Published on Apr 7, 1998
It’s been a while since we last pulled Hound Dog Taylor out of
the Pierce Archives (and now, a moment of silence for Rob
Pilatus… hey, wait a minute…), so it’s only natural that we
jump from his debut album with his band The Houserockers to their
second album, 1974’s
Natural Boogie.
Taylor, second guitarist Brewer Phillips and drummer Ted Harvey
had burst to national prominence in 1971 when their first album
came out. Their no-holds-barred style of raucous party blues
captured the ears of an unsuspecting public, and they quickly
earned fame – Taylor’s coming near the end of his life. (A live
album,
Beware Of The Dog, came out after Taylor’s death in
1975.)
Natural Boogie is more of the exact same style of blues that
was featured on
Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers, but there’s a big
difference in the two albums – the first one was more fun to listen
to.
Oh, don’t get me wrong – there’s still a lot of material on this
album that will have you shaking your appendages with joy.
“Buster’s Boogie” is a kicking instrumental that is long on fun
while seemingly short on time, while the album’s opener “Take Five”
is almost like picking up where the last album left off.
But a touch of stagnation is settling in on
Natural Boogie that wasn’t there on the first disc. Taylor
himself would be the first to admit that he wasn’t a great guitar
player, but you can tell that many guitar riffs are recycled
repeatedly on this album. What the hell was Taylor thinking when he
based a whole portion of “One More Time” on the
“shave-and-a-haircut” melody? Give me a break. (In defense of
Taylor, the writing credit on this one is for Phillips, so maybe
he’s to blame for this one.) And I don’t care if that is Taylor’s
name as the author of “Roll Your Moneymaker,” this song owes more
than a passing debt to Elmore James’s “Shake Your Moneymaker”.
If there’s anything really worth cheering about on
Natural Boogie, it’s the development of Phillips and Harvey
as true members of the band, not just additional musicians. Their
sound on this album is just as critical as Taylor’s slide work and
vocals. (And frankly, unless you read the liner notes, you’d think
that Phllips was playing the bass, not just another guitar.)
Oh, it’s not that
Natural Boogie is a bad album – in fact, it has many monents
which make it quite good. But one would have expected a little more
progress from Taylor in the three-year span between his debut
release and this one. Still, I guess that if you picked this one up
before any of the others, you’d probably fall head over heels over
this album. (Ironically, the best cut from this sessions, “Don’t
Blame Me,” didn’t see the light of day until the first
Genuine Houserockin’ Music compilation – I don’t know why
this song didn’t make it onto
Natural Boogie.)
Natural Boogie is still worth checking out, even if it’s
only to discover the wonder of Hound Dog Taylor & The
Houserockers – but it also shows the formula was starting to wear a
little thin.