I’m cheating here, appallingly, unashamedly and blatantly. Here’s a LP I bought last September by an artist I had never even heard of before then. It is fucking great, so deal with it.
Dear readers I give you Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers Natural Boogie. Fierce fuel and dance juice from fifty years ago.
Play this, please:
I am not going to sit here and preach to you that Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers were great artistes, purveyors of finely nuanced slices of the human condition, not me.
Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers were a fricking great good time, all the time. Natural Boogie, released in 1974 but sounding awfully more contemporary, is perfect music to drink, dance, sweat and lose your footing to and well, if Sadie is in the mood, possibly more than that. Trust me Natural Boogie is the sound of a low end Chicago blues bar circa 1970 and as a 52 year-old Welsh man who could dispute my authority to proclaim that?
Producer and record label owner Bruce Iglauer gives a very entertaining interview in the listening notes booklet included in the VMP reissue of Natural Boogie. In it he details putting Alligator Records together to put out Hound Dog Taylor records, desperate as he was to capture the sound and feeling of an act he reckoned he had seen over 100 times by then.
Hound Dog* was born with 12 fingers but was down to 11 by the early 70’s when he was playing with drummer Ted Harvey and guitarist Brewer Phillips. Hound Dog never used a bassist as he disliked the strictures this would impose on his freeform style, he would speed up and swap rhythm and lead lines with Phillips as he chose; or as the bottle of Canadian Club he drank every night he played, chose.
The doors of Natural Boogie get kicked well and truly off their hinges on ‘Take Five’, a careening paw swipe of a song – everything sounding simultaneously far too loud in the mix and exactly right. It actually has that cutting, lurching, barely house-trained quality I associate with the Stooges to it.
Now it has to be said that there are a number of comparative fillers to be had for your money on Natural Boogie, but as these are very firmly of the floor-filling derivation it doesn’t matter at all and you can use them to mentally rest up for the goodies to come.
Goodies? ‘See Me In The Evening’ which hits every early ZZ top note with added electricity with bonus studio chatter**; the vehemence of ‘Sitting At Home Alone’ and the all round excellence of ‘Sadie’. On the latter track Iglauer is again really interesting, as it was one of the few tracks Hound Dog really composed and there is a depth and struggle to its ostensibly soft shuffle.
Less stellar but more ass-shakingly how ‘Roll Your Moneymaker’ differs from Elmore James’ ‘Shake Your Moneymaker’ is one for earnest bearded musicologists, just hold my pint while I dance to it please. I love the rolling thunderous tones of ‘Goodnight Boogie’ too, no bad way to bow out; the hound met his maker in 1975 and this was his last recording.
Natural Boogie is not one of those LPs that will change your life, your outlook or your soul but is somehow worth way more than all those albums that people profess do just that. Natural Boogie is a wonderful, unvarnished, overly excitable good time all the time; which is a surprisingly rare set of qualities to find.
I commend Mr Taylor and his House Rockers to you all.
Alas, my copy of Natural Boogie is not one inherited from a slightly odd great uncle who hung out in Chicago dives in the late 60’s and infused with a patina derived from bourbon, cigarette smoke and body odour. Mine is a 2023 Vinyl Me Please version, beautifully cut and replicated with the great interview booklet. I really cannot recommend it enough to you.
Trust me I’m Welsh, we know the blues.
1234 Down.
*his given name was, the decidedly presidential, Theodore Roosevelt Taylor.
**Gee-Willikins I do love me some studio chatter!
I trust ya. This is a good one. I get a shot every once in a while.
Excellent stuff, this is brilliant, totally joyous as you say, that sense of almost manic good times that comes from the best bar-room bands (Georgia Satellites at their most energetic for instance). Interesting that vocals / 2 guitars /drums line-up, same as Sleater-Kinney or Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. I’d be willing to bet Mr. Spencer has heard Mr. Hound Dog Taylor.
Well put re. manic good times. I once saw JSBX blow the Beastie Boys off stage; context the BB were my favourite band in the world at the time. Jon and his chums are all I can remember from that gig – Judah Bauer, what a drummer!!
I never heard of him but it’s good stuff. I like me a little blues boogie.
Its cracking and electric, the roots of all the best heavier stuff we like.
The Houserockers is a great name…I guess we can’t knock on their door!! Just go on in!
Absolutely!!
When Hound Dog Taylor puts the slide on the little finger of his left hand, turns up his cheap Japanese electric guitar and starts playing with the Houserockers the walls shake.
Perfectly put!