The Chicago live blues scene was blessed in 1971 with the energetic Hound Dog Taylor [rn: Theodore Roosevelt Taylor, born 12th April 1915]. The young Bruce Iglauer was impressed enough with a gig he saw to ask his then boss Bob Koester to sign Taylor to the Delmark label. Bob wasn't interested so Bruce himself raised enough to realise the project himself. With $900 and a two track recorder, the album "Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers" was cut and mixed as they went along. The band brought their low-tech euipment from their club gigs, nothing more was needed to capture their unique gifts. So was the birth of the Alligator label, still based in Chicago today. Within a couple of years Taylor was dead but his oft-quoted epitaph was "he couldn't play shit but he sure made it sound good".
On STAR BLUES on 3rd April 2011 we chose "Ain't Got Nobody" from the cd anthology "Hound Dog Taylor - Deluxe Edition" [Alligator].
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