’ when I sang it Willie’s
face lit up: he was thinkin’ ‘money’! An’ he was right. We scored
big with Wang Dang Doodle. A hit record, man, it takes you every-
where! We did the Apollo in New York, we went across the coun-
try with that one.”
Taylor recorded many Dixon tunes while at Chess, even doing
duets with the big bluesman. One remarkable song, Insane
Asylum, is as bizarre a song as has ever been written. “Insane Asy-
lum? Yeah! That’s another crazy Willie song! I like that one too. He
would come up with the craziest lyrics that no one else would
think about an’ he gave ‘em to me.”
The death of Leonard Chess, in October 1969, sent his label
into a decline it would never come out of and by the early 1970s,
Koko had been dropped from the Chess roster. She cut tunes for a
few tiny Chicago labels but was forced to return to working as a
cleaner for wealthy white people. No wonder she’s so convincing
at singing the blues! In 1975, Bruce Iglauer, flush from the success
of Hound Dog Taylor and Son Seals, approached Koko about
recording for his label. Her Alligator debut I Got What It Takes
won a Grammy nomination and label and artist have continued to
work together.
“Koko’s career was kind of at a lower ebb,” recalls Iglauer,
“since Chess had been sold, Koko didn’t have a recording contract
and didn’t have her own band. She was appearing with various
existing bands, especially Mighty Joe Young’s. I was impressed by
her talent, her very confident stage presence and she was clearly
serious about her music. As I got to know her I realised that she
had a totally professional attitude. I was doing some booking at
that time and before I committed to recording her I agreed to
book some gigs for her. The next week she called me to tell me
that she had made a down payment on a new van and had a band
in rehearsal. She didn’t ask me for help. She just did it.”
Taylor refers to her relationship with Iglauer as “like a mar-
riage” and he states “we love one another” so suggesting why
label and artist continue to thrive. Considering how tough she
sounds when singing, Taylor is remarkably petite and gentle in
person. Her skin glows with good health and she declares she
would like to play the UK again, it being several years since she
was last here. As she leaves Alligator’s offices for her home in
Chicago’s southern suburbs, Iglauer notes, “Koko grew up in blues
culture, first as a sharecropper, then as a labourer and nanny. She
learned from listening to other singers, not just to records. So the
reality of Koko is a different one from most of the younger gener-
ations. People feel how rooted she is in the true blues tradition,
and respond to that. As far as pure blues, she is the no.1 female
artist. There are other great artists of her generation, like Etta
James, but Koko is ‘the queen of the blues’, without anyone else
even trying to make that claim.”
www.kokotaylor.com F
Photo: Marc Norberg
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84