Albert Collins - Don't Loose Your Cool (1983)

×

Albert Collins - Don't Loose Your Cool (1983)

Close

Collins is never far in spirit from the 1940s and 1950s gin mills of his youth, where he soaked up blues, R&B, country and western, jazz, and all their various amalgams. On this 1983 date he impressively revitalizes his old Texas hit "Don't Lose Your Cool," turns the heat up on Guitar Slim's "Quicksand," and adds newfangled vocal and guitar insinuations to Big Walter Price's "Get to Gettin'."

~ Frank John Hadley 1993

********************

There has never been and may never be again a bluesman quite like Albert Collins. "The Master Of The Telecaster" was born on October 1, 1932, in Leona, Texas. A cousin of the legendary Lightnin' Hopkins, Collins emerged with a blues sound and style all his own, featuring a combination of icy echo, shattering, ringing, sustained high notes, an ultra-percussive right-hand attack, and an unheard-of minor key guitar tuning (taught to him by his cousin Willow Young). Deeply influenced by T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker and Gatemouth Brown, Collins absorbed the sounds of Mississippi, Chicago, and especially Texas. He formed his own band in 1952, packing clubs around Houston. In the early 1960s, Collins' "cool sound" instrumentals like the million-seller Frosty (recorded with a young Johnny Winter and Janis Joplin in attendance at the studio) and follow-ups Sno Cone and Thaw Out were all over R&B radio. Soon he was sharing stages with his idols Gatemouth Brown and T-Bone Walker.

Then, in the mid-'60s (following a move from Texas to Kansas City to California), Collins broke into the rock 'n' roll world, releasing three albums produced by members of Canned Heat, and began playing the San Francisco psychedelic circuit. But Albert's greatest success came after he signed with Alligator in 1978 and cut ICE PICKIN''. It won the Best Blues Album of the Year Award from the Montreux Jazz Festival, and was nominated for a Grammy. His following Alligator albums helped earn Collins every award the blues world had to offer. And, along with Johnny Copeland and Robert Cray (who decided on a career as a bluesman after seeing Collins play his high school prom) Collins cut the Grammy-winning SHOWDOWN!.

Even after he was firmly established as a major modern bluesman, Collins never got too big for his fans and friends, and never took things easy. And he never relinquished the wheel of his battered tour bus that he loved to drive so much. Along with his band, The Icebreakers, Collins' live shows – driven by his kinetic stage presence – were legendary testaments to the power of the blues. With his untimely death in 1993, Albert Collins left behind a blues legacy that continues to amaze and delight blues fans all over the world.

~ amazon.com

********************

Collins was born October 1, 1932, in Leona, TX. His family moved to Houston when he was seven. Growing up in the city's Third Ward area with the likes of Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Johnny "Clyde" Copeland, Collins started out taking keyboard lessons. His idol when he was a teen was Hammond B-3 organist Jimmy McGriff. But by the time he was 18 years old, he switched to guitar, and hung out and heard his heroes, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker and Lightnin' Hopkins (his cousin) in Houston-area nightclubs. Collins began performing in these same clubs, going after his own style, characterized by his use of minor tunings and a capo, by the mid-'50s. It was also at this point that he began his "guitar walks" through the audience, which made him wildly popular with the younger white audiences he played for years later in the 1980s. He led a ten-piece band, the Rhythm Rockers, and cut his first single in 1958 for the Houston-based Kangaroo label, "The Freeze." The single was followed by a slew of other instrumental singles with catchy titles, including "Sno-Cone," "Icy Blue" and "Don't Lose Your Cool." All of these singles brought Collins a regional following. After recording "De-Frost" b/w "Albert's Alley" for Hall-Way Records of Beaumont, TX, he hit it big in 1962 with "Frosty," a million-selling single. Teenagers Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter, both raised in Beaumont, were in the studio when he recorded the song. According to Collins, Joplin correctly predicted that the single would become a hit. The tune quickly became part of his ongoing repertoire, and was still part of his live shows more than 30 years later, in the mid-'80s. Collins' percussive, ringing guitar style became his trademark, as he would use his right hand to pluck the strings. Blues-rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix cited Collins as an influence in any number of interviews he gave.

Through the rest of the 1960s, Collins continued to work day jobs while pursuing his music with short regional tours and on weekends. He recorded for other small Texas labels, including Great Scott, Brylen and TFC. In 1968, Bob "The Bear" Hite from the blues-rock group Canned Heat took an interest in the guitarist's music, traveling to Houston to hear him live. Hite took Collins to California, where he was immediately signed to Imperial Records. By later 1968 and 1969, the '60s blues revival was still going on, and Collins got wider exposure opening for groups like the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Collins based his operations for many years in Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas in the late '80s.

He recorded three albums for the Imperial label before jumping to Tumbleweed Records. There, several singles were produced by Joe Walsh, since the label was owned by the Eagles' producer Bill Szymczyk. The label folded in 1973. Despite the fact that he didn't record much through the 1970s and into the early '80s, he had gotten sufficient airplay around the U.S. with his singles to be able to continue touring, and so he did, piloting his own bus from gig to gig until at least 1988, when he and his backing band were finally able to use a driver. Collins' big break came about in 1977, when he was signed to the Chicago-based Alligator Records, and he released his brilliant debut for the label in 1978, Ice Pickin'. Collins recorded six more albums for the label, culminating in 1986's Cold Snap, on which organist Jimmy McGriff performs. It was at Alligator Records that Collins began to realize that he could sing adequately, and working with his wife Gwen, he co-wrote many of his classic songs, including items like "Mastercharge," and "Conversation With Collins."

His other albums for Alligator include Live in Japan, Don't Lose Your Cool, Frozen Alive! and Frostbite. An album he recorded with fellow guitarists Robert Cray and Johnny "Clyde" Copeland for Alligator in 1985, Showdown! brought a Grammy award for all three musicians. His Cold Snap, released in 1986, was nominated for a Grammy award.
In 1989, Collins signed with the Pointblank subsidiary of major label Virgin Records, and his debut, Iceman, was released in 1991. The label released the compilation Collins Mix in 1993. Other compact-disc reissues of his early recordings were produced by other record companies who saw Collins' newfound popularity on the festival and theater circuit, and they include Complete Imperial Recordings on EMI Records (1991) and Truckin' With Albert Collins (1992) on MCA Records. Collins' sessionography is also quite extensive. The albums he performs on include David Bowie's Labyrinth, John Zorn's Spillane, Jack Bruce's A Question of Time, John Mayall's Wake Up Call, B.B. King's Blues Summit, Robert Cray's Shame and a Sin, and Branford Marsalis' Super Models in Deep Conversation.

Although he'd spent far too much time in the 1970s without recording, Collins could sense that the blues were coming back stronger in the mid-'80s, with interest in Stevie Ray Vaughan at an all-time high. Collins enjoyed some media celebrity in the last few years of his life, via concert appearances at Carnegie Hall, on Late Night with David Letterman, in the Touchstone film, Adventures in Babysitting, and in a classy Seagram's Wine Cooler commercial with Bruce Willis. The blues revival that Collins, Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds helped bring about in the mid-'80s has continued into the mid-'90s. But sadly, Collins has not been able to take part in the ongoing evolution of the music.

~ Richard Skelly, allmusic.com

×

Albert Collins - Don't Loose Your Cool (1983)

Close

×

Albert Collins - Don't Loose Your Cool (1983)

Close

×

Albert Collins - Don't Loose Your Cool (1983)

Close