science

Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Koko Taylor rather than just read about it. In short: Koko Taylor (born Cora Ann Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul blues. Sometimes called "The Queen of the Blues", she was known for her rough, powerful vocals.

Key takeaways

Koko Taylor belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Koko Taylor to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Koko Taylor from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Koko Taylor (born Cora Ann Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul blues. Sometimes called "The Queen of the Blues", she was known for her rough, powerful vocals. Over the course of her career, she was nominated for 11 Grammy Awards, winning 1985's Best Traditional Blues Album for her appearance on Blues Explosion.

Life and career Born on a farm near Memphis, Tennessee, Taylor was the daughter of a sharecropper. She left Tennessee for Chicago in 1952 with her husband, Robert "Pops" Taylor, a truck driver. In the late 1950s, she began singing in blues clubs in Chicago. She was spotted by Willie Dixon in 1962, and this led to more opportunities for performing and her first recordings. In 1963 she had a single on USA Records, and in 1964 a cut on a Chicago blues collection on Spivey Records, called Chicago Blues. In 1964 Dixon brought Taylor to Checker Records, a subsidiary label of Chess Records, for which she recorded "Wang Dang Doodle", a song written by Dixon and recorded by Howlin' Wolf five years earlier. The record became a hit, reaching number four on the R&B chart and number 58 on the pop chart in 1966, and selling a million copies. She recorded several versions of the song over the years, including a live rendition at the 1967 American Folk Blues Festival, with the harmonica player Little Walter and the guitarist Hound Dog Taylor. Her subsequent recordings, both original songs and covers, did not achieve as much success on the charts.

Taylor became better known by touring in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and she became accessible to a wider record-buying public when she signed a recording contract with Alligator Records in 1975. She recorded nine albums for Alligator, eight of which were nominated for Grammy awards, and came to dominate ranks of female blues singers, winning twenty-nine W. C. Handy/Blues Music Awards. She survived a near-fatal car crash in 1989. In the 1990s, she appeared in the films Blues Brothers 2000 and Wild at Heart. She opened a blues club on Division Street in Chicago in 1994, which relocated to Wabash Avenue, in Chicago's South Loop, in 2000 (the club later closed). In 2003, she appeared as a guest with Taj Mahal in an episode of the television series Arthur. In 2009, she performed with Umphrey's McGee at the band's New Year's Eve concert at the Auditorium Theater, in Chicago. Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, Janis Joplin, Shannon Curfman, and Susan Tedeschi cite Taylor as an influence on their styles. In her later years, Taylor performed over 70 concerts a year and resided just south of Chicago, in Country Club Hills, Illinois. Taylor's final performance was at the Blues Music Awards, on May 7, 2009. She suffered complications from surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding on May 19 and died on June 3. Taylor was survived by her daughter, two grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Legacy In 2023, Taylor's 1960s performance of "Wang Dang Doodle" was added to the United States National Recording Registry. A lengthy NPR profile, "The Sounds Of America: 'Wang Dang Doodle'", including singer Bonnie Raitt, actor Dan Aykroyd, and artist Shemekia Copeland aired in May 2023. A Blues Music Award is given in the 'Koko Taylor Award (Traditional Blues Female)' category.

Awards Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album, 1985 Howlin' Wolf Award, 1996 Blues Hall of Fame, inducted 1997 Blues Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, 1999 NEA National Heritage Fellowship, 2004 Blues Music Award (formerly the W. C. Handy Award), 32 nominations with 29 wins in the following categories: Entertainer of the Year (1985) Female Artist (1981, 1995) Song of the Year (2008) Traditional Blues Album (2008) Traditional Blues Female Artist (1992, 1993, 1999–2005, 2008, 2009) Vocalist of the Year (1985) 7th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Blues Album, 2008

Discography "Love You Like a Woman", November 30, 1968 (Charly Records) Koko Taylor, 1969 (MCA/Chess Records) Basic Soul, 1972 (Chess) South Side Lady, 1973 (Black & Blue Records) I Got What It Takes, 1975 (Alligator Records) Southside Baby, 1975 (Black & Blue) The Earthshaker, 1978 (Alligator) From the Heart of a Woman, 1981 (Alligator) Queen of the Blues, 1985 (Alligator) Live from Chicago: An Audience with the Queen, 1987 (Alligator) Jump for Joy, 1990 (Alligator) Wang Dang Doodle, 1991 (Huub Records) Force of Nature, 1993 (Alligator) Royal Blue, 2000 (Alligator) Old School, 2007 (Alligator)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Koko Taylor

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Koko Taylor claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Koko Taylor before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Koko Taylor ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Koko Taylor

In research: Koko Taylor appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Koko Taylor in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Koko Taylor is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1928 births, 2009 deaths, 20th-century African-American women singers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Koko Taylor outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Koko Taylor in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Koko Taylor means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Koko Taylor out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Koko Taylor in simple terms?

Why does Koko Taylor matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Koko Taylor?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Koko Taylor.