The Death of Koko Taylor
Friday, June 5, 2009
By VeTalle Fusilier
When it rains, it pours. If King James just got sent home and St. James Brown is rockin above, now we lost our Queen. Koko Taylor left us, passing in her hometown of Chicago. She had just won her 29th Female Artist of the Year Blues Award, winning more than any other blues player, man or woman. She was known as the ”Queen of the Blues”, in the finest tradition. She ruled mightily, understanding her ancestors Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. Koko helped you forget your troubles by engaging you in the blues stories she sang, casting a spell.
Baby Please Don’t Dog Me.
Young Cora Walton had radio as her guide in Memphis. WDIA hired the first black disc jockey and she could hear B.B. King and Rufus Thomas as well as fiery gospel broadcast from the airwaves to her soul. Soon Cora, nicknamed Koko ‘cause she loved chocolate, was raging, singing with her five brothers and sisters. She moved to Chicago with her man, soon to be husband “Pops” Taylor in 1955 with little more than , “thirty-five cents and a box of Ritz Crackers,” as she put it. Cleaning houses during the day, sitting in with blues bands at night, Koko connected with Willie Dixon, who got her a Chess records contract, and produced two albums, a bunch of singles, and re-doing “Wang Dang Doodle”, which had been a hit for Howlin Wolf, selling a million records in 1965. A million records in 1965,…whoa.
Wang Dang Doodle
And the rest as they say, is blues history. Koko moved on to Alligator records and hung with the big dogs, Howlin Wolf, B.B., and later with Led Zeppelin members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Eight of her nine albums recorded on Alligator were Grammy-nominated. She brought the blues to flim, late night talk shows, early morning news shows and National Public Radio. In 1989 Koko survived a car accident to open a blues club in Chicago and found her way into the Blues Brothers 2000 film. Through it all she sung her blues, making us cry happy tears.
I Cried Like a Baby
VeTalle Fusilier is a producer in Washington, DC. It's pronounced VEE-tal FEW-suh-LEER
