Albert Collins & The Icebreakers - Thaw Out
Well, it's allegedly Autumn now, but here in Eugene it's astonishingly, unseasonably warm.
I dunno about you all, but I think it's time to turn on the AC.
And when that switch gets flipped, you know some cool, cool Blues will be flowing from the vents.
Today's titan of the Telecaster knew something about flash freezing an audience in permanent, pentatonic ecstasy and leaving them in a blizzard of Blues.
When he left the stage, you knew you had heard some cold lessons.
He'd have been a frosty fresh 90 today, can you believe that?
He's been in the eternal cooler for almost 30 years, but what he served up will never lose its chill.
His signature arsenal of ice-pick licks and icicle-smooth, unmistakable tone are in no danger of being lost to the snowdrifts of history anytime soon.
Cold fact: any budding Blues guitar aspirant had better study up on their Albert Collins, or their progress will be glacially paced.
He started cooling in the 1950s, and over a 40-year career he redefined the whole genre in his ice-sculpted image.
Let's time travel back to the stage of the historic Casino in Montreux at the 1981 Jazz Festival -- not for smoke on the water in this case, but for an ice storm of cataclysmic proportions -- for a cool illustration.
Albert Collins & The Icebreakers
Montreux Jazz Festival
Casino
Montreux, Switzerland
7.8.1981
01 I'm Fed Up with This Music
02 introduction of Albert Collins/Listen Here
03 Cold, Cold Feeling
04 Thaw Out
05 Cold Cuts
06 Ice Pickin'
Total time: 49:43
Albert Collins - guitar & vocals
Marvin Jackson - guitar
A.C. Reed - tenor saxophone & vocals
Casey Jones - drums
Johnny B. Gaydon - bass
very low gen off-air FM recording of indeterminate origin; sounds like a master or 1st gen cassette
slightly declipped and edited -- with some dropouts repaired -- and retracked by EN, September 2022
334 MB FLAC/direct link
334 MB FLAC/direct link
This is one of the chillest, icy-hot AC bootlegs, and he leaves the Swiss audience shrieking for more.
I'll be back tomorrow with an authentic shit-starter for all times, with whom I spent the better part of an Easter Sunday in Oakland once long ago.
But y'all better not get frozen in place and miss out on a cold blast from the AC -- born this day in 1932 -- here, that would seriously not be cool!--J.
10.1.1932 - 11.24.1993