Iglauer’s Alligator Records still has bite

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Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records | Chris Monaghan photo

Alligator Records 40th Anniversary

Chicago Blues Festival Celebration, Sunday, June 12, Grant Park, Columbus and Balbo, Chicago

Q&A discussion with Bruce Iglauer and Richard Shurman, 11:30 a.m., Mississippi Juke Joint Stage

Shemekia Copeland, 6 p.m., and Lonnie Brooks with Michael “Iron Man” Burks, Rick Estrin and Eddy Clearwater, 7:30 p.m., Petrillo Music Shell

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Maps

Updated: August 8, 2011 12:20AM

Bruce Iglauer is anticipating the next house-rockin’ wave.

No, it’s not a violent, tidal wave-inducing cataclysm that the part-time Glencoe resident awaits. It’s the next chapter in the story of his much-beloved blues music.

Iglauer, president and founder of Alligator Records, home of “genuine house-rockin’ music,” is celebrating his label’s 40th anniversary this year, first with the recently released, two-disc set “Alligator Records 40th Anniversary” and, this weekend, with a special show on Sunday, closing night of the Chicago Blues Fest.

Though Alligator has kept alive one storied tradition while building its own with recordings by Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers, Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Luther Allison, Albert Collins and Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials, among others, the show-biz falls short of glamorous. “We’re turning a profit,” Iglauer allows. “This is fairly successful by modest standards. I started this company with $2,500. It’s never had a backer. I briefly had a line of credit at the bank; we don’t anymore. We don’t exist on bank loans. Alligator supports itself. And there are 16 people working here.”

Iglauer got his start straight out of college at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., moving to Chicago to go to work for Bob Koester of Delmark Records and Jazz Record Mart.

“If there was a ladder, I was hanging by my fingertips from the lowest rung of the Delmark/Jazz Record Mart ladder,” the self-effacing entrepreneur laughs.

Koester introduced his young charge to the South Side clubs where the music was played.

“It was like a magic door. ... These were neighborhood bars with neighborhood bands, except some of these neighborhood bands were world-class blues bands.”

Iglauer ultimately hooked up with Hound Dog Taylor and persuaded the bluesman to allow him to produce his first album. It was the beginning of a Chicago institution.

Working in the relaxed setting of a Devon Avenue three-flat, Iglauer and his staff chug along, pushing product from acts that now include Eric Lindell, J.J. Grey & Mofro, Rick Estrin and the Nightcats and Tommy Castro. Iglauer himself sorts through countless recorded submissions. The British blues-rock explosion that first brought blues to mainstream America has long since faded. So have subsequent “bumps of interest,” such as the scorched-earth fretwork of the late Texas tornado Stevie Ray Vaughan, whose career the Alligator impressario recalls as “the last time a really bluesy artist became a real pop artist without changing his music.”

Iglauer speaks fondly of his own Alligator artists, artists past and present, most notably the late Koko Taylor.

“These are not just business relationships,” he stresses. “These are people who have been guests in my home.”

Blues music, though, is going through a rough patch. With an aging audience, Iglauer allows, “this is not a great time for the blues.”

Still, he hold out hope for the future of the music, pointing to the White Stripes and Black Keys as two blues-influenced acts.

“The blues needs some young champions,” Iglauer stresses. “And what they they need to do is take the elements of traditional blues and make them accessible to contemporary audiences, black or white, I don’t care. The lyrics need to speak about today. The rhythms need to be danceable for today because it has always been dance music. It needs to recognize that it’s a part of the tradition but it doesn’t need to repeat the tradition.”

For Iglauer, it’s all more than a business; it’s a passion and a mission.

“I’m not just trying to entertain folks, though I like to be entertained. I’m hoping that I’m making records that reach into people’s souls.”

Music fans can see if the man and his artists are doing just that this Sunday in Grant Park.