Blues

[|iR|Focalor]

I won't make any proclamations about who is the "best" blues guitarist to ever do it, because it's kinda subjective at times.

But one of my favorites since I started getting into the genre as a kid in the early 90's was Albert Collins. He was a fingerpicker pretty much exclusively, and always played a Fender Telecaster with a humbucker at the neck position. Such a pickup combination always gave him very different options for tones to choose from when playing leads. He also had a very expressive fingerpicking style. Sometimes he'd grab and pop the strings to be loud and aggressive, and other times he'd gently roll his fingers over the strings.

He had personality too. A good performer who engaged with his audience. For example, one of his famous moments noted on his wiki page:

He is also remembered for his humorous stage presence, which is recounted in the documentary Antones: Austin's Home of the Blues: Collins was playing a lengthy solo one night at Antone's and left the building whilst still playing. He returned to the stage still playing the solo and resumed entertaining the audience in person. Shortly afterwards a man arrived at the club and gave Collins the pizza he had just ordered.

Orders a fuckin' pizza in the middle of a song. That's like Andy Kaufman taking the audience out for milk and cookies after the show.

Alas, he passed away back in late 1993 from cancer. Was VERY sudden too. One day he was living it up and playing thinking everything's okay, and a few months later he was gone.

Anyway, (and I've probably posted this somewhere around here before) this is my favorite song of his. I don't think this is the original version of this song. I guess this was from a "best of" album where he re-recorded some of his older hits just prior to his death, so it's technically not a "best of" album, it's kinda like a new album. In my opinion, the re-workings blow the originals away, ESPECIALLY this one.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bry-d8rlw6I
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