Tuesday 1 October 2024

Albert Collins born 1 October 1932

Albert Gene Collins (October 1, 1932 – November 24, 1993) was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. He was noted for his powerful playing and his use of altered tunings and a capo. His long association with the Fender Telecaster led to the title "The Master of the Telecaster". 

Born in Leona, Texas, Collins was a distant relative of Lightnin’ Hopkins and grew up learning about music and playing guitar. His family moved to Houston, Texas when he was seven. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, he absorbed the blues sounds and styles from Texas, Mississippi and Chicago. His style would soon envelop these sounds. He formed his first band in 1952 and two years later was the headliner at several blues clubs in Houston. By the late 1950s Collins began using Fender Telecasters. 

He later chose a “maple-cap” 1966 Custom Fender Telecaster with a Gibson PAF humbucker in the neck position and a 100 watt RMS silverfaced 1970s Fender Quad Reverb combo as his main equipment, and developed a unique sound featuring minor tunings, sustained notes and an “attack” fingerstyle. He also frequently used a capo on his guitar, particularly on the 5th, 7th, and 9th frets. He primarily favored an “open F-minor” tuning (low to high: F-C-F-Ab-C-F). 

In 1958 he jumped on the instrumental wave, brought on by Booker T., Duane Eddy, and Link Wray, and released “The Freeze”/“Collins Shuffle” on the Kangaroo label. “Sold about 150,000 copies in three weeks’ time,” he recalled to Dan Forte in Guitar Player. “That’s what started getting my name halfway out there. But when my name really started to spread was when I cut ‘Frosty.’ I didn’t follow it up until then because I had a good day job. I was playing at night and driving a truck in the daytime. And I mixed paint for automobiles for six years.” 

                                   

From 1960 he released many instrumentals such as the million selling “Frosty”. In the spring of 1965 he moved to Kansas City, Missouri and made a name for himself. Many of Kansas City’s recording studios had closed by the mid 1960s. Unable to record, Collins moved to California in 1967. He settled in San Francisco and played many of the venues popular with the counter-culture. In early 1969 after playing a concert with Canned Heat, members of this band introduced him to Liberty Records. In appreciation, part of the title of Collins’ first record for United Artists – “Love Can Be Found Anywhere (Even In A Guitar)/Trash Talkin'” – was taken from the lyrics of “Refried Hockey Boogie”. Collins signed and released his first album on Imperial Records, a sister label, in 1968. 

Collins remained in California for another five years, and was popular on double-billed shows at The Fillmore and the Winterland. Collins moved back to Texas in 1973 and formed a new band. He was signed to Alligator Records in 1978 and recorded and released Ice Pickin’. He would record seven more albums with the label, before being signed to Point Blank Records in 1990.  Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Collins toured the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. He was becoming a popular blues musician and was an influence for Coco Montoya, Robert Cray, Gary Moore, Debbie Davies, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jonny Lang, Susan Tedeschi, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, John Mayer and Frank Zappa. 

In 1983, when he won the W. C. Handy Award for his album Don’t Lose Your Cool, which won the award for best blues album of the year. In 1985, he shared a Grammy for the album Showdown!, which he recorded with Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland. The following year his solo release Cold Snap was also nominated for a Grammy. In 1987, John Zorn enlisted him to play lead guitar in a suite he had composed especially for him, entitled “Two-Lane Highway,” on Zorn’s album Spillane. 

Alongside George Thorogood and the Destroyers and Bo Diddley, Collins performed at Live Aid in 1985, playing “Who Do You Love?”, “The Sky Is Crying” and “Madison Blues”, at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. He was the only black blues artist to appear. Collins was invited to play at the ‘Legends Of Guitar Festival’ concerts in Seville, Spain at the Expo in 1992, where amongst others, he played “Iceman”, the title track from his final studio album. He made his last visit to London, England in March 1993. 

After falling ill at a show in Switzerland in late July 1993, he was diagnosed in mid August with lung cancer which had metastasized to his liver, with an expected survival time of four months. Parts of his last album, Live ’92/’93, were recorded at shows that September; he died shortly afterwards, in November at the age of 61. He was survived by his wife, Gwendolyn and father, Andy Thomas. He is interred at the Davis Memorial Park, Las Vegas, Nevada. 

(Edited from The Vogue & Wikipedia)

 

1 comment:

boppinbob said...

For “ALBERT COLLINS - BLUES GUITAR MASTER” go here:

https://www.imagenetz.de/hreKd

01. Freeze (1958)
02. Collins' shuffle
03. Albert's alley (1962)
04. Defrost
05. Homesick
06. Sippin' soda
07. Frosty (1963)
08. Tremble
09. Thaw out
10. Backstroke
11. Sno Cone I & II (1965)
12. Dyin' flu
13. Hot n' cold
14. Don't lose your cool
15. Frost bite
16. Cool aide
17. Shiver and shake
18. Icy blue
19. I don't know
20. Taking my time (1968)
21. Cooking Catfish
22. Soulroad
23. Do the Sissy
24. Collins mix
25. Let's get it together I & II
26. Got a good thing going on
27. Leftovers
28. Doin' my thing
29. Ain't got time
30. Turnin' on
31. Whatcha say
32. Puchin'
33. Stump poker
34. Harris County lineup (1969)
35. Conversation with Collins
36. Jawing
37. Grapeland gossip
38. Chaterbox
39. Trash talkin'
40. Baby what you want me to do?
41. Lip service
42. Talking Slim blues
43. Back yard back talk
44. Tongue lashing
45. And then it started raining
46. Soul food (1970)
47. Jam it up
48. Do what you want to do
49. Black bottom bayou
50. Junkey monkey
51. 69 Underpass Roadside Inn
52. I need you so
53. Bitsy
54. Cool and collards
55. Blend down and jam
56. Sweet'n'sour
57. Swamp sauce

A big thankyou goes to Gérard Herzhaft @ Blue Eye for the loan of this this excellent compilation.

For “Three Classic Albums” currently found on the streamers, go here:.

https://www.imagenetz.de/eGEbX

Albert Collins And The Ice Breakers – Don't Lose Your Cool (1983 Sonet)
1. Get To Gettin' 3:12
2. My Mind Is Trying To Leave Me 7:42
3. Broke 4:12
4. Don't Lose Your Cool 4:39
5. When A Guitar Plays The Blues 5:12
6. ...But I Was Cool! 3:09
7. Melt Down 4:03
8. Ego Trip 4:32
9. Quicksand 3:28

The Iceman's most "Texas" album, with tributes to his idols, Percy Mayfield, Big Walter Price and Guitar Slim. "Kinetic...his guitar cuts like a laser gun would carve ice cream"--GUITAR WORLD

Albert Collins – Cold Snap (1986 Aligator)
1 Cash Talkin' (The Workingman's Blues) 4:30
2 Bending Like A Willow Tree 4:23
3 A Good Fool Is Hard To Find 4:15
4 Lights Are On But Nobody's Home 6:59
5 I Ain't Drunk 4:06
6 Hooked On You 4:23
7 Too Many Dirty Dishes 6:52
8 Snatchin' It Back 3:33
9 Fake I.D. 3:46

Master of the Telecaster's last Alligator recording, and his favorite. Jimmy McGriff on organ, Mel Brown on guitar, the Uptown Horns. Grammy nominee. "Razor sharp attack...funky, slow-burning intensity"--WASHINGTON POST

Albert Collins – Deluxe Edition (1997 Alligator) (@192)
1 I Ain't Drunk 4:06
2 If You Love Me Like You Say 4:06
3 Blue Monday Hangover 5:34
4 Melt Down 4:04
5 Master Charge 5:08
6 Too Tired 2:59
7 If Trouble Was Money 8:00
8 T-Bone Shuffle 4:55
9 Get To Gettin' 3:03
10 ...But I Was Cool! 3:11
11 Cold Cuts 6:00
12 When The Welfare Turns Its Back On You 5:25
13 A Good Fool Is Hard To Find 4:18

Over 60 minutes from the Master of the Telecaster's Alligator years, the most prolific and exciting of his career. Includes "I Ain't Drunk," "Master Charge" and "T-Bone Shuffle." --BANDCAMP