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Cora Walton was a chocolate fancier, so she got the nickname Koko. When she was 24, she left the Mississippi Delta for Chicago. There, living with her family and her husband “Pops” Taylor, Koko entertained the countless thousands of Southern exiles with down-home music. Songwriter Willie Dixon scouted Taylor for Chess Records, where, in that tumultuous year 1965, Koko Taylor recorded “Wang Dang Doodle,” a tune she was singing until May 2009, her last concert appearance. Both Howlin’ Wolf (who’d recorded the song in ’62) and Dixon alike weren’t crazy about “Wang Dang Doodle.” Wolf thought its argot-laden lyrics were way too countrified. (“Like something from a levee camp.”) Maybe it needed a woman’s touch. Taylor’s shouted-out roster of sporting men and women gathered at the union hall for some semilegal fun has been swaying audiences for nigh unto 50 years. Koko Taylor’s memory is honored tonight at a Women of the Blues concert hosted by J.C. Smith featuring Sista Monica Parker (a Marine vet and a cancer survivor), San Francisco–based guitarist Pat Wilder and Sharon Lewis. - Richard von Busack sanjose.com
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