voices I miss
Hound Dog Taylor (AKA Theodore Roosevelt Taylor, 1915-1975) and the Houserockers (Brewer Phillips, guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), “Taylor’s Rock” (H.D. Taylor), live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
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reading table
voices in the wind
the withered field’s
crows—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
more
Hound Dog Taylor (1915-1975) & the Houserockers (Brewer Phillips guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), “Sadie,” 1974
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lagniappe
reading table
one man, one fly
one large
sitting room—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
voices I miss
Hound Dog Taylor (1915-1975) & the Houserockers (Brewer Phillips guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
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lagniappe
random sights
last night, Chicago
sounds of Chicago
Your day’s about to get better.
Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers (HDT, vocals & guitar; Brewer Phillips, guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), live, Cambridge, Mass. (Joe’s Place), 1972
1st Set*
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2nd Set*
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*Set lists (courtesy of YouTube):
1st
1) Gonna Send You Back To Georgia
2) Taylor’s Crawl
3) Rock Me Baby
4) Goodnight Boogie
5) Wild About You
6) Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid
7) The Things I Used To Do
8) Phillip’s Stomp
9) I Just Can’t Take It
10) What Do I Say
11) Ingleside Blues
2nd
1) Dust My Broom
2) Phillip’s Crawl
3) Freddie’s Blues
4) Strollin’ With Brewer
5) It Hurts Me Too
6) Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid
7) Take Five
8) Blues For Suzie
9) Roll Your Moneymaker
10) Let’s Get Funky
11) Florence’s Blues
And speaking of relying more on feel than plan.
Hound Dog Taylor (1915-1975) & the Houserockers (Brewer Phillips guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), “I Held My Baby,” “Taylor’s Rock,” “Wild About You Baby,” “Roll Your Moneymaker,” “Sadie,” instrumental featuring Brewer, instrumental featuring Ted, live, Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, 1973
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), The Dwarf, Palisades, New Jersey, 1958
Today, for our 1,000th post, we revisit a few favorites—more tomorrow.
Junior Wells (vocal and harmonica), Buddy Guy (guitar), “Cryin’ Shame” (AKA “Country Girl”), live, Chicago, 1970 (Chicago Blues)
(Originally posted 7/8/10.)
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Buddy Guy, “Let Me Love You Baby,” live, 1960s
(Originally posted 3/12/10.)
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Magic Sam, “All Your Love,” “Lookin’ Good”
Live, Germany, 1969
(Originally posted 11/21/09.)
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Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers (Brewer Phillips, guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), “Sadie,” live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
(Originally posted 4/29/11.)
More Hound Dog
Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers (Brewer Phillips, guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), “Roll Your Moneymaker,” live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
reading table
M. Abel Bonnard, of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, who was playing billiards, put out his left eye falling on his cue.
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On the bowling lawn a stroke leveled M. Andre, 75, of Levallois. While his ball was still rolling he was no more.
—Félix Fénéon, trans. Luc Sante, Novels in Three Lines (collecting, as the back cover puts it, “more than a thousand items that appeared anonymously in the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906—true stories of murder, mayhem, and everyday life”)
When you’re young you can’t imagine that the things that make your life sing won’t always be there. Then you get older. And they aren’t.
Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers (Brewer Phillips, guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), “Sadie,” live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
More? Here.
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langiappe
This arrived yesterday, in response to an email letting her know that she was featured here (with Hazel Dickens):
Thanks for letting me know about this. We said goodbye to Hazel yesterday and singing was never more difficult. She was my musical guide and my beloved friend. Smart, funny, complicated, always real. She’ll live in my music, and my life, forever. “Fly away, Little Pretty Bird.”
Ginny
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Hazel Dickens, “Pretty Bird,” 1967
Vodpod videos no longer available.Once upon a time this music was all over Chicago. Going out to hear this guy, for instance, was about as hard as going out for a hamburger.
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replay: clips too good for just one day
The first time I stood before a judge at Chicago’s Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California—this was back in the ’70s (when I was working at Alligator Records)—it was to speak on behalf of this man, Hound Dog Taylor. The day before, during a drunken argument at his apartment, he’d shot his longtime guitarist Brewer Phillips (who survived). In his own way, Hound Dog was a pretty canny guy. When he told me about this incident over the phone, shortly after it happened, he put it this way: “Richard, they say I shot Phillip . . .”
(No, don’t touch that dial; these stills are way out of focus—which, for Hound Dog, seems just right.)
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Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers, live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
“Wild About You Baby”
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“Taylor’s Rock”
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“I Held My Baby”
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lagniappe
Hound Dog . . . . [would] play things that are technically wrong, and [he’d] . . . make people like it. . . . [He’d] just get up there and go for it.—Elvin Bishop
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When I saw Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers as a three-piece, I said, ‘There it is. There’s your future right there.’—George Thorogood
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Hound Dog Taylor is one of my favorites. He used this raw dog blues, you know.—Vernon Reid
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A Facebook page devoted to Hound Dog, who died over 30 years ago (1975), currently lists 434 “Fans” (now over 1,000) who come from, let’s see, Orlando and Indonesia and Cedar Rapids and Sweden and Austin and Australia and . . .
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When I die, they’ll say ‘he couldn’t play shit, but he sure made it sound good!’—Hound Dog Taylor
(Originally posted on 10/30/09.)
The lineup Bambino and Group Inerane use today in the West African desert—two electric guitars, drums—is the one this guy used, 40 years ago, on Chicago’s south side.
Hound Dog Taylor, live, Chicago, 1971
Want more? Here.
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lagniappe
Spiritual Stars Singers
Silver Wings
Amazing Mentholiers
Chosen Wonders
Rev. R. Campbell and His Wonder Boy
Rhythmical Wright Singers
Willie Harris and the Sensational Six
Never heard of ’em? I hadn’t either. Now you can hear all of ’em in the latest installment of Sinner’s Crossroads (8/5/10), Kevin Nutt’s weekly “gospel extravaganza.” (This one’s so good I’ve already played it twice.)
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“dark dismal-dreaming night” *
Listen to the Cubs lose at four in the afternoon?
Anyone can do that.
You’ve gotta be crazy to listen to them lose at 1:00 a.m (Giants, 11th inning, 4-3).
*W. Shakespeare
music clip of the day 