Alligator Records is a Chicago-based independent blues label and is located at 1441 W. Devon Avenue.

Alligator was founded in 1971 by Bruce Iglauer, who used his personal savings to record a local blues musician named Hound Dog Taylor.  Iglauer once said, “I don’t think of us as a label, I think of us as a family.” The label has been in business for over 50 years.

Iglauer was inspired to record other local musicians after hearing them performing live in the blues clubs on Chicago’s West and South sides.

Alligator Records released records by artists such as: Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Son Seals, James Cotton, Luther Allison, Charlie Musselwhite, Elvin Bishop, Carey Bell, Big Walter Horton, Sam Lay, Marcia Ball, Lonnie Brooks, Johnny Winter, Eddie Clearwater, Otis Rush, Little Charlie and the Nightcats, Roomful of Blues, Albert Collins with Robert Cray, Roy Buchanan, Big Twist & the Mellow Fellows, Rufus Thomas, Lil Ed and the Blues Imperials, Billy Boy Arnold, Floyd Dixon, and Tommy Castro.

Other Alligator label artists of note:

Koko Taylor’s album “I Got What it Takes,” earned Alligator its first Grammy nomination in 1976. 

Curtis Salgado, harp player, opened and performed with Blues Brothers Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi at the Joliet prison in 2022. Also, he influenced Belushi to sing blues during the filming of Animal House.

Delbert McClinton, harp player, first recorded “B Movie Boxcar Blues” which was covered by the Blues Brothers. He worked in a bar band, the Straitjackets, who played backing Sonny Boy Williamson II, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Jimmy Reed. While on a UK tour with Bruce Channel in 1962, McClinton instructed John Lennon on the finer points of blues harmonica playing.

Alligator has released more than 350 albums by blues and roots musicians since its inception. 

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky added comments on Iglauer’s and Alligator’s part in the “American cultural legacy of Chicago blues music” to the Congressional Record. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared June 18, 2021, as Alligator Records Day in Chicago.