“QUEEN OF THE BLUES” KOKO TAYLOR 1928 - 2009

Grammy Award-winning blues legend Koko Taylor, 80, died on June 3, 2009 in her hometown of Chicago, IL, as a result of complications following her May 19 surgery to correct a gastrointestinal bleed. On May 7, 2009, the critically acclaimed Taylor, known worldwide as the “Queen of the Blues,” won her 29th Blues Music Award (for Traditional Female Blues Artist Of The Year), making her the recipient of more Blues Music Awards than any other artist. In 2004 she received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, which is among the highest honors given to an American artist. Her most recent CD, 2007’s Old School, was nominated for a Grammy (eight of her nine Alligator albums were Grammy-nominated). She won a Grammy in 1984 for her guest appearance on the compilation album Blues Explosion on Atlantic.

Born Cora Walton on a sharecropper’s farm just outside Memphis, TN, on September 28, 1928, Koko, nicknamed for her love of chocolate, fell in love with music at an early age. Inspired by gospel music and WDIA blues disc jockeys B.B. King and Rufus Thomas, Taylor began belting the blues with her five brothers and sisters, accompanying themselves on their homemade instruments. In 1952, Taylor and her soon-to-be-husband, the late Robert “Pops” Taylor, traveled to Chicago with nothing but, in Koko’s words, “thirty-five cents and a box of Ritz Crackers.” 

In Chicago, “Pops” worked for a packing company, and Koko cleaned houses. Together they frequented the city’s blues clubs nightly. Encouraged by her husband, Koko began to sit in with the city’s top blues bands, and soon she was in demand as a guest artist. One evening in 1962 Koko was approached by arranger/composer Willie Dixon. Overwhelmed by Koko’s performance, Dixon landed Koko a Chess Records recording contract, where he produced her several singles, two albums and penned her million-selling 1965 hit “Wang Dang Doodle,” which would become Taylor’s signature song.

After Chess Records was sold, Taylor found a home with the Chicago’s Alligator Records in 1975 and released the Grammy-nominated I Got What It Takes. She recorded eight more albums for Alligator between 1978 and 2007, received seven more Grammy nominations and made numerous guest appearances on various albums and tribute recordings. Koko appeared in the films Wild At Heart, Mercury Rising and Blues Brothers 2000. She performed on Late Night With David Letterman, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, CBS-TV’s This Morning, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, CBS-TV’s Early Edition, and numerous regional television programs.

Over the course of her 40-plus-year career, Taylor received every award the blues world has to offer. On March 3, 1993, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley honored Taylor with a “Legend Of The Year” Award and declared “Koko Taylor Day” throughout Chicago. In 1997, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame. A year later, Chicago Magazine named her “Chicagoan Of The Year” and, in 1999, Taylor received the Blues Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009 Taylor performed in Washington, D.C. at The Kennedy Center Honors honoring Morgan Freeman.

Koko Taylor was one of very few women who found success in the male-dominated blues world. She took her music from the tiny clubs of Chicago’s South Side to concert halls and major festivals all over the world. She shared stages with every major blues star, including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy as well as rock icons Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.

Taylor’s final performance was on May 7, 2009 in Memphis at the Blues Music Awards, where she sang “Wang Dang Doodle” after receiving her award for Traditional Blues Female Artist Of The Year.

Survivors include Taylor’s husband Hays Harris, daughter Joyce Threatt, son-in-law Lee Threatt, grandchildren Lee, Jr. and Wendy, and three great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements will be announced.

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Koko Taylor is the great female blues singer of her generation. Raw vocal power and blustery swagger.”

 – Rolling Stone

Koko Taylor is a national treasure…she packs firepower a lot of youngsters only wish they had.

– Chicago Tribune

Koko Taylor is the blues…a growling goddess of down-and-dirty. Sheer, unstoppable shouting power, full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes. There are many kings of the blues but only one queen. Koko’s voice is capable of pinning a listener to the back wall.

– Boston Globe

Raucous, gritty, good-time blues…Taylor belts out blues in a gravel voice with ferocious intensity. Foot-stomping music that’ rough, raw and wonderfully upbeat.

-- People

Chicago’s best blues singer…she has fire in her lungs.

--Chicago Sun-Times

Soul and blues vocalist Janiva Magness received the coveted Entertainer Of The Year award at the Blues Foundation’s 2009 Blues Music Awards held on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at the Cook Convention Center in Memphis, TN. Magness also took the statue for Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year. Houserocking blues band Lil’ Ed And The Blues Imperials won Band Of The Year. Queen Of The Blues Koko Taylor received the award for Traditional Blues Female Artist Of The Year (her 29th career award, more than any other blues artist), and pianist/vocalist/songwriter Marcia Ball won the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player Of The Year award.

The Blues Music Awards are recognized as the highest honor given to blues artists. This year, Sirius XM Satellite Radio's B.B. King's Bluesville channel broadcast the event live. In addition, The Blues Music Awards were shot in HD for a DVD to be released in 2010.

Alligator Blues Music Award winners are as follows:

JANIVA MAGNESS
B.B. King Entertainer of the Year
Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year

KOKO TAYLOR

Traditional Blues Female Artist Of The Year

LIL’ ED AND THE BLUES IMPERIALS

Band Of The Year

MARCIA BALL
Pinetop Perkins Piano Player Of The Year

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ALLIGATOR RECORDS PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – MARCH 4, 2009
CONTACT: MARC LIPKIN / ALLIGATOR RECORDS / 773-973-7736 x235
EMAIL: publicity@allig.com

COLOR IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Master blues guitarist and vocalist John Cephas died of natural causes on Wednesday, March 4, 2009. He was 78. Well known as one half of the award-winning Piedmont blues duo Cephas & Wiggins, John’s remarkable and delicate finger picking and rich, baritone vocals placed him firmly at the forefront of acoustic blues artists. John received a National Heritage Fellowship Award (often called the “Living Treasure Award”) in 1989. This is the highest honor the U.S. Government offers a traditional artist. Two weeks ago, John was honored as one of eight black trailblazers as designated by the Library of Virginia's African American History Month.

John Cephas, along with his harmonica playing partner Phil Wiggins, performed thousands of concerts and festivals all over the world. Often under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, the two spent much of the 1980s abroad, playing Europe, Africa, Central and South America, China, Australia and New Zealand. In 1988, they were among the first Americans to perform at the Russian Folk Festival in Moscow. In 1997 Cephas & Wiggins performed for President Bill Clinton. In addition, John appeared on stage portraying a blind bluesman in the Kennedy Center production of Blind Man Blues. He also appeared in a production of Zora Neal Hurston’s play, Polk County, in Washington, D.C.

Among his many endeavors, John served on the Executive Committee of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, and has testified before Congressional committees. He is also a founder of the Washington, D.C. Blues Society. “More than anything else,” said John, “I would like to see a revival of country blues by more young people…more people going to concerts, learning to play the music. That’s why I stay in the field of traditional music. I don’t want it to die.”

John Cephas was born in Washington, D.C. in 1930 into a deeply religious family and raised in Bowling Green, Virginia. His first taste of music was gospel, but blues soon became his calling. After learning to play the alternating thumb and fingerpicking guitar style that defines Piedmont blues, John began emulating the records he heard by Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis and other early blues artists. Aside from playing blues, John worked early on as a professional gospel singer, carpenter and Atlantic fisherman. By the 1960s, he was starting to make a living from his music.

John first met his future partner Phil Wiggins in 1976 at the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. and the two quickly formed a duo. By the early 1980s, the international blues community recognized this marvelous acoustic twosome as the leading exponents of traditional Tidewater blues. While overseas in 1981, they recorded two albums, Living Country Blues and Sweet Bitter Blues, for the German L&R label. Cephas & Wiggins recorded their first domestic album, Dog Days Of August (Flying Fish Records), in 1987 in John’s living room, and it quickly won a Blues Music Award for Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year.

In 1996, Cephas & Wiggins made their Alligator Records debut with Cool Down. They followed up with Homemade, Somebody Told The Truth and Shoulder To Shoulder. Their most recent CD, 2009’s Richmond Blues, was released on the Smithsonian Folkways label.

ALLIGATOR RECORDS PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release – March 3, 2009
Contact: Marc Lipkin / 773-973-7736 x235
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BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO’S ALLIGATOR RECORDS DEBUT,
LAY YOUR BURDEN DOWN, SET FOR MAY 5 RELEASE, CELEBRATES BAND’S 30TH ANNIVERSARY!

Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) with guests Sonny Landreth, Warren Haynes, Steve Berlin, JJ Grey, and Trombone Shorty.

Features five originals and songs by Memphis Minnie (as popularized by Led Zeppelin), Gov’t Mule, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Cliff, Captain Beefheart, JJ Grey & Mofro.

Alligator Records has set a May 5, 2009 release date for LAY YOUR BURDEN DOWN, the stunning label debut from American musical legend Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural Jr. and his band, Buckwheat Zydeco. The New York Times says, “Stanley ‘Buckwheat’ Dural leads one of the best bands in America. A down-home and high-powered celebration, meaty and muscular with a fine-tuned sense of dynamics…propulsive rhythms, incendiary performances.” The Louisiana vocalist, accordion and organ master recorded the new CD at Dockside Studios in Maurice, Louisiana with Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) producing (as well as leading the horn section). Buckwheat Zydeco celebrates its 30th anniversary with the new CD and a lengthy tour, beginning with a Main Stage appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 2, 2009.

LAY YOUR BURDEN DOWN is a remarkably conceived album featuring five new Buckwheat originals and complete reinventions of songs by Memphis Minnie (When The Levee Breaks, made famous by Led Zeppelin), Bruce Springsteen (Back In Your Arms), Gov’t Mule (Lay Your Burden Down), Captain Beefheart (Too Much Time), Jimmy Cliff (Let Your Yeah Be Yeah) and JJ Grey & Mofro (The Wrong Side). Guests on the album include Sonny Landreth, Warren Haynes, Steve Berlin, JJ Grey and Trombone Shorty. With LAY YOUR BURDEN DOWN, Buckwheat Zydeco’s large and loyal fan base will have to make room for a massive influx of new converts.

Over the course of its celebrated career, Buckwheat Zydeco has played for President Clinton, performed at the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics (to a worldwide audience of three billion people), and gigged with everyone from Eric Clapton (with whom Buckwheat also recorded) and U2 to The Boston Pops. Buckwheat Zydeco’s music has appeared in a number of theatrical films and on too many television programs to mention, including The Late Show With David Letterman, CNN, The Today Show, MTV, NBC News and many others.

According to Alligator Records president Bruce Iglauer, the addition of Buckwheat Zydeco to the label is huge. “Buckwheat is the iconic figure of Louisiana zydeco music worldwide. It’s a thrill to bring an artist of this stature to Alligator. More important, he still tears it up at every show. His energy level and accordion chops are just amazing, and he’s a terrific, soulful singer. Plus, he’s a thrilling Hammond organ player. I’m also excited to reunite Buckwheat with Steve Berlin of Los Lobos as producer. Berlin produced Five Card Stud, one of Buckwheat’s finest albums, and we believe Buckwheat’s Alligator debut is even better. Also, Buckwheat has been booked for years by Concerted Efforts, a great agency for American roots music.”

Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural, Jr. was born in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1947. He acquired his nickname because, with his braided hair, he looked like Buckwheat from The Little Rascals. His father was an accomplished, non-professional traditional Creole accordion player, but young Buckwheat preferred listening to and playing R&B. He became proficient at the organ, and by the late 1950s was backing Joe Tex, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and many others. In 1971 he formed a 16-piece funk band, Buckwheat and The Hitchhikers. Never a traditional zydeco fan when growing up, Buckwheat nonetheless accepted an invitation in 1976 to join Clifton Chenier’s Red Hot Louisiana Band as organist. He quickly discovered the joy and power of zydeco music, and marveled at the effect the music had on the audience. “I was shocked to find out how popular zydeco really was,” Buckwheat says. “Everywhere, people young and old just loved zydeco music. I had so much fun playing it that first night with Clifton. We played for four hours and I wasn't ready to quit.”

Buckwheat’s relationship with the legendary Chenier led him to take up the accordion in 1978. After woodshedding for a year, he felt ready to start his own band under the name Buckwheat Zydeco, and began his recording career with the small Blues Unlimited label. By the mid-1980s there were more offers to perform than he could possibly accept. Recordings for Black Top and Rounder followed before Buckwheat befriended New York-based journalist Ted Fox (who would later become his manager). Fox championed Buckwheat to Chris Blackwell at Island Records, and Buckwheat soon received a five-record deal.

As more doors opened, Buckwheat found himself sharing stages and/or recording with Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, David Hidalgo, Dwight Yoakam, Paul Simon, and many others, including indie music darlings Yo La Tengo on the soundtrack to the Bob Dylan bio-pic, I’m Not There.

During the 1990s Buckwheat continued recording for his own Tomorrow Records label and never slowed down his touring schedule. With his new relationship with Alligator and LAY YOUR BURDEN DOWN, his massive instrumental and vocal talents and boundless energy, Buckwheat remains the most popular zydeco artist in the world, and will find the largest and most enthusiastic audience of his long and storied career.

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Passionate blue-eyed soul smothered with a big heap of New Orleans funk makes you feel like dancing all the way down Canal Street.      --Los Angeles Daily News

Alligator Records has set a March 24 street date for Gulf Coast Highway, the new CD from soul, rock and blues singer, songwriter and guitarist Eric Lindell. Only a few short years ago, Lindell was known only to a small but enthusiastic group of fans in his native Northern California and his adopted home town of New Orleans. Once he hit the national music scene with his 2006 Alligator Records debut Change In The Weather, critics and fans around the world celebrated the arrival of a roots rocker with dozens of unforgettable original songs. His combination of sweet, blue-eyed soul with groove-laden R&B, swamp pop, funk and blues won him critical and popular acclaim across the country. Writers and disc jockeys made comparisons to Van Morrison and Delbert McClinton. With his 2007 release Low On Cash, Rich In Love, his popularity increased exponentially. A February 2008 appearance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien put him in front of an audience of millions of people worldwide.

Recorded at Balance Studio in Mandeville, Louisiana, Gulf Coast Highway features 12 original songs and three inspired covers. The CD finds Lindell reaching new performing and songwriting heights. His soul-drenched mix of roots-rock, sinewy blues, swampy R&B and a hint of honky-tonk soul permeates every song. With musical help from some of the Crescent City’s finest players, including the Galactic rhythm section of Robert Mercurio and Stanton Moore on some tracks, Lindell has created his most fully realized lyrical and musical statement yet.

Born in San Mateo, California in 1969, Lindell spent countless hours in San Francisco, soaking up the musical sounds of the city, eventually leading him to pick up first the bass and then the guitar and harmonica. Lindell listened to the music of The Impressions as well as Buddy Guy. He discovered blues greats Junior Wells, Jimmy Reed and Albert King before drifting toward the R&B sounds of Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, soaking up the soul and learning how to craft a song. After performing at bars on the West Coast with a few short-lived bands, Eric formed his own group in 1993 and quickly gained a loyal California audience thanks to countless performances and many late-night jam sessions. Established stars like Charlie Musselwhite and Tom Waits attended his gigs, as did overflow crowds of music fans.

Lindell left for New York in 1998, gigging there regularly before heading down to New Orleans in 1999, where he quickly discovered the roots music scene. He gravitated toward the West Bank dive bars of Gretna and Algiers, Louisiana, where he befriended many older swamp pop musicians who helped him get more regular gigs. Before long he met up with Galactic’s Stanton Moore, and the two jammed together often. Some of New Orleans’ finest players, including keyboardist Ivan Neville and drummers Harold Brown (War) and Johnny Vidacovich, often joined him on stage. Galactic bassist Rob Mercurio began sitting in as well, and word of Lindell’s immense talents quickly spread around the city.

Lindell’s 2006 Alligator Records debut, Change In The Weather, delighted and surprised music fans hungry for a truly original artist. Lindell’s deceptively simple sounding songs, laid back grooves and hook-laden melodies were fueled by guests including Brown, Neville and Moore. Critics across the country went wild, with reviews and features in Relix, OffBeat, Harp, Guitar Player, Down Beat, The New Yorker, The New York Press and many other national and regional publications. Singer And Musician magazine put Eric on the cover and many newspaper entertainment sections did the same. The Chicago Sun-Times said, “Eric Lindell is a tremendous raw talent with a poet's soul. He writes from the heart with a fully realized musical vision.”

The 2007 release of Low On Cash, Rich In Love pushed Lindell farther into the spotlight. Appearances on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, his return to Mountain Stage and reviews in USA Today, Relix, Down Beat, Harp, Living Blues, Blues Revue and many other national and regional publications solidified Lindell’s stature as an artist who simply could not be ignored.

Lindell’s live shows draw as much attention as his material. Fun, funky, high-energy and set-list free shows keep fans clamoring for more and coming back again and again. His unstoppable grooves, rocking, deeply rooted, original songs and excellent musicianship never fail to fill the dance floor. Guitar Player says, “Impressive, super slinky classic blues and rock with a taste of country twang. Lindell is bound to win over roots music fans for years to come.” The Philadelphia Inquirer simply called his music, “timeless blue-eyed soul.” The Boston Herald calls him “a ferocious talent.” With the release of Gulf Coast Highway, and a full slate of tour dates around the country, Eric Lindell’s talent and soul will shine brightly from the Gulf Coast to stages all over the world.

ALLIGATOR RECORDS ANNOUNCES NEW CANADIAN DISTRIBUTOR

Alligator Records has entered into an agreement with Maplecore Limited’s Fontana North Distribution for all of its Canadian CD distribution. Fontana North won the Canadian Independent Distributor of the Year award in 2008 and distributes labels including New West and Tommy Boy throughout Canada. Jennifer McLeod will be the label manager at Fontana for Alligator.

According to Alligator’s Director of International Sales, Bill Giardini, “We are excited to have Fontana North as our distribution partner in Canada and look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with continued growth in the Canadian market."

Alligator was distributed in Canada by Fusion III from 2002 until 2008.

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ALLIGATOR ARTISTS ON THE AIRWAVES

JJ Grey & Mofro were featured for the entire hour on the nationally syndicated radio show The House Of Blues Radio Hour in January. The show included an interview with Grey and tracks form his two Alligator albums, Country Ghetto and Orange Blossoms.

JJ recently recorded acoustic performances for Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour and Acoustic Cafe, both to be aired on National Public Radio. Broadcast dates will be announced soon.

On February 20, Grey’s song Orange Blossoms will be featured in the NBC Television program Friday Night Lights. A few weeks later, on March 27, Eric Lindell’s song Lay Back Down will be featured in the program.

ALLIGATOR RECORDS SIGNS
RICK ESTRIN & THE NIGHTCATS

NEW CD SET FOR 2009

Alligator Records is proud to announce the signing of Northern California-based blues band, Rick Estrin & The Nightcats. For more than 30 years and nine albums, singer/ harmonica player/ songwriter Estrin co-fronted the jumping, swinging Little Charlie & The Nightcats, along with guitarist Little Charlie Baty. Now, with Baty’s recent retirement from touring, Estrin -- along with the Nightcats longtime rhythm section of J. Hansen and Lorenzo Farrell and fiery young guitarist Kid Andersen -- has taken the lead on his own. Rick Estrin & The Nightcats’ sound, while still swinging the blues, is a harmonica-driven, rocking, guitar-fueled rave-up. The band performs new material as well as the well-known, well-loved classics from Estrin’s massive catalog.

Rick Estrin ranks among the very best harp players in the blues world. His work on the reeds is at once deep in the tradition of harmonica masters Sonny Boy Williamson II and Little Walter Jacobs while at the same time pushing that tradition forward. The Associated Press called his harp playing, “endlessly impressive.” The great guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr. (who was schooled by Robert Johnson and who played on most of Little Walter’s Chess recordings) told Estrin, “Little Walter would be very proud of you.”

Rick’s seemingly effortless command of the harmonica is matched by his distinctive, soulful vocals and remarkable original songs. Ever since he started performing his own material, it has become increasingly clear that Rick Estrin is a songwriter of unparalleled skill. His quick wit, self-assured disposition, coifed hair, pencil-thin mustache and sharp attire inform his songs in a way that has led critics to compare him to Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan and Willie Dixon.

Besides Estrin’s songwriting and musical skills, he is among the greatest live showmen around. “People don’t go out to see people who look like them,” says Rick. “They want to see something special. I was schooled in this business to be a showman, and that’s what you get when you come to see me perform.” The Chicago Sun-Times noted, “It’s tough to stay in your seat when Estrin and his musical cohorts get cooking.”

Estrin was born in San Francisco, California in 1949. He discovered a whole new world when his older sister gave him a copy of Ray Charles’ The Genius Sings The Blues when he was 12. Albums from Jimmy Reed, Champion Jack Dupree, Mose Allison, Nina Simone and others soon followed. By the time he was a teenager in a racially mixed school, Estrin completely identified with the urban, African-American culture surrounding him. Estrin got his first harmonica at age 15, and by age 18 was proficient enough to begin sitting in at black clubs around the city. He moved to Chicago and worked with bluesmen Johnny Young, Eddie Taylor, Sam Lay and Johnny Littlejohn before meeting and jamming with Muddy Waters. In fact, Muddy wanted Estrin join his band, but due to nothing more than some minor communication problem, it never happened.

Rick eventually met Little Charlie Baty and formed Little Charlie & The Nightcats. For the next 30 years, the band barnstormed around the globe, honing their skills and entertaining countless people. Now, as Rick Estrin & The Nightcats prepare to release their debut CD and wind their way around the country, they’ll continue bringing their fresh, well-loved sound to fans both old and new, packing clubs and dance floors wherever they go.