Hound Dog Taylor

Tell me this ain’t a happy man. A kitchen chair and an old guitar. In the world of electric blues people talk about B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, but you don’t hear Hound Dog Taylor’s name mentioned near enough. As a kid I was lucky enough to be exposed to this album, Natural Boogie. One of the things that I love about the blues is that every note doesn’t have to be perfect, sound quality is optional, but the emotion has to be there or it ain’t the blues. Hound Dog wasn’t the technical guitar player that seems to be the norm these days, but he was a master of emotive playing. When someone tries to play the blues without the emotion, it just sounds awful…it’s empty. But you can pull it off the other way round, emotion can make you a blues player even if you can barely get around on a guitar neck. Now I won’t extend this exception to punk music. Me and punk don’t exactly get along. And the argument has been made that if the energy is there, music will follow even if melody doesn’t. I don’t agree with that. Melody has to be there. Anyway, I’m getting off course. This album, Natural Boogie, exemplifies my point. It’s solid from beginning to end with the highlight being the track Sadie. Sadie is available on iTunes for download if anyone is interested and I highly recommend it. This album is available on CD, as well.