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Bruce Iglauer and Patrick A. Roberts
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
2019: 338pp
I met Bruce Iglauer in the Spring of 1971 when I traveled to Kent, Ohio, to see Mighty Joe Young perform at The Kove. Bruce was accompanying Young who was playing in support of his Delmark album, "Blues With a Touch of Soul." The next day, Bruce and Mighty Joe Young came to the WRUW-FM studios at Case Western Reserve University, where I hosted a weekly blues program. It was the beginning of a relationship that still exists. I would next see Bruce after he founded Alligator Records and accompanying Hound Dog Taylor on his performances. I got to know not only how hands-on Bruce was in producing records, but also the extent of what he did in promoting the records and his artists. "Bitten By the Blues," tells the story of how he became more than merely a blues fan and created one of the signature blues record labels of the past five decades.
We are taken from Iglauer's childhood, going to college, seeing John Coltrane in concert, and then seeing Fred McDowell at a Chicago folk festival which is what instigated his passion for the blues. Bruce would help book Howlin' Wolf at his college, and moving to Chicago after graduation where he worked at the Jazz Record Mart and Delmark Records. He would also be going to Chicago blues clubs, helping found Living Blues magazine, and much more.
Of course, the story includes Bruce's discovery of Hound Dog Taylor, and efforts to get him on record. These efforts led to the formation of Alligator Records and the rest is the history of the label's history and artists. We meet Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Fenton Robinson, Albert Collins, Lonnie Mack, Lonnie Brooks, Katie Webster, Professor Longhair, and so many more artists. We learn how they artists to Bruce's attention, what was involved in recording these blues masters. Iglauer also details efforts by Alligator to promote these artists to different markets and radio. There is plenty about what was going on behind the scenes as radio programming changed, and how, with few exceptions, radio became less open for independent and blues artists. He also details his brief efforts to issue reggae music that he licensed from Jamaican labels and also record and promote artists whose music impressed him in ways similar to the blues. These include Eric Lindell, and JJ Grey and Mofro.
He does not go into every artist or recording that Alligator released records of. For example, the late Johnny Heartsman's "The Touch" I believe is an undeservedly less well-known gem of the label. I would have loved to know how Heartsman and Bruce connected. I understand that he could not chronicle every single recording or artist, or this book would be double in size. The book does list every record Alligator released through 2018. I do not know if the paperback release of this book has updated this list. I want to add that it has been some months since I read this, so I have been very general in summarizing its contents.
Alligator continues to release new music whether from established blues and roots performers like Tinsley Ellis, Marcia Ball, Rick Estrin and the Nightcats, Shemekia Copeland and Roomful of Blues as well as new voices like Nick Moss with Dennis Gruenling, The Cash Box Kings, Selwyn Birchwood, Lindsay Beaver, and Toronzo Cannon. "Bitten By The Blues" is a welcome addition to books about the blues. Thankfully the story it tells continues today and hopefully for many more years.
I purchased this book. Here is a short Alligator Records playlist starting with Johnny Heartsman's "Paint My Mailbox Blue."
Next up is Hound Dog Taylor with "She's Gone."
Koko Taylor is next with "I Got What It Takes" from her first Alligator Album."
Son Seals follows with a cover of "Mother-In-Law Blues," from his debut album.
For this short playlist, we conclude with a selection from another less-well-known gem on Alligator, the piano-guitar duets of Henry Butler and Corey Harris, here heard on "Let Em Roll" from the album "Vu Du Menz."
