Aural Robert

Blues at 45

- Robert Baird

Blues at 45

In 1971, Bruce Iglauer, a 23-year-old employee of Chicago’s Delmark Records (whose founder Bob Koester was the subject of the July 2016 Aural Robert), decided to start his own record label for the most primal of reasons.

“I fell in love with Hound Dog Taylor and the House rockers! And 45 years later, I still have a label to record my favorite bands.”

The riches of the Alligator Records catalog, now numbering around 300 titles, are many. Although Iglauer at first focused on Chicago’s electric blues, over the years he and his label began to mix in different flavors, from Louisiana, Texas, and the West Coast. Even a casual browsing of my shelves turned up many classics: Lonnie Mack’s Live! Attack of the Killer V (1990); Charles Brown’s One More for the Road (1989); Albert Collins, Robert Cray, and Johnny Copeland’s Showdown! (1985); Albert Collins’s Ice Pickin’ (1978); The Paladins’ Let’s Buzz! (1990); Clifton Chenier and His Red Hot Louisiana Band’s I’m Here! (1982); and Professor Longhair’s Crawfish Fiesta (1980). Iglauer’s four-volume series Living Chicago Blues, released from 1978 to 1980, included such players as Jimmy Johnson, Eddie Shaw, and A.C. Reed, and remains a monument to the Chicago style. Its single-LP reprise, The New Bluebloods: The Next Generation of Chicago Blues (1987), may be even better. As has been true for all of Alligator’s anniversaries, this one is being celebrated by a commemorative compilation released as CDs and/or as downloads: the