Koko Taylor: A Legendary Voice, A Legendary Life
My All-Time Favorite Interviews by Mike Starling | for the La Crosse Tribune, July 2, 1998
Talk about a storybook blues tale.
Born to a Memphis sharecropper. Moved with her husband to Chicago at the age of 18. Worked as a cleaning woman. Did a little singing on the side with bands led by Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Discovered one night in a little South Side club by legendary blues songwriter Willie Dixon.
"He talked about how the world needed a woman like me to sing the blues, you know, because they had plenty mens, but no womens, and so that's where I fitted in," said Koko Taylor in a phone interview from her home in Chicago Tuesday. "So he says to me, 'Are you recordin' for someone? You have a record contract?' I didn't even know the meaning of the word."
Dixon fixed that, getting Taylor her first recording deal. Thirty years later, the 67-year-old singer has won about every award the blues world offers. She's picked up 14 W.C. Handy Awards, more than any other female artist. Five of her last six albums have been nominated for Grammys, and she won one in 1984.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley honored the singer with a Legend of the Year Award, declaring March 3, 1993, as Koko Taylor Day. On Saturday, six days after the end of a European tour and two days after her appearance at Riverfest in La Crosse, Taylor will do a show at the White House. It will be her third performance before a U.S. president.
"I feel very honored that he selected me to be on this program because he could've gotten anybody else," she said.
Born to a Memphis sharecropper. Moved with her husband to Chicago at the age of 18. Worked as a cleaning woman. Did a little singing on the side with bands led by Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Discovered one night in a little South Side club by legendary blues songwriter Willie Dixon.
"He talked about how the world needed a woman like me to sing the blues, you know, because they had plenty mens, but no womens, and so that's where I fitted in," said Koko Taylor in a phone interview from her home in Chicago Tuesday. "So he says to me, 'Are you recordin' for someone? You have a record contract?' I didn't even know the meaning of the word."
Dixon fixed that, getting Taylor her first recording deal. Thirty years later, the 67-year-old singer has won about every award the blues world offers. She's picked up 14 W.C. Handy Awards, more than any other female artist. Five of her last six albums have been nominated for Grammys, and she won one in 1984.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley honored the singer with a Legend of the Year Award, declaring March 3, 1993, as Koko Taylor Day. On Saturday, six days after the end of a European tour and two days after her appearance at Riverfest in La Crosse, Taylor will do a show at the White House. It will be her third performance before a U.S. president.
"I feel very honored that he selected me to be on this program because he could've gotten anybody else," she said.
Yes, business is good these days for Tylor and for her favorite style of music.
"As of today, blues i really happening," she said. "It's very popular all over the world right now." I guess you know that because they're still sendin' for me in Europe, and that's a long ways from the U.S.A. And they is there by the thousands to listen to me and anybody who goes over there to sing."
It hasn't always been that way, however. Despite the popularity of blues, radio still doesn't play much, she said, and at times it has been tough to make a living in the field.
"There's been some ups and there's been some downs, but I learned over the years that nothing good comes easy," she said. "You have to take the bitters with the sweet."
Being a woman in the male-dominated blues music business has also presented its challenges.
"It's a little difficult sometimes," Taylor said. "It's not all bad, but it's a little harder for womens, because in the first place, the men musicians can ride all night and get there 10 minutes before show time. To keep from bein' late, they go up on stage and work in their blkue jeans and things, whereas womens got to go and put on lipstick and comb their hair and do this and that. A lot of times, mens don't need to have a dressin' room, but womens need a dressin' room, which I don't always have.
"I just learned over the years to remember that when I go in. I ain't lookin' for roses, aand they do not put no red carpet down for me. I just do what I gotta do and what I'm there to do and what I love doin' most of all and that's makin' people happy with my music all over the world."
Be they fast or slow, upbeat dance numbers or mournful hollers, blues is Taylor's favorite music, but she is a fan of all types of music.
"I even listen to country and western," she said, with a hearty laugh thaat hints at her on-stage vocal quality, which the Washington Post called a "rafter-rattling voice."
"You think I don't love Dolly Parton singing' 'workin' nine to five, tryin' to make a livin' or Johnny Paycheck, 'take this job and shove it?' I play that over and over. I just love music in general."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Taylor's final performance was 11 years after this interview at the Blues Music Awards on May 7, 2009. She suffered complications from surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding on May 19 and died on June 3. Alligator Records maintains a website dedicated to her life and music at kokotaylor.com.
"As of today, blues i really happening," she said. "It's very popular all over the world right now." I guess you know that because they're still sendin' for me in Europe, and that's a long ways from the U.S.A. And they is there by the thousands to listen to me and anybody who goes over there to sing."
It hasn't always been that way, however. Despite the popularity of blues, radio still doesn't play much, she said, and at times it has been tough to make a living in the field.
"There's been some ups and there's been some downs, but I learned over the years that nothing good comes easy," she said. "You have to take the bitters with the sweet."
Being a woman in the male-dominated blues music business has also presented its challenges.
"It's a little difficult sometimes," Taylor said. "It's not all bad, but it's a little harder for womens, because in the first place, the men musicians can ride all night and get there 10 minutes before show time. To keep from bein' late, they go up on stage and work in their blkue jeans and things, whereas womens got to go and put on lipstick and comb their hair and do this and that. A lot of times, mens don't need to have a dressin' room, but womens need a dressin' room, which I don't always have.
"I just learned over the years to remember that when I go in. I ain't lookin' for roses, aand they do not put no red carpet down for me. I just do what I gotta do and what I'm there to do and what I love doin' most of all and that's makin' people happy with my music all over the world."
Be they fast or slow, upbeat dance numbers or mournful hollers, blues is Taylor's favorite music, but she is a fan of all types of music.
"I even listen to country and western," she said, with a hearty laugh thaat hints at her on-stage vocal quality, which the Washington Post called a "rafter-rattling voice."
"You think I don't love Dolly Parton singing' 'workin' nine to five, tryin' to make a livin' or Johnny Paycheck, 'take this job and shove it?' I play that over and over. I just love music in general."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Taylor's final performance was 11 years after this interview at the Blues Music Awards on May 7, 2009. She suffered complications from surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding on May 19 and died on June 3. Alligator Records maintains a website dedicated to her life and music at kokotaylor.com.
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