Bruce Iglauer

Bruce Iglauer (born July 10, 1947, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States) is the American founder and head of the independent blues record label Alligator Records in Chicago.

Iglauer was born in Ann Arbor and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Wyoming, Ohio. He became interested in the blues during the mid-1960s while attending Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and began hosting a college radio show, then moving on to promoting concerts at Lawrence by Howlin' Wolf and Luther Allison. He came to the attention of Bob Koester, and joined the staff of Delmark Records in Chicago as a shipping clerk in 1970. He was a co-founder of Living Blues magazine in 1970. When Iglauer's advice to sign Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers was declined by Delmark, he recorded the group himself, and in so doing created Alligator Records in 1971.

Nine months after the release of the first Alligator Records album, he left Delmark and continued at Alligator, making acclaimed recordings from Big Walter Horton, Son Seals, Fenton Robinson, Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Lonnie Brooks and many others. A breakthrough came in 1975 with Koko Taylor's "I Got What It Takes", which earned Alligator its first Grammy Award nomination. In 1978, he signed Albert Collins, and in 1982 Clifton Chenier's "I'm Here!" won a Grammy. Recordings on Alligator by Hound Dog Taylor, Fenton Robinson, Albert Collins, Johnny Winter, Roy Buchanan, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, James Cotton, Charlie Musselwhite, Luther Allison, Shemekia Copeland, Roomful of Blues, Marcia Ball, Buckwheat Zydeco and others have been Grammy nominated. Showdown! by Albert Collins, Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland won a Grammy for Best Blues Recording of 1985 and Buckwheat Zydeco's Lay Your Burden Down won a Grammy for Best Blues Cajun or Zydeco Recording of 2009.