Genuine Houserocking Music

Hound Dog Taylor | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 1, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Alligator Records
• ASIN: B0000009XT
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #193,823 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #75 in Music > Indie Music > Blues > Chicago Blues
  • #97 in Music > Indie Music > Blues > Electric Blues Guitar

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maxwell Street Is Gone, But We Have This, April 6, 2006

By 

Loren J. Rubin (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Genuine Houserocking Music (Audio CD)

I disagree with other reviewers who rate this album as inferior to other HDT releases. This album captures the live spirit of HDT's performance the best of any.

And live performance is what it's all about.

Chicago Blues, for me, is all about the spirit of Maxwell Street: throw an extension cord out a window, or run power from a generator and compete with the flea market atmosphere to attract a crowd. Showmanship and ingenuity were a premium and HDT had them in spades.

Sure Elmore James, Howlin Wolf & Muddy Waters were the innovators, and their catalogs are the pantheon, but THIS is the spirit of Chicago blues. Ragged, Raw, High Energy, Live!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not polished, but definitely a gem!, August 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Genuine Houserocking Music (Audio CD)

Hound Dog struts his stuff on this album, with powerfull vocals and strong though simple guitar licks. Hound Dog's guitar is sharp and bright, sometimes almost painfully so. I really enjoy "Send You Back to Georgia" - in my opinion, the best song on the album.

For a great taste of Blues history, this is an album to have!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good collection of outtakes, but probably mostly for serious fans, April 7, 2009

By 

Docendo Discimus (Vita scholae) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Genuine Houserocking Music (Audio CD)

"They ran on equal parts brotherly love, vicious adolescent rivalry, and Canadian Club", says producer Bruce Iglauer in the liner notes to this album. "They" being Theodore 'Hound Dog' Taylor and his Houserockers, the rowdy two-man backing band consisting of drummer Ted Harvey and guitarist Brewer Phillips (who was only ever called 'Phillips').

This is electric blues of the least polished kind, really. Middle-aged when he first started recording, Hound Dog had eleven fingers until he amputated one of them himself with a razor blade. He played an ultra-cheap, beat-up old Japanese guitar with the sawed-off leg from an equally cheap kitchen chair for a slide. He started every other song with Elmore James' "Dust My Broom"-riff, and he barked out his joyous boogies and lengthy blues shuffles in his nasal, unvaried baritone. But, like he himself said, "he couldn't play s**t, but he sure made it sound good."

This collection of outtakes was only released in 1982, seven years after Hound Dog's untimely death, but it features material recorded in 1971, 1972, and 1973, but not included on Hound Dog's two Alligator Records LPs. It's a standart batch of rollicking blues n' boogie, with a couple of nondescript instrumentals thrown in for good measure, and one really enoyable one, "Phillips Goes Bananas".
Hound Dog and co. do especially well by Elmore James' "The Sun is Shining" and Johnnie Mae Matthews' "Gonna Send You Back to Georgia", but Hound Dog's own "Ain't Got Nobody" is very enjoyable as well, even if it a total blues cliché all the way through, and the trio do a lively, melodic rendition of Jerry Leiber's and Mike Stoller's "Kansas City" and a pretty convincing "Crossroads", the classic Robert Johnson tune, played as a fiery, mid-tempo swagger. (Well, Hound Dog played almost everything as a fiery, mid-tempo swagger.)

This is almost all covers, and to me Taylor's first two studio albums for Alligator, 1971's self-titled debut and 1973's "Natural Boogie" are ultimately more interesting purchases with a more varied selection (such as it was with Hound Dog) and more original tunes. "Genuine Houserocking Music" is good, solid blues, and there is something quite irresistable about Hound Dog and his unwavering enthusiasm for his craft, but I would advise newcomers to start with "Natural Boogie" or "Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers". The live "Beware of the Dog" is recommendable as well, but this one is mostly for serious fans.