Taylor, Koko

Taylor, Koko Cora Walton, 28 September 1935; Memphis, TN Singer with a powerful, belting contralto voice and one of the leading blues artists in Chicago since the 1960s. “Koko” is a shortened version of “Little Cocoa,” a family nickname due to her early fondness for chocolate. She was born to sharecropper parents; her mother died when Taylor was four years old, her father when she was around eleven. During her early years, she sang in church and with her musically inclined siblings at home. In…