• Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor sometimes spelled ‘KoKo Taylor’ (born Cora Walton, 28 September 1928, in Shelby County, Tennessee – June 3, 2009) was an American blues musician, popularly known as the “Queen of the Blues.” She is known primarily for her rough and powerful vocals and traditional blues stylings. In a May 2003 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, she was quoted as saying, "My life is like a train ride in fields of blue."

Career

Born in Shelby County, Tennessee, Taylor left Memphis for Chicago, Illinois in 1954 with her husband, truck driver Robert "Pops" Taylor. In the late 1950s she began singing in Chicago blues clubs. She was spotted by Willie Dixon in 1962, and this led to wider performances and her first recording contract. In 1965, Taylor was signed by Chess Records, for which her single "Wang Dang Doodle" (written by Dixon, and a hit for Howlin' Wolf five years earlier) became a major hit, reaching number four on the R&B charts in 1966, and selling a million copies. Taylor has recorded many versions of this Dixon-penned song over the past few decades and has added more material, both original and covers, but has never repeated that initial chart success.

National touring in the late 1960s and early 1970s improved her fan base, and she became accessible to a wider record-buying public when she signed with Alligator Records in 1975. She has since recorded over a dozen albums for that label, many nominated for Grammy Awards, and come to dominate the female blues singer ranks, winning twenty five W. C. Handy Awards (more than any other artist). After her recovery from a near-fatal car crash in 1989, the 1990s found Taylor in films such as Blues Brothers 2000, and she opened a blues club on Division St. in Chicago in 1994, but it closed in 1999.

Taylor has influenced musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, Janis Joplin, Shannon Curfman, and Susan Tedeschi. She currently performs over 70 concerts a year and resides just south of Chicago in Country Club Hills, Illinois.

In 2008, the Internal Revenue Service said that Taylor had to pay $400,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest. Her tax problems concerned 1998, 2000 and 2001; for those years combined, her adjusted gross income was $949,000.

Awards

• Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album - 1985
• Howlin' Wolf Award - 1996
• Blues Hall of Fame - Inducted 1997
• Blues Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award - 1999
• NEA National Heritage Fellowship - 2004
• Blues Music Award (formerly the W. C. Handy Award) - 24 times, including the following categories:
  • Contemporary Blues Female Artist
  • Entertainer of the Year
  • Female Artist
  • Traditional Blues Female Artist
  • Vocalist of the Year
• At age 76 in 2004, she appeared as a special guest with Taj Mahal on an episode of Arthur.
• At age 80 in 2008, she appeared as a special guest with Umphrey's McGee at their New Year's Eve performance at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, IL.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1997

http://www.myspace.com/kokotaylor