Albert Collins
Ice Pickin'

THE REVIEW

The Telecaster is a legendary guitar, its sharp sound is unique and unmistakable and has traversed 60 years of music without showing signs of aging, becoming an integral part of the iconography particularly associated with blues and rock.

Over these 60 years, countless artists have tied their image to the Telecaster, just think of Muddy Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards, true music legends, but only one has earned the title of "Master of the Telecaster": Albert Collins.

To understand the reason for such a nickname, the 8 tracks contained in this "Ice Pickin'" are enough, where Albert Collins shows everyone that you don't become "The Master of the Telecaster" by chance...  

His is a very personal style, he doesn't use a pick, but attacks the guitar in such a way as to extract a sharp sound from it that strikes you like an electric shock, when he performs his endless bends it seems like he wants to grab you by the neck and choke you... It goes without saying that the most suitable guitar for a sound like this can't be anything other than the Telecaster...

The album in question, released in 1978, is his definitive consecration, from this point on Albert Collins will become, along with Stevie Ray Vaughan, the greatest interpreter of the '80s blues revival and will earn a place in the blues Olympus, alongside the greatest.

Tracks like "Honey, Hush!", "Ice Pick", "Too Tired" ooze a contagious groove, a fundamental characteristic of his sound, and when the tension eases, out comes "Cold, Cold Feeling", a spine-tingling slow, and "Conversation With Collins", a talking piece where Collins alternates between using his voice and his guitar... And the latter is, naturally, the absolute protagonist of the album, every solo that Collins extracts from it is a delight for the listener, the union between instrument and musician is perfect, almost as if they were an extension of one another.

An album produced in such a way as to capture the extraordinary energy Albert Collins was capable of transmitting when playing live, always the most suitable dimension for blues, and to let the listener savor it.

An album that every lover of the blues (and more) who respects themselves, and, I'll say more, every guitarist worthy of the name should have, without any reservations.