Boston trio GA-20 have made a name for themselves as purveyors of prime blues-R&B-R&R rawness, with a studio debut and a live follow-up EP under their belts. Now here comes GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor: Try It…You Might Like It!, a tribute to one of the true kingpins of electrified slide guitar scorch and unbridled dive bar mayhem. For the uninitiated, this might read as smooth sailing executed through the reliable gesture of paying tribute, but please understand that doing right by the Hound Dog is much tougher than it might seem. That GA-20 pull it off is a kickass circumstance. The record is out August 20 on vinyl in a handful of variations, plus compact disc and digital through Colemine Records and Alligator Records.
The blues is often celebrated and sometimes denigrated for its stylistic directness and lack of frills, but in reality, it’s a far more complex and diverse form of musical expression than many acknowledge. On the wild and distorted end of spectrum sits the 1971 debut album by Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers, secure in its placement as one of the very greatest full-length electric blues records.
It is in fact my favorite blues LP that’s not a compilation of singles, and in the 50 years since its emergence as Alligator Records’ first release, I don’t think its level of quality has been surpassed. Now, some folks might be thinking that my identification of guitarist Taylor, second guitarist Brewer Phillips, and drummer Ted Harvey as the half-century reigning champs of booze joint blues sizzle doesn’t reflect well on the general health of the style, but I will add that a few LPs have gotten into the same ballpark since.
But let’s set those examples aside for another time, as the matter here is how GA-20, an act comprised of guitarist Matt Stubbs, guitarist-vocalist Pat Faherty, and drummer Tim Carman, have delivered a wholly worthy tip of the hat to such an iconic blues band. The reasons are numerous, with just for starters GA-20’s instrumental configuration of two guitars (no bass), drums and vocals mirroring, and very possibly deliberately adopting, the Houserockers’ same setup.
This is a pretty important factor in construction, as the Houserockers weren’t aptly described as a heavy unit but rather as moving with the freedom of a lightweight boxer fueled with hooch and spitting out amplifier grease that stings like a fresh sunburn. This is in contrast to far too many modern examples of electric blues worship, where, in striving for heaviness, the attempters end up clodhopping around leadenly like eight-year-olds trying on the work boots of their parents.
Hound Dog and the Houserockers weren’t a tight outfit, but instead, as exemplified by the drumming of Harvey, they roamed around freely, and yet were always wonderfully on time. Therefore, theirs is a sound impossible to mimic, but thankfully GA-20 have grasped that for a proper tribute, getting in the neighborhood was crucial. In short, that nasty slide sound has been retained, as has the rhythmic pulse of the additional guitar. Sealing the deal, Carman stays appropriately loose throughout.
It should be mentioned that prior to GA-20’s formation, Stubbs played in the band of Windy City mouth harp maestro Charlie Musselwhite for 13 years (and also backed John Hammond and James Cotton, amongst others), so it’s not like he’s a blues neophyte. He formed GA-20 with Faherty as the two bonded over a shared enthusiasm for the style (alongside West Side Chicago cornerstones Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Junior Wells, the bio drops the lesser known names Lazy Lester, J.B. Lenoir, and Earl Hooker) with the drummer’s role solidified in 2019 when Carman took up the sticks.
That nobody else has topped the first Houserockers album in my estimation means that Hound Dog and company didn’t do it either. And so, that GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor opens with “She’s Gone,” the first track from that Alligator debut, underscores the attentiveness that strengthens GA-20’s effort. To expand, the grinding mediation of “She’s Gone” is something of a brooding prelude to the Houserockers’ full takeoff, and so it is with this tribute.
Along the way, GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor pulls as many tracks from 1974’s Natural Boogie, the second of only two studio albums by Hound Dog and crew, as it does from their debut, and then adds “Let’s Get Funky” from the band’s first live record Beware of the Dog (issued in ’75 shortly after Taylor’s death) and “Phillips Goes Bananas” from the second performance set, Genuine Houserocking Music (which arrived in ’82).
Another aspect of the Houserockers sound that’s unduplicatable is Hound Dog’s voice, a stressed high-end bark and whine that solidified his connection to Elmore James at least as much as the sterling covers of “Dust My Broom” and “It Hurts Me Too.” That Faherty’s singing on GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor is less distinguished could be construed as a weakness, but on the other hand, he avoids straining for authenticity, with this lack of overwrought bluster emphasizing how GA-20’s good taste in records extends to their execution as a band.
For many rock heads starved for grit and passion in their music, Hound Dog and the Houserockers were a revelation, but they also hipped young ears to the existence of James in a manner not dissimilar to how the Brit blues rock boom provided exposure to Robert Johnson and Chess Records, and how Fat Possum’s hill blues discoveries turned a generation onto Mississippi Fred McDowell and Jessie Mae Hemphill.
GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor: Try It…You Might Like It! extends the same admirable tradition; it’s all right there in the title. That’s sweet. And that they made a record likely to please experienced and discerning blues heads is even sweeter.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
