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Early Fairport Convention with Iain Matthews (left) Bitten By The Blues: The
Alligator Records Story Bruce Iglauer and Patrick A. Roberts The University Of Chicago Press ISBN-13: 978-0- 226-12990-7
For the last hundred or so years record com- panies have been the conduit between artist and product outlet. Times change, of course, and in these days of downloads and stream- ing, many artists do it all by themselves, side- stepping companies. There are still many, many labels around the world – labels big, medium and small – all vying for sales in the shrinking global market, as Alligator Records, out of Chicago, know all too well. The man who started and still runs the label, Bruce Iglauer, bravely bares his soul in Bitten by the Blues, a consistently interesting read that benefits from Bruce’s detailing of all the highs and lows of running his enterprise.
It was a performance by Mississippi Fred McDowell that ignited Iglauer’s interest in the blues, but the vampire bite that transformed his interest into a life-absorbing passion, a life of spending night-times hunting for the next potential Alligator artist, was delivered by a Hound Dog. It was the hard-hitting primal electric blues of Hound Dog Taylor and his HouseRockers that Bruce heard, at Florence’s Lounge on Chicago’s South Side, that provid- ed the catalyst. Once bitten, there was no turning back for Bruce, who was determined to record and release an album of Hound Dog’s music. He first approached Bob Koester, who owned Delmark records, to record Hound Dog (Bruce, at the time, was an employee at Koester’s Jazz Record Mart) but, as Koester wasn’t interested, Bruce decided to strike out on his own, staking a not very large inheritance from his grandfather on recording Hound Dog and pressing up a thousand copies. From that day to this, Alligator has, despite some close calls, remained in opera- tion, releasing some three hundred albums… and that’s some achievement.
The chapters detailing the early years of the company read almost as a thriller (will he or won’t he make it through?) as is the telling of the awful 1978 train crash in Norway, when Bruce was accompanying Son Seals and his band on a European tour, which resulted in twenty-seven passengers (including band members) being hospitalised. Throughout its history Alligator has strived to support its artists in every way possible, which has result- ed in many of those artists becoming almost family members and remaining with the label for many a year. Throughout the book, Bruce gives informative portraits of, and about,
Hound Dog Taylor – Alligator man
many of blues musicians he’s known… and not just Alligator artists.
Occasionally, though, especially in the later chapters, there’s a slight tendency towards the (Alligator) artist descriptions reading like puff pieces, but the book is bal- anced by Bruce’s honesty about himself, admitting faults, bad decisions, and happily owning up to being a complete control freak! Considering the number of quality albums Alligator records have made, the number of industry awards they’ve garnered, the num- ber of artist careers they’ve nurtured, and the fact that they’ve been at the forefront of keeping the blues alive and up to date for well over forty years… well, maybe, being a control freak ain’t such a bad thing.
press.uchicago.edu Dave Peabody
Songs Of Love And Horror: Collected Lyrics Of Will
Oldham Will OldhamW.W. Norton & Company ISBN 978-0393-65120-1
Hearken to the words of the great folk sage and Holy Modal Rounder Peter Stampfel, who recently remarked that “few (old) geezers sing the songs of youngsters as well as Johnny Cash.” Will Oldham was already 30 years old when The Man In Black™ recorded I See A Darkness on 2000’s American III: Soli- tary Man, but that song’s inclusion helped Cash to his highest album chart position since 1976 and alerted a worldwide audience to the extraordinary work of its writer.
Bound in blue cloth, with gold lettering, this is a very handsome volume indeed. There aren’t too many popular songwriters whose words can withstand being read and scruti- nised as poetry. Oldham’s not only stand up, but stripped of their melodic context, offer different insights. It’s notable that the one cover song on this book’s simultaneously released and identically titled album is by Richard Thompson. The work of both artists demonstrates an innate ability to channel the essences of traditional song forms without resorting to pastiche and both wield a lyric with surgical precision. Reading the first line of Oldham’s Whither Thou Goest – “A sick- room hush, a holiday glow” – suddenly revealed it as an almost perfect inversion of the “Tropical night, malaria moon” that opens Thompson’s Gypsy Love Songs…
Oldham annotates his lyrics with charac- teristic brevity and wit. Thus we learn that
Get Your Hands Dirty was “written for Candi Station to sing, and she did”, while Hard Is Good was “written for Candi Station to sing. She didn’t.”
Honest, wry, confessional, occasionally harrowing and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, Oldham’s lyrics make for enjoyable and illuminating reading. An Appalachian Bard, AKA Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.
dragcity.com/artists/will-oldham Stephen Hunt Brunt Boggart: A Tapestry
Of Tales David Greygoose Pushkin Press 978-1- 78269-206-5
Let me tell you… storytelling, the oral tradi- tion, is as much an art as playing an instru- ment or singing. It’s interpretation and inven- tion, whether it’s the epic Wayland the Smith or smaller tales. Greygoose (also known as poet Dave Ward) first published this book in 2015 with a micropress and it won a CILIP Carnegie Medal nomination. Now it’s more widely available, and it’s a magnificent piece of storytelling transferred to the page.
Tales weave in and out, with a recurring cast of characters around the village of Brunt Boggart. The young and coming of age fea- ture heavily, but there are characters of all ages, and superstitions, rituals and tricksters. He builds and peoples an entire world with characters we all understand, and brings it alive with such rich poetry that it’s hard to believe it only exists in his own imagination. You can smell the earth, see the crops grow- ing, feel the chill of winter and the warmth of a summer sun. You can also hear his voice telling each of the tales that make up this book. They have a storyteller’s rhythm.
Whilst they’re aimed at a younger audi- ence, they fully satisfy adults. There’s often an underlying, creeping darkness and men- ace out in the woods, lurking in the shad- ows beyond the fires on the green. Yet that’s balanced with joy, the pleasures of discovery, the odd local ceremonies that arrive with adulthood that make complete sense in this context. Creating something that includes all that is an epic highwire act, yet Greygoose manages it with perfect calm, the storyteller’s voice always gently insistent, a long incantation. Let me tell you… it’s absolutely wonderful.
pushkinpress.com Chris Nickson
Photo: Peter Amft
Photo: Donald Silverstein
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