Why I Suck..Progress Report #5! Albert Collins

This month, it's the Master of the Telecaster himself – the one and only Albert Collins! A hugely influential figure in the blues pantheon (just ask Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan or Robert Cray), Albert's powerful, stinging phrasing earned him the nickname “Iceman”. Marrying the bright, biting tone of a Telecaster's bridge pickup with a (usually) clean sound picked with his thumb and fingers for extra “snap” gave him a distinctive tone often described as an “ice pick”. Albert would play off this description, naming many of his signature tracks around this theme – his instrumental track “Frosty”, his cover of T-Bone Walker's “Cold, Cold Feeling”, albums named “Ice Pickin'”, “Frostbite”, “Don't Lose Your Cool”, “Cold Snap”, “Iceman” and so on.

He was a consummate showman, often playing with an extra long cable to allow him to interact with members of the audience. Several anecdotes tell of him leaving the club with audience in tow to buy a chocolate bar without stopping playing, another tells of him leaving the building whilst playing his solo, and then returning to the stage. A few minutes later a man showed up to deliver the pizza Albert had ordered.

I can only hope that story is true.

As you would expect, the minor pentatonic forms the backbone of his style. He was adept, however, at blending the major – particularly the natural 6^th – into his playing, and we'll look at a couple of licks that take advantage of that. However, be aware that you're unlikely to get them sounding exactly right – just as with Albert King back in January (remember that? Before R rates, PPE and social distancing became part of the everyday vocabulary? ), he would tune his guitar in a very non-standard way, in this case an open F minor (F C F Ab C F) and capo high up the neck. Happily, most of his licks do translate pretty well to standard tuning, so we can get a good approximation of his style.

Let's take a look at couple of licks from his signature track, “Frosty” in the key of D (which seemed to be a favourite).

This one has a characteristic quirk, using the major 6^th and minor 3^rd – those of you familiar with the modes will recognise that as Dorian – but what gives the lick it's bite is the six semitone interval between the b3 (F) and the major 6^th (B) – the interval of six semitones is in itself a b5, the dreaded tritone, or “Devil's Interval”.

The 6^th can be an incredibly effective note to use in a blues, as the 6^th (B) over the I chord (D) translates to being the the 3^rd when you move to the G chord (G-B-D). When you combine this with another blues trick – hammering or bending the minor 3^rd into the major – you're left with a seriously tasty blues vocabulary that can move between major and minor tonalities. Let's leave you with another couple of licks to try out:

Combine these with a stinging fingerpicked attack and a biting single coil bridge pickup and you've got a sound which inspired a generation of Texas blues players! Enjoy, stay safe out there and tune in next month for the delicate to frantic phrasing and lunatic string bends of Buddy Guy!