Blues / Texas & soul blues · 1978
Ice Pickin'
Albert Collins
Why listen
Compact instrumentals, an extended conversational piece and a responsive band show several ways of building a blues performance around a distinctive guitar attack.
Listen and read
Tracks · previews
English editorial edition
Album story
The icy reputation of Albert Collins’s guitar is an introduction, not a complete description of Ice Pickin’. Its eight tracks vary greatly in scale. A brief instrumental and a nearly nine-minute conversation require different ways of directing a band and holding attention.
Released in 1978, this was Collins’s Alligator debut, not his first album. It was recorded at Curtom Studios in Chicago without erasing the identity he had developed in Texas. The current Alligator programme matches the label’s original eight-track sequence; the alternate subtitle attached to Honey, Hush does not signal an added song. No expanded set or live bonus is included in this selection.
The beginning of a note
Listen to an attack separately from the sound it leaves behind. Collins’s finger-driven articulation makes the arrival of a phrase conspicuous, but that does not mean every moment must be filled with more notes. The band can continue carrying the movement while the lead guitar withdraws. That relationship is more informative than treating his cutting tone as a special effect which can be explained entirely by equipment.
Different sizes of performance
Ice Pick, the third track, lasts just over three minutes. Conversation with Collins, seventh in the running order, takes almost nine. The former lets instrumental exchanges supply the shape without a lyric; the latter gives speech and guitar room to organise a longer scene. Rather than hearing every track as the same solo opportunity, notice how a change of format changes what the accompaniment must support. The short Avalanche then prevents the longest performance from becoming the album’s final gesture.
A band around the leader
Guitar, keyboards, bass, drums and saxophones provide a substantial setting for the exposed lead sound. On another pass, follow the recurring backing instead of waiting only for a spectacular high note. A small intervention can become more striking when the underlying motion is clear. Master Charge and the extended conversation also suggest a performer with comic timing, not merely an imposing instrumental signature. Humour and force belong to the same musical personality here, and the sequence gives each room to operate.
The album through its tracks
Compare track three, Ice Pick, with track seven, Conversation with Collins, then hear how the short Avalanche closes the programme.
Ice Pick
With no lyric to supply a story, this compact instrumental directs attention to the guitar’s place inside a recurring rhythm. Do not wait only for a high note that cuts through the mix. Follow the smaller entries and the continuing backing between them. A forceful attack need not lead to an uninterrupted stream of playing, and the difference helps distinguish Collins’s identity from a display of speed. In the third position, the piece also moves the album away from the language of its opening songs. Compare it with the longer second recommendation by asking what marks the end of a phrase, rather than simply measuring their different running times.
Reference · Alligator: original eight-track programme, personnel and 1978 notesConversation with Collins
The title proposes a way of organising this nearly nine-minute performance. Instead of waiting for a regular sung refrain, notice the relation between spoken delivery and guitar responses. The instrument can contribute an expression to a story as well as a melodic phrase. That does not make the scene a reliable account of the performer’s private household; hear it as a constructed performance with comic timing. The continuing band matters as much as the foreground exchanges in sustaining its duration. Follow it into Avalanche afterwards. The longest piece is not the album’s final statement, and that short closing track changes how the extended conversation sits within the whole programme.
Reference · Alligator: original eight-track programme, personnel and 1978 notes
Listen next
Compare Albert King’s I’ll Play the Blues for You for a different division of time between lead guitar and accompaniment in an extended blues.
I'll Play the Blues for You ↗References & editorial note
Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.