Koko Taylor sometimes
spelled KoKo Taylor (September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American
Chicago blues musician, popularly known as the "Queen of the Blues."
She was known primarily for her rough, powerful vocals and traditional
blues stylings.
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 recorded nine albums for Alligator, 8 of which were Grammy-nominated, and came 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 Wild at Heart, and she opened a blues club on Division Street in Chicago in 1994, which relocated to Wabash Ave in Chicago's South Loop in 2000. (The club is now closed.)
Taylor influenced musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, Janis Joplin, Shannon Curfman, and Susan Tedeschi. In the years prior to her death, she performed over 70 concerts a year and resided just south of Chicago in Country Club Hills, Illinois.
In 2008, the Internal Revenue Service said that Taylor owed $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.
Taylor died on June 3, 2009, after complications from surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding on May 19, 2009. Her final performance was at the Blues Music Awards, on May 7, 2009.
1968 - Love You Like a Woman
1969 - Koko Taylor (1965-69)
1972 - Basic Soul
1973 - South Side Lady
1975 - I Got What It Takes
1978 - Earthshaker
1981 - From The Heart Of A Woman
1985 - Queen of the Blues )
1987- The Queen (Chicago concert 1987)
1993 - Force Of Nature
2000 - Royal Blue
2002 - Deluxe Edition
2004 - Jump For Joy
2007 - Old School
2009 - What It Takes-The Chess Years (Expanded Edition)