ALBERT THE TEXAS SHREDDER LIKED TO DRINK AND LIKED TO GET DRUNK TOO

While i keep trying to sort out why i cant embed videos from You
Tube to my blog, which i was able to do there for a short time, i
want to dig deep into my mental vault of obscure music and dig up
some really personal favourites of mine which i can review with-
out a visual, and some of the first music that comes to mind
for me at the moment is american blues. A couple of blogs back,
i done an article on Memphis Minnie, now that was dredging the
barrel of time, seeing she was in her prime in the early to mid
1930`s. He might have had a very diffrent style of guitar play-
ing, his Texas style of blues with a heavy dose of brass accom-
paniment was nothing like the St. Louis style which Minnie con-
quered the city of Chicago with some three decades earlier. Al-
bert Collins is the man, one of the few blues guitarists who
never used a pick, he was heavily inspired by many fellow Texas
blues guitarists, notably the brothers Albert and Freddie King.

Stevie Ray Vaughan before his death played with Albert Collins
and revered him as one of his heros. Albert Collins never quite
achieved the success which a couple of his superb 80`s albums
should have got him, admittingly he was a slow starter who be-
gan his recording career with a string of lacklustre muddled
sounding albums at the end of the 60`s and the beginning of
the 70`s, for most of the 70`s he gave up on music and went
back to driving buses for a living, but at the end of the 70`s,
he was offered a lifeline by little known blues label Alligator
to record some music once again. I dont want to give too much
away, because one album alone is worth a complete review, one
involving him and two other headlining blues guitarists (now i
am letting the cat out of the bag).

Anyhow, sidestepping that album which will be the basis of
another blog soon, Albert in 1989 recorded what is probaly
his best stand alone studio album, featuring him at his razor
sharp best playing the famous telecaster. The album is called
COLD SNAP and the song to get things started on there, I AIN`T
DRUNK, I`M JUST DRINKIN`, is one of finest examples of Texas
blues you will ever hear. His backing band, The Icebreakers,
who inherited that name because of the nickname Iceman
Collins got in the first place, are at the top of their game
in stella form. A perfect mixture of jazz drumming, honky
tonk piano, funkified bass and classic Texas shred, equal-
ly potent and controlled. I AIN`T DRUNK tended to outshine
the other songs on COLD SNAP, although one other song,
BENDING LIKE A WILLOW TREE, does deserve a mention
as being one of the great funk blues songs of all time.
Collins died from throat cancer in 1993, no doubt the
result of his heavy smoking and being a passive smoker
in clubs and pubs his whole life through while on tour.
More about Albert Collins another time, if i forget to
write another blog about him then by all means send me
an email or make a comment and get up me OK. I AINT
DRUNK is a good introduction to his music anyway so
get a hold of it and wait for my next installment.
By the way, i forgot to say Albert was a black man.