ALBERT
COLLINS
the
ICE MAN
COMETH

Listen to samples in RealAudio 

By Larry Grogan
Imagine the scene…Seattle, 1958 and a high school kid – a budding guitar player - hears a an intense, sustained guitar note coming out of his radio. The kid’s mind is blown, and 10 years later, when he’s the reigning king of rock guitar, Jimi Hendrix pulled that note from his memory and dropped it at the beginning of ‘Voodoo Chile’. The note he heard was the first five seconds of the debut 45 from the man that would be known variously as the Ice Man, the Master of the Telecaster and the Razor Blade, the late Albert Collins of Houston Texas.

While it’s impossible to say if the scenario above is true (though Hendrix did acknowledge Collins as a seminal influence), it is certain that the sustained note that opens ‘Collins Shuffle’ from Albert Collins debut 45 on Kangaroo Records was resurrected by Hendrix for 1968’s ‘Voodoo Chile’. Hendrix wasn’t the first player influenced by Collins, and certainly wouldn’t be the last (with the circle being closed in the 80’s by Stevie Ray Vaughan who drew almost as much from Collins as he did from Hendrix). Though it’s easiest to label Collins a “blues” musician, the records he made between 1958 and 1968 (and the three LP’s he did for Imperial from 1968 to 1970) were much, much more.

Born in 1932 in Leona, TX, Collins and his family moved to Houston when he was a child. He grew up listening to John Lee Hooker, and fellow Texans Lightnin’ Hopkins and T-Bone Walker. By the mid-50’s he was playing in area nightclubs with his band the Rhythm Rockers. It was clear from the Kangaroo 45 that Collins was a talent to be reckoned with. While ‘Collins Shuffle’ is basically a blues shuffle, the guitar leads that Collins plays over the top are far from ordinary. The flip, ‘Freeze’ is just a low key vamp which Collins accents with stabs from his guitar.

In the early 60’s Collins hooked up with label owner/producer Bill Hall. It was with Hall that he would lay down a brilliant series of genre-defying 45’s (and one LP) that would influence a generation of rockers. These discs remain today as evidence that Albert Collins was a musician of eclectic tastes and abilities. His 45’s for Hall, Hallway, TFC and 20^th Century broke the mold of “blues”. They were at times informed by (and informed) soul, rock’n’roll, and even surf.

Strangely enough his biggest hit 1962’s ‘Frosty’ came early, and was in contrast to much of his later work quite an ordinary outing. Collins’ band, featuring organist Walter McNeil who was a big part of the Collins sound (a fact no doubt attributable to the fact that Jimmy McGriff was one of Collins’ idols), and saxophonist Big Tiny (gotta love that name) is however in excellent form, as is Collins himself.
Continued