Albert Collins

Albert Collins was born in Leona, Texas, on October 1, 1932. His family moved to Marquez when he was seven and to Houston when he was nine. Houston became the decisive music setting: Collins began his professional career there in the early 1950s, recorded The Freeze in 1958 and developed the cold-themed titles and cutting Telecaster sound that produced nicknames including the Iceman and Master of the Telecaster.

Collins played with his fingers rather than a pick, used altered minor tunings and commonly placed a capo high on the neck, giving his lines an immediately identifiable tension and snap. He left Texas for Kansas City in 1965 and later California, eventually reaching a wider blues and rock audience. The collaborative album Showdown! with Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland won a Grammy in 1987. Collins continued touring until cancer ended his career; he died in 1993.

Collins's influence comes from technique that was both idiosyncratic and teachable. The Telecaster, finger attack, capo placement and alternate tuning created a vocabulary later guitarists could recognize immediately even when they did not imitate it literally.

Houston is central rather than incidental: it was where Collins became a professional, made his first records and participated in the postwar Black blues scene that produced multiple major electric guitar innovators.