Year: 2008
Record Label: Eagle Rock
Style: Blues
Review: This companion to the concurrently released audio CD bearing the same title features the late, great Texas guitarist Albert Collins and his revved up band, wooing the audience in attendance at a Montreux venue in 1992. And it marks one of his last performances before succumbing to bone cancer on November 24th 1993. Known as the “Ice-Man” for his scowling and sharp-edged Fender Telecaster lead lines, the guitarist’s exhilarating performance is captured on this 2008 issued DVD.
Collins abandoned his performances back in the early 70s to pursue construction work before reentering the scene at the bequest of his wife and then pop star Neil Diamond, whose home he was decorating/remodeling. Several years later, he signed with Alligator Records and success followed amid a Grammy nomination and spiraling notoriety within the blues genre. Here the artist rouses the crowd via an electrifying set, supplanted by funky horns and more. He renders knockdown, drag-out licks via scorching single note phrasings, whether dishing out slow blues vamps or high-octane rockers. On the 1992 set, keyboardist Bobby Alexis generates some ominous voicings during his sweeping B-3 chords while Jon Smith lays it all out with his gutsy tenor sax solo during the piece “Too Many Dirty Dishes.”
Also included here is footage (four tracks) from Collins’ inaugural 1979 visit to Montreux, featuring the late Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown on guitar. In sum, this DVD accentuates Collins’ animated musical personna and unremitting passion for the blues. Count him among the legion of greats who not only honed out a deeply personalized and influential mode of attack, but as an artist who help spread the blues gospel with the utmost fervor.
Record Label Website: http://www.eaglerockent.com
Reviewed by:
Glenn Astarita
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