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blues. He later said that slide guitar and harmonica was the definition of Chicago blues,

but Texas blues was all about the horns!

Much as he loved the music of his heroes, he was determined to achieve his own sound,

which was undoubtedly assisted by his tuning, use of the capo, and finger picking. He
was able to really start developing that sound when he and his band went on the road

across the Deep South with vocalist Piney Brown, in the 1950s, during which he
absorbed much from the many musicians he came into contact with.

In 1954 a teenaged Johnny Copeland joined
his band for a while - he would rise to some

prominence in future decades, initially as a
soul singer in the 1960s and 70s, and later

as a blues player when his album ‘Copeland
Special’ was released in 1982.

Returning to Houston after the tour, he took
another day job to help repay some debts,

but continued to play in his spare time. In
1958 the tiny Kangaroo label gave him the

chance to record a single (’The Freeze’
by/w ‘Collin’s Shuffle’), which gave him a

local hit, a leg up on to the stages of
Gatemouth, T-Bone and Guitar Slim, and a

return to being a professional musician.
These excellent instrumentals led to a

succession of others, recorded for Hall-Way Records, in Beaumont, Texas, among which
were early 1960s recordings ‘DeFrost’ and ‘Albert’s Alley’.

Throughout the 60s Collins worked the taverns and blues clubs of Houston and
occasionally went out on short tours, but he was only known regionally. He continued

to record one-off instrumentals for a variety of small labels, and eventually the TCF
label collected many of these tracks on an LP entitled ‘The Cool Sound of Albert Collins’,

which was released in 1965. The tracks included many that would become
synonymous with him, such as ‘Frosty’ and ‘Don’t Lose Your Cool’. In 1969, with the

LP having become something of a collector’s piece, Blue Thumb reissued it as “Truckin’
With Albert Collins”. It later appeared on MCA in cd format, sporting a miniature copy
of the original Blue Thumb sleeve.

By this time Collins’ luck was in the process of changing. Canned Heat vocalist Bob

Hite, who was also a keen student of the blues, befriended him when Heat first
appeared in Houston. He was well aware of the music of Albert Collins, and when Hite

and Canned Heat guitarist Henry Vestine went to see him play they were hugely