Koko Taylor
b. Cora Walton, 28 September 1935, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Taylor is one of the few major figures whom post-war Chicago blues has produced. Her soulfully rasping voice has ensured her popularity in the Windy City, and latterly further afield, for 30 years, since she recorded her first single for the local USA label. Pacted by the leading black music independent label Chess, she scored their last blues hit in 1966 with the Willie Dixon song Wang Dang Doodle, whose cast of low-life characters suited her raucous delivery (guitar work supplied by Buddy Guy). In the '70s and '80s a series of well-produced and sometimes exciting albums with her band the Blues Machine, as well as such prestigious gigs as Carnegie Hall and the Montreux International Jazz Festival, have confirmed her position as the world's top-selling female blues artist. Though she admits that ‘It's not easy to be a woman out there’, she has succeeded on her own terms and without compromising the raunchy, bar-room quality of her music.