The Bluesmen: Hound Dog Taylor
On April 12, 1915, Theodore Roosevelt Taylor entered this world and took his name after the US president. He was born with a deformity and had six fingers on each hand. His sixth finger was no more than a stump. Like anyone growing up in the Mississippi Delta, his life was not one you could call easy. It wasn’t for anyone in those days with World War I still in full swing. When Theodore was nine years old, his father packed up his belongings into a brown paper back and told the boy to get out, or so the story goes. Around this time, he went and lived with his older sister.
Early Life
Taylor didn’t start on the guitar. It was the piano he learned to play as a boy. In his teen years, he picked up the guitar but didn’t take the instrument seriously until he was in his early 20s. He began to play both his guitar and the piano around the Delta, even appearing a few times with Sonny Boy Williamson on a local radio show.
In 1942, he ended up being chased out of the Delta by a member of the clan for having an affair with a white woman. He found his way to Chicago, but he never looked back. He continued to play his guitar as a semi-professional, but he also worked many other jobs. In 1957 Taylor decided to dedicate himself to the blues. At this time, he picked up the bottleneck style due to being influenced by the playing of Elmore James.
