Chicago, hands off Hound Dog Taylor!

Top of the Morning column published in The Natchez Democrat (Wednesday, May 3, 2026, page 4A) 

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Top of the Morning
 
Chicago, hands off Hound Dog Taylor! 
 
By Brandon McCranie

Attention citizens, government officials, and tourists alike: The City of Natchez has been robbed, and nobody’s even noticed.

All the way up in Chicago, they’re celebrating and honoring something they have no claim to. They stole a dog — a Hound Dog, to be more specific.

Now, I’m not talking about the kind of hound dog with long, floppy ears. No sir, this is a very special kind of hound dog. What makes him special? All sorts of things. But here’s the problem: Chicago is running around, acting all high and mighty like they have some kind of claim to this music legend. He’s even an inductee into the Blues Hall of Fame.

I guess I can’t blame them. But what really makes Hound Dog Taylor special to me — and I mean really, really special — is the fact that he was born right here in little old Natchez. That’s right, a Natchez Native Son.

Hound Dog Taylor was born here in 1915… or maybe 1917. It depends on who you ask. He was known for trying to throw folks off his trail. Imagine that. A hound dog trying to keep folks off HIS trail for a change. He even told interviewers he was born in Lounder, Mississippi. Y’all, there ain’t no such town, city, village, or borough in Mississippi.
 
There’s a whole lot of unknowns when it comes to Mr. Taylor, but here are a few facts, just so you understand a little bit about the man and the incredible life he lived. He earned the name Hound Dog because his friends said he was “always on the hunt!” On the hunt for what? Why, the ladies, of course! He was a notorious ladies' man.

In fact, that’s why he left us. It’s always a woman, ain’t it? The story goes that he was romantically involved with a white girl, the news of which was not well received by a group of fellas who scampered around in white sheets and pointy hats. One night, those fellas put on their silly-looking outfits and went to Hound Dog’s house. They even put a big wooden cross in his front yard. I don’t believe they were planning to have a Bible study, as they set that big cross on fire.
 
I guess Hound Dog didn’t feel much like company that night because he slipped out his back door, hid in a ditch all night, decided he was done with Mississippi for good, and joined the Great Migration north.
 
When he got to Chicago, he realized he’d left his piano all the way back down south. Instead of going back to get it, he got himself a cheap guitar and a blown-out Sears amplifier. He turned the volume ALL the way up and started banging on that thing with a tempo and rhythm as loud and as fast as the train that carried him up to his new home. The people there heard him and started tapping their feet and clapping their hands.

Before you knew it, just about everyone in Chicago was dancing to the music of Theodore Roosevelt Taylor…the Hound Dog. And that’s the truth.

Ain’t that something? Chicago may have made the legend, but Natchez made the man. I think Natchez, and Mississippi as a whole, owe the man a long-overdue, restorative, karmic debt.
Along with Dr. Roscoe Barnes III and Visit Natchez, I’m leading the effort to have a Mississippi Blues Trail marker erected here in Natchez in Hound Dog’s honor. It’s the very least we can do, the way I see it. He deserves to be recognized and remembered as another reason there’s no place like Natchez, and also as a reminder of our city’s unique and sometimes indefensible past.

I hope you enjoyed learning just a little bit about Hound Dog Taylor. There’s way too much to put in a newspaper article. So, I’m writing a book. Coming soon: Six Finger Blues: The Almost True Story of Hound Dog Taylor by Brandon McCranie.
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BRANDON MCCRANIE is a Natchez resident.