Yet Taylor's age was clearly an asset, because no green singer can belt with her richness of tone and force. And though Taylor is primarily regarded as a singer of the blues, a genre requiring the experience and seasoning that comes with age, Koko Taylor is as much of a soul record made for the dance floor as a blues one made for moaning in the moonlight. Even the record's arrangement of producer Willie Dixon's "Wang Dang Doodle", a song Taylor recorded for her second single in 1964, hops and weaves for the dance floor. Despite a few typical blues numbers like "Don't Mess With the Messer", the shuffling "Nitty Gritty", "Insane Asylum", and "Twenty-Nine Ways (To My Baby's Door)", Koko Taylor mostly shows what can be achieved when matching a commanding singer in the Muddy Waters school with arrangements that could have been bashed out by The Mar-Keys. The results are mature yet electrifying.
As of now, Koko Taylor is one of the few entries in Chess Records' Acoustic Sounds Series to move beyond the early sixties, and it's a good choice to give a taste of how relevant the label remained beyond its most celebrated era. The audio is three-dimensional, with some of the scratchier horn and guitar textures seeming much more like they're emanating from the room than the speakers. Clarity is perfect, tonal balance is too, and the vinyl is silent and flat. This is how you master and press a record, folks.
