I dunno about you all, but I think it's time to turn on the AC.
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.
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.
You just keep the good stuff coming. Thank you EN!
ReplyDelete