This provided fresh looks at 11 Collins classics, among them such epic numbers as "Don't Lose Your Cool," "Frosty," "Honey Hush" and "Tired Man." There were slow, wailing ballads with blistering solos, electrifying uptempo wailers with a great horn section answering Collins' phrases with their own bleats, and first-rate mastering and production. Guest stars included B.B. King, Branford Marsalis, Kim Wilson and Gary Moore, while Collins injected vitality into numbers he'd already made standards years ago. This set is a wonderful tribute to an incredible guitarist and musician.

Compared to Frozen Alive!, Live in Japan is a little more drawn-out and funky, featuring extended jamming on several songs. That isn't necessarily a bad thing - Collins and his bandmates can work a groove pretty damn well. Of course, the main reason to listen to an Albert Collins album is to hear the man play. And play he does throughout Live in Japan, spitting out piercing leads with glee. On the whole, it's not quite as consistent as Frozen Alive!, but that's only by a slight margin.

Albert Collins would be gone just a year and a few months after this July 1992 set at Montreux but there was no loss of vitality even at this late date in the blues guitarist's career. The set consists only of seven tracks, but three of those - "Lights Are On (But Nobody's Home)," "Too Many Dirty Dishes," and the über-funky "Put the Shoe on the Other Foot" - clock in at between 11 and over 15 minutes, plenty of time for Collins and his band to kick up some serious dust. On the latter song, bassist Johnny B. Gayden's bass , Bobby Alexis' keys, Marty Binder's drums, and the sax and trumpet of Jon Smith and Steve Howard, respectively, lay down a solid foundation on top of which Collins goes to town with the kind of stinging, mean-ass solo that initially provided him with his reputation as one of the heavyweights.

"Ice Man" or not, Albert was on fire the night of his taping on October 28, 1991. "You just can’t believe how long it took me to get on this show!" he declared, and wasted no time proving why it was long overdue. His performance was a wild ride, and the ACL stage proved too small for his antics, so with his long guitar chord in tow he took off into the audience during his ten-minute-plus finale of "Frosty." He was first and foremost an entertainer, but nonetheless belongs up front in the pantheon of great blues guitarists. He awed at least two generations of young pickers, not the least of whom including Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, who was quoted as saying back in the 60's, "There’s one cat I'm still trying to get across to people…his name is Albert Collins … he’s good … really good."

Compiling a number of performances recorded shortly before Albert Collins' death, Live '92/'93 offers definitive proof that the guitarist remained vital until his last days.

Deluxe Edition is a solid, albeit imperfect, 13-track collection of highlights from Albert Collins latter-day recordings for Alligator. There are only a handful of genuine classics, but there are a lot of great performances that spotlight Collins stinging guitar work and impassioned vocals. Nevertheless, it's only adequate as an introduction, since Ice Pickin' remains the place to become acquainted with Collins blistering blues.

Cold Snap has a stronger R&B direction than Collins's previous Alligator releases, most notably in the presence of a slicker production. That approach doesn't suit him particularly well - he's at his best when he's just playing the blues, not when he's trying to sing. Nevertheless, he turns out a number of gripping solos, and that is what prevents Cold Snap from being too much of a disappointment.

Frozen Alive! demonstrates the exuberant power of Albert Collins in concert and contains enough first-rate solos to make it a worthwhile listen for fans of his icy style.
Albert Collins, "The Master of the Telecaster," "The Iceman," and "The Razor Blade" was robbed of his best years as a blues performer by a bout with liver cancer that ended with his premature death on November 24, 1993. He was just 61 years old. The highly influential, totally original Collins, like the late John Campbell, was on the cusp of a much wider worldwide following via his deal with Virgin Records' Pointblank subsidiary. However, unlike Campbell, Collins had performed for many more years, in obscurity, before finally finding a following in the mid-'80s.

Ice Pickin' is the album that brought Albert Collins directly back into the limelight, and for good reason, too. The record captures the wild, unrestrained side of his playing that had never quite been documented before. Though his singing doesn't quite have the fire or power of his playing, the album doesn't suffer at all because of that - he simply burns throughout the album. Ice Pickin' was his first release for Alligator Records and it set the pace for all the albums that followed. No matter how much he tried, Collins never completely regained the pure energy that made Ice Pickin' such a revelation.

Frostbite was the first indication that Albert Collins' Alligator albums were going to follow something of a formula. The album replicated all of the styles and sounds of Ice Pickin', but the music lacked the power of its predecessor. Nevertheless, there was a wealth of fine playing on the album, even if the quality of the songs themselves is uneven.

Texan Albert Collins was in the very first rank of post-war blues guitarists. This two-CD set is a reissue of all 36 sides he cut for Imperial from 1968 to 1970, representing this artist's second major recording stint. Instrumentals comprise roughly three-fourths of the material. They frame his distinctive guitar work with a tight ensemble of organ, bass, and drums, adding at times a piano and/or second guitar, punctuated by a horn section. About ten of these tunes are as great as anything Collins ever did. They are riddled with the biting, incisive, dramatic, and economical playing that made him a legend. There are also some outstanding vocals. Although this set is not without its clinkers, it is a solid package and a must for any Collins fan.

Cray found himself in some pretty intimidating company for this Grammy-winning blues guitar summit meeting, but he wasn't deterred, holding his own alongside his idol Albert Collins and Texas great Johnny Copeland. Cray's delivery of Muddy Waters' rhumba-rocking "She's into Something" was one of the set's many highlights.

This is B.B. King's most delightful recording of the '90s. He duets with other blues greats, including Koko Taylor ("Something You Got"), Buddy Guy ("I Pity the Fool"), Etta James ("There's Something on Your Mind"), Ruth Brown ("You're the Boss"), and his dear friend John Lee Hooker ("You Shook Me"). The peaks come in his guitar shootout with Texas Telecaster slinger Albert Collins on "Call It Stormy Monday" and his high-spirited run-in with Katie Webster, who steals their performance of "Since I Met You Baby" with her saucy asides.