Say you were inclined to pitch a ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ or ‘Let The Good Times Roll.’ What might be your preferred choices for musical accompaniment? Most likely somewhere in the mix would be the music of the premiere blueswoman of her generation, the Queen of the Blues, Koko Taylor.
She certainly has all the tools: a big, gravely voice; a ton of good tunes; a wardrobe of flashy dresses; and a stage personality so compelling, so riveting, that you can’t help but watch and listen. Yet there’s also the offstage Koko: sweet and humble, focused and directed, cheerful and energetic. The one who delights in ‘making people happy all over the world with my music.’
The glorious blueswoman we know as Koko Taylor was born simply Cora Walton, on September 28, 1935, on a sharecropper’s cotton farm just outside Memphis, Tennessee, to Annie Mae and William Walton. She sang in the local Baptist church choir and, along with her three brothers and two sisters, played music on homemade instruments. Koko’s instrument was her voice. The young woman heard deejays Rufus Thomas and B.B. King play blues on Memphis radio, including the artists she recalls as her strongest influences-Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton, Memphis Minnie, Ma Rainey and Big Maybelle, along with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson.
In 1953, Koko came to Chicago with her future husband, Robert ‘Pops’ Taylor. She remembers they ‘rode to Chicago with 35 cents and a box of Ritz crackers.’* At home in the evenings, Pops played guitar and they would sing together. The couple went to clubs to hear music almost every weekend. Eventually, Koko started sitting in with the leading Chicago artists, including Muddy, Wolf, Elmore James and Magic Sam. Through a connection she met the man who would be her first music business mentor, Willie Dixon.
After a couple unsuccessful efforts at other labels, Dixon started recording Koko for Chess. In 1965, they struck gold with ‘Wang Dang Doodle,’ which Dixon had recorded with Howlin’ Wolf five years earlier. The million-seller blues standard became Chess’ last Top Ten R&B hit. Koko had arrived on the scene as the popularity of blues was fading with the black audience, and soul was catching fire. Nevertheless, Koko’s recording success led to regular work in Chicago, plus trips to black nightspots in the South. As the 1970s began, she started singing on Chicago’s Northside at Wise Fools Pub with Bob Riedy’s band, then added Kingston Mines, then Biddy Mulligan’s, as these new clubs opened and her audience (and the blues’) became increasingly more diverse.
Powerfully dynamic and successful performances, including the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, led to national touring, and a connection with Bruce Iglauer, owner of the then-fledgling Alligator Records. ‘My career didn’t start until I got with Alligator,’ she told Living Blues magazine.*
‘There is only one Queen of the Blues,’ Iglauer says. ‘She is the blueswoman. I consider her music firmly in the tradition of the first generation of Chicago blues artists. She never wanted to sing anything but the blues, and she likes to leave the raw edges showing. In fact, she injects that rawness into all the music she sings.’
‘Koko is as tough as they come, and very proudly a country person in the very best sense of what that means,’ Iglauer adds. ‘She is the essence of what a blues musician should be.’
Once the albums started flowing out, the awards began flowing in: Fourteen W.C. Handy Awards. Fourteen! A Grammy Award for the Atlantic album ‘Blues Explosion.’ Multiple Grammy nominations for her Alligator albums. Koko is particularly proud of ‘Koko Taylor Day,’ declared March 3, 1993 by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Undaunted even by a 1988 van accident that left her with a broken shoulder, broken collarbone and four broken ribs, Koko keeps on, in her words, ‘carrying the torch for the many great names that have passed on – Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Albert King, Albert Collins, Luther Allison – all over the world.’ Unfortunately, the accident caused Pops to go into cardiac arrest. Koko feels he never got over it*, and he died about year later. Koko’s first gig back after a six-month recuperation was on the main stage at the Chicago Blues Festival. Talk about guts and resilience! (Note: Koko married tavern owner Hays Harris in 1996. She says ‘I’m still on my honeymoon, still smiling.’)
These qualities are things she continues to share with the world, though not just from the stage. In addition to creating exciting recordings and inspiring performances, Koko is now passing on the fruits of her nearly three and a half decades in the music business by mentoring a new generation of female blues performers.
‘Young people is important to me,’ Koko says, ‘and it makes me proud to be a role model for young people coming up that wants to sing and play the blues. I’m reaching for the sky, but if I fall somewhere in the clouds, I’ll still be happy. I’m gonna keep on doin’ what I’m doin’, and hanging in there for the best.’ And singing her blues, no doubt.
*Passages with an asterisk are from a Living Blues interview by Mary Katherine Aldin, published July/August 1993.
Koko Taylor passed away June 3, 2009, less than a month after a strong performance of ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ at the 30th Blues Music Awards.
— (Blues Foundation press release.)