Give Me Back My Wig - Hound Dog Taylor

Bruce Iglauer had already known of Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor when he heard him and his band, The HouseRockers, play the popular South Side Chicago venue Florence's Lounge in late 1970. So moved by the rare and potent energy of that live show, he tried without success to convince his employer at the time, Delmark Records, to sign the group. Iglauer would eventually found his own label just so he could record and produce them. His impetuous project conceived the now famous Alligator Records.

In a 1998 interview, Iglauer spoke about his first impression of Hound Dog and his inevitable appreciation for the bluesman's talents:

"He would start songs for 15-20 seconds, stop and try to start another thing. Then he'd tell these incomprehensible jokes, crack up in the middle of the joke and bury his face in his hands. He'd light a Pell Mell, tell another weird joke, put the Pell Mell on the mike stand, start into another song that would fall apart instantly. But he was so funny looking - a tall, gawky guy, very thin, huge toothy grin. Everybody naturally loved him. I just kind of assumed that he was a clown. I thought that nobody took him seriously as a musician but they liked him because he was a cool guy.

He kept telling me that I should come to his gigs. He mentioned that he was playing at a place called Florence's Lounge on the South Side. It was a Sunday afternoon gig and nobody else had a gig on Sunday afternoon that I knew of...[He and his band] played for three hours straight. People were dancing in the aisles and on the seats and lots of people were sitting in. Lots of people were really drunk and they were shooting dice outside and the energy level was fantastic. Everybody knew Hound Dog and the music was totally raw and absolutely infectious. That's when I reassessed Hound Dog Taylor." <TM>