Searching for Hound Dog Taylor: a Chicago Blues Escapade

I love this photo of Hound Dog Taylor (in his wig) and Muddy Waters. It reminds me of one of my greatest misadventures–16 years old, I’d had my license for only a few months. I commandeered my dad’s cop-bait red 240Z and drove from Indy to Chicago, intent on hearing Hound Dog Taylor and the House Rockers at the South Side club I’d heard they played at every weekend. I didn’t know the name of the place, but I was sure I could find it. How big could Chicago be? How many blues clubs were there? And surely everybody knew Hound Dog. (They didn’t.)

It was my first time driving a stick (aside from a tractor) First time on a toll road. First time in Chicago. First time trying to get into a bar. (I didn’t know that a blues “club” was likely to *be* a bar.) First time trying to get a motel room (I couldn’t). 

I exited I-90 in Downton. Now, I had to find the “South Side.” A map would have helped. Where did it begin? South of what? The lake? Not really. That’s Gary. Even more confusing, I found out the South Side wasn’t South Chicago. “You gotta go that way,” a South Chicago gas station attendant told me, pointing northwest! “You want 43rd Street. But you’d better watch where you park that car, now.”

After an hour or so walking into various bars and clubs, someone told me they thought Taylor played at Florence’s Lounge on Shields Avenue. 

I finally found the place around 10 PM. (I’d arrived in Chicago at 6.) The place was rocking and it wasn’t the kind of lounge that checked ID. 

Cool. 

It also wasn’t the kind of lounge that catered to too many white 16-year-old punks.

Maybe not so cool. But it turned out to be cool!

I walked up to the bar and asked the bartender, “What time does Hound Dog come on?” 

The man looked at me like I was a crazy person, confirming every suspicion he might have had about white 16-year-old punks from Indiana. 

“Son, the Dog’s been dead for a year now. But you might dig Little Willie. Now, what can I get you?” 

“A Miller High Life,” I said confidently. “The Champagne of Beers!” 

“A what?” 

“Uh, how about a Coke?” 

“Want anything in that?” 

“No, just straight.” 

He shook his head and laughed.

But he was right, I did like Little Willie Anderson, who, someone in the club told me, “Plays that fucking Little Walter better than fucking Little Walter did.” 

Being obsessed with guitars and not blues harps, I didn’t know who “fucking Little Walter” was then, but when I got back to Indy at about 5 am, I made a point of finding out…

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