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Back in 1971, Bruce Iglauer, a 23-year-old blues fan, used his meager savings to record and produce his favorite band, Hound Dog Taylor & the HouseRockers. Following his heart, he quit his day job with Delmark Records and began promoting Hound Dog Taylor and his new record company full-time. Over 35 years later, that company, Alligator Records, is home to some of the worlds premier blues and roots rock talent and is regarded by fans and the media alike as the top contemporary blues record label in the world.
DEEP INTO BLUES
Iglauer, a native of Cincinnati, first fell in love with the blues in 1966. A live performance by the great Mississippi Fred McDowell struck him deep inside. It was as if he reached out and grabbed me by the collar, shook me and spoke directly to me, Iglauer recalls. After that show, Iglauer, a student at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, immersed himself in the blues. He hosted the blues show on his college radio station and began making regular pilgrimages to Chicago to see Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Carey Bell and many other stars in the ghetto blues clubs. When the colleges activities committee was in need of a band, Iglauer convinced them to book blues legend Howlin Wolf. Iglauer was disappointed with the promotional push given by the university. He knew he could do better, so he offered to guarantee the costs of bringing in Luther Allison out of his own pocket in exchange for full control over the promotion. Luther's two shows were completely sold out.
Bob Koester, founder of the prestigious blues and jazz label Delmark Records, was impressed with Iglauers promotion of Luther Allison, a Delmark artist. When Iglauer moved to Chicago for good at the beginning of 1970, Koester hired him as a $30-per-week shipping clerk. At night, Iglauer hung out at the South and West Side clubs, soaking up live blues almost every night of the week. He often accompanied Koester to the studio, where he watched blues greats such as Junior Wells, Roosevelt Sykes and Robert Lockwood, Jr. turn their magical sounds into classic blues albums.
Iglauer wanted a hand in producing classic blues albums as well. He had been spending his Sundays hanging out at Florences Lounge on Chicagos South Side, where Hound Dog Taylor & the HouseRockers would jam all day long. Iglauer loved the bands raw, high-energy bottleneck blues sound, and was convinced that aggressive marketingmuch like his Luther Allison concertcould bring Hound Dogs music to a whole new audience of younger record buyers like himself. He badgered Koester constantly, trying to convince him to record his beloved band. When Koester declined, Iglauer resolved to record the band himself, and Alligator Records (named after the way Iglauer clicks out rhythm patterns with his teeth when he likes a song) was born.
ALLIGATOR LEARNS TO CRAWL
Alligator Records was created to make one record, Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers. Recorded live in the studio in just two nights during the spring of 1971, the album captured the band at the height of its powers. Hound Dog and his band simply plugged in and played the same beat-up guitars through the same raggedy amps they used at Florences. At a cost of $900, Iglauer produced a direct-to-two-track master tapeno overdubswhich he mixed as they went along. With the remainder of his money, he pressed 1000 copies of the album.
Iglauer loaded his brand new albums into the back of his Chevy and hit the road, visiting progressive rock and college radio stations and record distributors between Chicago and New York. FM rock radio was pretty loose back then, says Iglauer. DJs were programming their own shows. As each DJ went on his or her shift, I would hand them a copy of the album and say something like, This is a record I produced by my favorite band. Would you play it? And instead of having to get the word from the music director or wait for national chart positions, the DJ usually said, Far out. Wow. Sure, man! Then Id go to a distributor and say, Ive got two or three radio stations in your area playing this album. Want to sell it to the stores for me? Which, of course, they did.
As response to the album grew, so did the amount of time Iglauer spent conducting Alligator business during working hours at Delmark. He became an all-in-one label, booking agent, business manager, roadie, promotion man, and publicist for Hound Dog. Nine months after the release of the album, the time had come to leave Delmark and to run Alligator Records full-time.
Full-time did not mean financial success during the early 1970s. The company was a one-man operation run out of Iglauers tiny apartment, filled with stacks of record cartons and a shipping table next to the bed. Each record had to finance the next one, which meant Alligator released about one record a year. Luckily, those records continued to impress fans and critics and sell enough to keep the label going. Albums by Big Walter Horton, Son Seals and Fenton Robinson all contributed to getting the fledgling company off the ground.
During this time, the face of radio changed considerably. Free Form Progressive Rock was replaced by Album Oriented Rock stations where owners found there was big money to be made by trimming playlists to include only those artists with mainstream name recognition. By the end of 1973, the new AOR format was firmly entrenched, and blues was put on the back burner. Fortunately, many non-commercial stations (and a handful of commercial stations) continued to mix blues into their regular formats or featured dedicated blues programs. And, even without regular radio play, Alligator continued to be a favorite of print media everywhere. The small stable of Alligator artists toured heavily, enjoying more and more visibility outside of the Chicago area. Gradually, their schedules grew to between 150 and 200 shows a year, making live performance the primary means of exposure for Alligator artists and their music.
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