Albert Collins

The late Albert Collins was an important and influential blues artist with an unmistakable sound. Playing a Fender Telecaster with his fingers through a hundred-watt amplifier, Collins produced a lead guitar sound that was brittle, biting, and funkily syncopated. His cool tone, and a number of early instrumentals he cut with titles like "Frosty" and "Sno-Cone," earned him the title "The Iceman." In the early 1960s Collins led big horn bands, but played with smaller bands and bounced from label to label after that. He signed with Chicago's Alligator records in the '70s, became a star attraction on the international blues circuit, and was a bona fide blues superstar by the time of his death in 1993. He was an important influence on a whole generation of guitarists, from Billy Gibbons to Stevie Ray Vaughn and Robert Cray.