Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Blues Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 20-MAR-1989

Track Listing

1. Let the Good Times Roll
2. Spoonful
3. Walking the Back Streets
4. Cut You Loose
5. Hey Bartender
6. I'm a Woman
7. You Can Have My Husband
8. Please Don't Dog Me
9. Wang Dang Doodle

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119565 in Music
• Brand: TAYLOR,KOKO
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.com
Koko Taylor's second Alligator album from 1978 features eight blues standards and one self-composed number. As the title implies, the tempo is up. Subtle nuances give way to raw power. There's a remake of Taylor's only major R&B hit, "Wang Dang Doodle," amid like-minded floorshakers ("Let the Good Times Roll," "Spoonful," "Hey Bartender," and "You Can Have My Husband,") The band is very much in tune with the stated goals, and the solos are short and to-the-point. It has to be said that this music works better in concert than on record, but Taylor's protean energy goes a long way toward compensating for the inherent sterility of records. --Colin Escott

Customer Reviews

Queen of the blues clubs!
Koko Taylor's "Earthshaker" is an essential blues album!She puts all of your nasal vocal in the musics here.Great jobs,specially with this band, full of bluesmasters! If you don't know who's Koko Taylor,this work will shows you why she's called the "Blues Diva"! Excellent job!

...Like I was sayin'...before I was interrupted...
..."A sho'nuff earthshaking force of nature..Koko stands for blues and if you haven't heard her, you are missing the best of the best...she can rock the house with nothing but a mike and that voice..don't miss a thing on this CD, this is one of her best--"I'm A Woman", "Hey Bartender", the Willie Dixon Classics "Spoonful" and "Wang Dang Doodle"(Redux). Put her on and let the good times roll!"--(Good thing I print all my reviews, huh?-Bka, Kowtown.)

The Earthshaker Is In The House
In the modern era of blues, mainly electric blues, say from the post-World War II period women blues singers, especially black women blues singers, are probably underrepresented. One thinks of "Big Mama" Thornton, Ruth Brown, Etta James, and the artist under review, Koko Taylor. There are other lesser lights but not nearly the numbers that I can, and have, recounted in this space from the 1920's and 1930's. Nevertheless for sheer energy, volume and flat out "good time" dancing blues Ms. Taylor will do quite well, against male or female. The title of this CD, "The Earthshaker" is not mistaken or out of place.

That said, I remember in one of the segments of Martin Scorsese six-part PBS tribute to the blues a few years back that when Ms. Taylor was interviewed concerning the influence that Chicago's Chess Records and its management, the Chess brothers (the guys that discovered her), had on the blues scene she was less that complimentary with the "shake" that that pair had given her. The whole question of the exploitation of black blues talent (and not only of that musical genre) deserves separate coverage and is beyond what I want to look at in this CD. However, I would point out, there is probably more truth that meets the eye concerning the Koko's gripes about proper promotion, accreditation and payment (in short, the correct distribution of the dough, okay) and that Koko was not just being abstruse in the matter. That may also explain, a little at least, the dearth of women blues singers that come readily to mind.

But enough of that, for now. Here Koko belts out her standards, accompanied by a fine back up band made up of well-known, and in the case of "Pinetop" Perkins on keyboards legendary, musicians including Johnny Moore and Sammy Lawhorn on the guitars. Nice right, for those who know those names? Hits here include the Willie Dixon classic "Spoonful" that Howlin' Wolf ripped up. Well, Koko does the same here. My favorite on this CD is the slow mournful blues "Walking the Back Streets" (needless to say crying in those back streets about a two-timing man). But so much for my favorite because the reason you get this CD is Koko's signature Willie Dixon classic "Wang Dang Doodle". Howlin' Wolf covered that tune as well. Koko wins that duel though. Listen up.