Every respectable Blues fan on the planet has come across, sooner or later, to the talent of one of the greatest Blues Queens of the last 50-plus years, the American singer and songwriter Koko Taylor.
Taylor's start in music wasn't one of the easiest, with losing her mother at a very young age and having to work her way up in life through hard graft, like by looking after children of families working in the same grasshoppers farm, where Koko was also living in, back then.
But the power of music was running strong always and even in hard circumstances, within Koko's family; from when she was a very young child, singing the Blues and the Gospel together with her five siblings and accompanying themselves with home-made instruments right to the time when she then met, many years after, her husband-to-be Robert "Pops" Taylor and moved to Chicago in 1952.
It was thanks to the strong encouragement of her husband Robert that the shy Koko was convinced to start a career in music, which proved to be a hugely successful one, with the American artist winning a Grammy Award in 1985 and collecting nine more Grammy nominations along the way, together with several more Blues Awards won throughout her incredible career.
Since Taylor's passing, in 2009, the record label Alligator Records, which has been Taylor's label from 1975 right to the time that the artist sadly died, has always been proud to state the importance of their working legacy with a giant of Blues like Koko Taylor, in a label-artist relationship that gradually assurged, throughout the time Taylor and Alligator Records worked together, to a loyal and close friendship too, between AR's Management and Taylor.
After more than 16 years since Koko Taylor's passing, Alligator Records has decided to release a sort of Best Of of Taylor's incredible career, through a record called Crown Jewels that incorporates 12 of some of the most remarkable tunes ever recorded by Koko Taylor, a heartfelt tribute from the American record label to such a talented singer/songwriter that made such an impact in the history and development of Blues from the mid-70's onwards.
Crown Jewels is an authentic sensory journey into Blues, where Koko Taylor expresses all her powerful singing strength through a string of famous hits of fellow artists covered brilliantly by the American Powerhouse singer, plus a few gems off Taylor's own catalogue, where Koko Taylor displays her enormous talent not only as a singer but also as a songwriter.
The choice of songs included into Crown Jewels from Alligator Records was excellently planned; from a stratospheric version of Albert King's Born Under A Bad Sign, where Taylor and Buddy Guy's duet is a moment of true Blues Royalty, to Floyd Dixon's Hey Bartender, wonderfully delivered with another very Special Guest on piano, Mr. Pinetop Perkins, the whole record showcases a collection of musical gems aptly chosen to justify in full the album's title.
Taylor might have not written many songs on her own, throughout her outstanding career, but those few dozens she wrote, they were absolute killer Blues tunes. Try to listen to songs like Come To Mama, Voodoo Woman or Ernestine, among others included in the album, just to have a feeling of how cleverly Taylor was in tailoring perfect songs for her impeccable register, where the artist's vocal strength and swagger could be admired and appreciated in their full glory.
Crown Jewels is one of those rare "Greatest Hits" that truly pays homage and respect to an enormously talented Blues Queen without sounding obvious or making it feeling to be built out of hope for merely commercial gain. It's simply a true gift of musical love from Koko Taylor, via Alligator Records, to the vast, global Blues community and to those that simply love music at the highest level of quality. Quality written with a capital Q.
Crown Jewels is out now and it is available to be purchased at Alligator Records
