Albert Collins

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Albert Collins album cover
Albert Collins album cover

Albert Collins (October 1, 1932 – November 24, 1993) was a blues guitarist, singer and musician. He had many nicknames from fans, such as "The Ice Man" and "The Master of the Telecaster".

Contents

[edit] Career

Born in Leona, Texas, Collins was a distant relative of Lightnin' Hopkins and grew up learning about music and playing guitar. 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, Texas. By the late 1950s, he chose the Fender Telecaster as his 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). Collins began recording in 1960 and released singles, many instrumentals such as "Frosty". In the spring of 1965 he moved to Kansas City 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. After playing a gig with Canned Heat, members of this band introduced him to Liberty Records. Collins was signed and released his first LP 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 Pointblank 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.

His genius was acknowledged by the music world 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. In 1987, John Zorn enlisted him to play lead guitar in a suite he'd composed especially for him, entitled "Two-Lane Highway," on Zorn's album Spillane.

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.

Albert will be remembered not only for the quantity of quality blues music that he put out throughout his career that has inspired so many other blues musicians, but also for his legendary live performances, where he would frequently come down from the stage and mingle with the audience whilst still playing. A good example of his strong stage presence can be seen in Adventures in Babysitting. Another instance of this, at Antones, involved Albert leaving the building, still plugged in and playing. A few minutes later when he was back on stage, a pizza guy came in and gave him the pizza he had just ordered when he left the building - he had gone to the take away opposite and ordered while he was still playing. Albert's music still continues to inspire guitarists today. Tom Murphy writes: We backed Collins at a downtown Market St. San Francisco club (R. Cray band). Just as he walked outside with his 100-foot guitar cord a city bus pulled up, so Albert got on the bus! Still playing of course. From the shocked and bewildered look on the faces of the people on the bus, those who followed Albert outside about fell down. Meanwhile on stage Richard Cousins and I would hold down the tunes trying to ignore this blazing 110 db plus guitar solo since Collins would hear us on a delay.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Singles

  • "Freeze"/"Collins' Shuffle" (Kangaroo KA-103/104)
  • "Lonely Heart"/"True Love" (Great Scott 1008)
  • "Soulroad"/"I don't Know" (Tracie 2003)
  • "Defrost"/"Albert's Alley" (Hall-Way 1795)
  • "Sippin' Soda"/"Homesick" (Hall-Way 1831)
  • "Frosty"/"Tremble" (Hall 1920)
  • "Thaw-out"/"Backstroke" (Hall 1925)
  • "Sno-cone part I"/"Sno-cone part II" (TCF Hall 104)
  • "Dyin' Flu"/"Hot 'n cold" (TCF Hall 116)
  • "Don't lose your Cool"/"Frostbite" (TCF Hall 127)
  • "Cookin' Catfish"/"Taking my Time" (20th Century 45-6708)
  • "Ain't got Time"/"Got a good thing Goin'" (Imperial 66351)
  • "Do the Sissy"/"Turnin' On" (Imperial 66391)
  • "Conversation with Collins"/"And then it started Raining" (Imperial 66412)
  • "Coon 'n Collards"/"Do what you want to Do" (Liberty 56184)
  • "Frog Jumpin'"/"Get your business Straight" (Tumbleweed 1002)
  • "Eight days on the Road"/"Stickin'" (Tumbleweed 1007)
  • "Blues for Stevie"/"Guitars that Rule the World" (1994)

[edit] Albums

  • 1965 The Cool Sounds of Albert Collins (TCF Hall 8002) - compilation
  • 1968 Love Can Be Found Anywhere (even In A guitar) (Imperial LP-12428)
  • 1969 Truckin' With Albert Collins (Blue Thumb BTS-8) - re-release of The Cool Sounds of Albert Collins
  • 1969 Trash Talkin' (Imperial LP-12438)
  • 1970 The Compleat Albert Collins (Imperial LP-12449)
  • 1971 There's Gotta Be A Change (Tumbleweed 103)
  • 1971 Alive & cool (Red Lightnin' 004) - bootleg
  • 1978 Ice Pickin' (Alligator 4713)
  • 1979 Albert Collins and Barrelhouse live (Munich 225)
  • 1980 Frostbite (Alligator 4719)
  • 1981 Frozen Alive (Alligator 4725)
  • 1983 Don't Lose Your Cool (Alligator 4730)
  • 1984 Live In Japan (Alligator 4733)
  • 1985 Showdown (Alligator 4743) - with Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland
  • 1986 Cold Snap (Alligator 4752)
  • 1991 Iceman (Pointblank VPBCD 3)
  • 1993 Collin Mix: His Best (Pointblank 39097) - no compilation!
  • 1995 Live '92/'93 (Pointblank 40658)
  • 2000 Live At The Fillmore West (Catfish 156)
  • 2005 The Iceman At Mount Fuji (Fuel2000 061457)

[edit] Videography

  • 2003 The Iceman At Mount Fuji (Varese 061299)
  • 2003 In concert: Ohne Filter (Music Video Distributors 6526)
  • 2005 Albert Collins: Warner Bros. Classics (Warner Brothers 9086390)

[edit] Films

  • 1987 Adventures in Babysitting (as himself, uncredited) He plays and sings backup on "Babysitting Blues."

[edit] External links

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