Koko Taylor, Queen of the Blues: 1928-2009

By Karl Klockars in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 4, 2009 6:00PM

Cora "Koko Taylor" Walton was hailed by many as the "Queen of the Blues," helped prove that the blues wasn't just a man's game, and sang her ass off for decades. She won just about every musical award known to the industry, she was a ball of fire and could "make love to a alligator crocodile." And sadly, she passed away here in Chicago yesterday due to complications from gastrointestinal surgery.

Born in Tennessee on a sharecropper's farm, she came to town in 1952 to eke out a living cleaning houses. In 1962 she scored a record deal with Chess records, and later moved to Alligator records in 1975. Her final performance was just last month in Memphis at the Blues Music Awards.

Rather than get too far into reviewing her entire career, we'd rather let Taylor's music speak for both her and us. Youtube is rich with Koko's music, but we've picked out a couple different clips. After the jump is a tribute put together featuring "I'm A Woman."

And here's the song that defined her, this version filmed just a couple years after its release in 1965: Koko Taylor and Little Walter singing "Wang Dang Doodle."