Noted blues label Alligator Records celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2011, and we're celebrating all year long! Each month we pick a great record, old or new, from Alligator's extensive catalog and review it as our "Alligator Records Album of the Month." Here are our picks - enjoy!
1. Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers - 'S/T' (January 2011)
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The often-told story has become part of blues legend by now. Bruce Iglauer, founder of Alligator Records, became Hound Dog Taylor's biggest fan after seeing the guitarist and his band the HouseRockers perform in Chicago-area clubs. When Iglauer failed to convince his boss at Delmark Records, Bob Koester, to record Taylor for his label, he formed Alligator Records with a small inheritance and subsequently recorded and released the Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers album himself...and the rest, as they say, is history!
2. Various - 'Alligator Records 40th Anniversary Collection' (February 2011)
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The Alligator Records 40th Anniversary Collection features some of the best music from among the hundreds of albums the label has released since 1971, chosen by blues fans through an online poll. Featuring 38 red-hot and smokin' tracks from Alligator artists like Hound Dog Taylor, Janiva Magness, Koko Taylor, Professor Longhair, Son Seals, Shemekia Copeland, Luther Allison, and many more the collection includes liner notes from label founder Bruce Iglauer and song-by-song commentary.
3. Johnny Winter - '3rd Degree' (March 2011)
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After Winter's 1980 album Raisin' Cain failed to chart, he was dropped from his CBS Records contract, and the artist began to look towards writing the second chapter of his decade-long career. He found help in the form of Bruce Iglauer and Alligator Records, who signed the guitarist for a trio of albums that would put Winter back on the blues path he continues to walk today. Over the course of these albums for the label, Winter finished his evolution into a complete bluesman with 1986's 3rd Degree, his last album for Alligator and one of the best in a catalog ripe with great recordings.
4. Fenton Robinson - 'Somebody Loan Me A Dime' (April 2011)
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Long before singer Boz Scaggs laid claim to Fenton Robinson's classic slow-blues grind "Somebody Loan Me A Dime," the Mississippi-born, Chicago-based guitarist had earned a reputation as a smooth-as-silk vocalist, an even slicker instrumentalist who brought jazzy tones to his diehard blues, and a talented songwriter whose material was recorded by artists like Lowell Fulson, Buddy Guy, and others. While Robinson recorded a handful of singles for various small, independent labels, it wasn't until he signed with Alligator Records and worked with producer Bruce Iglauer that he would find his true artistic voice.
5. Buckwheat Zydeco - 'Lay Your Burden Down' (May 2011)
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In 2009, Alligator Records hooked up with Louisiana music legend Buckwheat Zydeco to create what would become a milestone album for both the label and the artist in Lay Your Burden Down. Producer Steve Berlin coaxed some of the finest performances of the singer's lengthy career for the songs on Lay Your Burden Down, a sometimes somber mix of original material and inspired covers of songs from Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Cliff, Gov't Mule, and Captain Beefheart. Lay Your Burden Down won Zydeco a Grammy™ Award for "Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album" and a Blues Music Award for "Best Instrumentalist - Other" for his fiery accordion work on the album.
6. Tommy Castro - 'Presents The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue Live!' (June 2011)
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For a couple of years now, Tommy Casto and his hard-working band have served as the defacto house band for the twice-yearly Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. While two-time B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award-winner delivers his own fiery sets for the blues-lovin' fans on board the boat, he and band back up a veritable "who's who" of performing blues talents, as well as partake of the nightly jams.
7. Eric Lindell - 'Gulf Coast Highway' (July 2011)
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A relative newcomer to the blues world, talented guitarist Eric Lindell is a product of the fertile California blues scene. After a handful of self-released and independent label albums that began with his 1996 debut Bring It Back, Lindell signed with Alligator Records in the mid-2010s, a move that resulted in a trio of critically-acclaimed albums. The guitarist had re-located to New Orleans in 1999, and the city's rich musical heritage definitely influenced Lindell's artistic development.
8. Luther Allison - 'Live In Chicago' (August 2011)
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While Allison had been chasing his blues legacy for several decades, it would be his fiery mid-to-late 1990s work for Alligator Records that would cement his status as one of the greatest bluesmen to grow up in the Chicago blues tradition. Beginning with the release of 1994's Soul Fixin' Man, his Alligator label debut and first U.S. album release in nearly 15 years, Allison would deliver a trio of critically-acclaimed albums for Alligator before his death from cancer in 1997. Allison's red-hot performance at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival was documented by the posthumous Alligator release Live In Chicago, a welcome showcase for the singer and guitarist's immense onstage charisma and presence.
9. Brooks, Hunter & Walker - 'Lone Star Shootout' (September 2011)
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In 1999, Alligator Records founder Bruce Iglauer had the idea of reuniting blues guitarists Lonnie Brooks, Long John Hunter, and Phillip Walker in a studio in Austin, Texas with a bunch of local musicians backing the trio of esteemed bluesmen. Brooks, Hunter, and Walker had all come up through the rough-and-tumble Gulf Coast blues scene of the 1950s, playing alongside and sometimes against each other, honing their chops and performance skills before moving on to bigger and better things. The results of the collaboration between Brooks, Hunter, and Walker was the Lone Star Shootout album, a blues guitar fan's dream come true.
10. Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials - 'Roughousin' (October 2011)
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When Chicago blues band Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials walked into the studio on cold January evening in 1986, it was the first time they'd been faced with the prospect of recording some of the fiery blues they'd been playing for a decade in Chicago's notorious West Side clubs. The band had been invited by Alligator Records founder Bruce Iglauer to lay down a couple of tracks for an upcoming label compilation of young bands. That three-hour performance would lead to a deal with the label, and the release of the band's debut album, Roughhousin', which collects ten of that night's best performances.
