Albert Cummings

Albert Cummings - Feel So Good [LIVE] - 2008 - Blind Pig

Feel So Good is a live album that captures Albert Cummings' searing Stratocaster licks and crowd-pleasing, high-energy roots-rock in front of an enthusiastic hometown crowd. In fact, the audience was so enthralled and supportive they became part of the performance in a way that's rarely heard. Albert and his band responded with a blistering set of great originals and killer covers of Led Zeppelin, Little Feat, and Muddy Waters tunes. Albert, proud of the show and the recording, said, "The crowd was really wound up and loved the show. It was a lot of fun. The recording is a first-rate capturing of what goes on at one of our shows. It's got the real rawness and heart and soul of just us three guys on stage, as real as it gets." With producer Jim Gaines at the controls and Albert's incredible display of guitar virtuosity and deep emotion, this is one live performance that is bound to become a blues-rock classic. © 2008 All Rights Reserved. Piedmont Talent, Inc.

Albert Cummings is one of the best blues rock talents to emerge from the U.S in recent years. It has been stated that this guy could be the new S.R.V. He may have a hill to climb to reach that stature, but it's a hill that's getting smaller! This is a great album from this New England blues rocker and is VHR by A.O.O.F.C. All the tracks here are great, but "Hoochie Coochie Man" is really something else, - It's a knockout version of this tune. The first couple of songs are enjoyable country tinged songs in the John Fogerty mould, where there is great rapport between Albert and his appreciative audience. They are not strictly blues flavoured tracks, but still very good. The audience/band interaction throughout this live recording is very enjoyable. There is a jazzy tune on this album, "Sleep," which is a ballad, and demonstrates the wonderful guitar technique of Albert Cummings. As the album progresses, it becomes a blistering display of first class blues rockin'. The final track, a version of Zep's "Rock and Roll" will blow your socks off! This guy has simply got to be heard by more people. He is going to be a future blues giant. Buy his absolutely terrific "From the Heart" album. You won't regret it. Brilliant stuff!

TRACKS

01. Party Right Here
02. Why Me
03. Sleep
04. Hoochie Coochie Man/Dixie Chicken Medley
05. Barrelhouse Blues
06. Tell It Like It Is
07. Rock Me Baby
08. Your Own Way
09. Together As One
10. Blues Makes Me Feel So Good
11. Rock and Roll

BAND

Albert Cummings (vocals, guitar)
Daniel Broad (bass guitar, background vocals)
Aaron Scapin (drums)

ALBUM NOTE

The endless boogie begun by John Lee Hooker, then Texas-honed by ZZ Top, continues, thanks to the younger generation of blues players such as Albert Cummings. This Massachusetts guitarist/singer is no purist, freely mixing nightclub blues with aspects of 1970s rock (Hendrix or Robin Trower), sometimes recalling the more boisterous side of the late Stevie Ray Vaughn. His guitar sizzles, sputters, and roars, and his voice has the gutsy vibrancy of Paul Rodgers and Buddy Guy. While not earth-shakingly original, FEELS SO GOOD is the CD equivalent of a good-time late Saturday night.

REVIEWS

And in this corner, out of WIlliamstown, Mass., with the red-and-white Stratocaster guitar, Albert Cummings. That's right, the blues has a new great white hope. The musical style always seems to be searching for a white guitar god who can achieve broad commercial success. The notion might seem ludicrous, but this phenomenon has been going on in music since at least the 1950s, when Pat Boone covered Little Richard and Elvis Presley discovered R&B. The white guys' records sell. But with the blues, mainstream success from anybody is always a tough sell. Stevie Ray Vaughan, an undisputed white guitar god, reigned supreme with a broad, mainstream audience from the late 1980s until his death in a 1990 helicopter crash. Since then, Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd have contended but strayed from the blues after initial successes. The contemporary leader for the great white hope is Tommy Castro, who comes from a soul-sounding foundation. And Tinsley Ellis plays from a rock 'n' roll point of view — he's incredible, but he remains relatively obscure. Now we have Cummings, whose stylings have a basis in jammy, Southern rock. The jam I refer to is not the noodly or dreamy variety: It has a sharp edge. Think early Allman Brothers or ZZ Top. But mostly — and you should take this in a positive way — Stevie Ray Vaughan. Sure there are lot of Stevie Ray wannabees, but Cummings is the real deal, and he has enough of a personal take to make the style his own. Nevertheless, when you hear him live, as I did at Coloma Blues Live! the first artist Cummings reminds me of is Vaughan. An obvious reason for this is that his original rhythm section was Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon, aka Vaughan's Double Trouble. John Lee Hooker gave Vaughan high praise when he said, "When he wants to, Stevie Ray sounds just like Albert King." The same is true here: When he wants to, Cummings sounds just like Stevie Ray. Check it out - Cummings' fifth album is a recording of a March 15 show with his three-piece band at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Mass. In concert, Cummings is in the same ballpark as Castro, whom was honored by the Blues Awards as the performer of the year. His energy, powerful solos and charisma come across with full force. His voice sounds much like Bad Company/Free singer Paul Rodgers. Any fan of Skynyrd's "One More From The Road" will love this one, and might even get goosebumps when Muddy Waters' "Hoochie Coochie Man" segues into Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken." The concluding track, Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll," and my favorite, and a Cummings original, "Your Own Way," can be taken for straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. But a detailed listen all the way through leaves no doubt. More than anything else, Cummings is a bluesman. Too bad. He could have been a contender. © Tim Parsons / Lake Tahoe Action

Dynamics, tone and performer/audience togetherness overpower volume and attitude every time. Anyone who’s graduated from rock to blues knows that, but when an artist can capture the dynamics of both styles in live concert, it’s time to find a new word to supersede “crossover.” On his live Blind Pig CD Feel So Good, Albert Cummings doesn’t go over the top, he slices cleanly through it. He flies above the bridge between the two genres of rock and blues. This “vehicle” never touches the road long enough to leave skid marks. This show was recorded in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the Colonial Theater, a 95-year-old “little jewel box” – that’s what James Taylor calls it – that’s hosted everyone from Will Rogers to Al Jolson. On this CD, you’re eighth row center for the show where the beer sold out before the music even started. At the controls is Jim Gaines who produced the last two Cummings CDs, not to mention albums by Carlos Santana, Buddy Guy, Steve Miller and Tommy Castro among many others. “It’s the comfort zone. I just know if Jim Gaines is gonna be running the controls, I don’t have to worry about that stuff. You know, if you’re thinking,’ you’re stinkin,’ “ says Cummings. Cummings is the antithesis of Gary Cooper in “High Noon.” Remember the story where Coop as sheriff can’t get a single deputy to help him face off the gang as the fated hour approaches? Cummings’ “High Noon” was Saturday night, March 15th, 2008 at 8 p.m. Every one in that audience was on his team. The band merged with the sold out throng, and the whistling, cheering, singing crowd became a driving element of the band. The space between the seats and stage disappeared and everyone flew above the balcony. It wasn’t Albert Cummings on stage that night. It was “The Other Guy,” his alter ego. “We joke about the multiple personalities,” says Cummings, “but I truly believe I have it. ‘Albert’ will walk out on that stage, and then he’ll leave. ‘The Other Guy’ will kick him off and say, ‘Get the hell out of here ’cause now it’s my turn.’ Once I hand it over to him, I got no control. So, he just does his thing, and I just sit there and watch.” Cummings works and plays “Rock Me Baby” and “Rock and Roll,” but these aren’t your grandfather’s B. B. King or your daddy’s Led Zeppelin respectively. Rather, they’re anthems, part of the wild ride of a live CD that whisks you through the repertoire of a blues man who destroys every cliché of either the blues or rock genre. “Barrelhouse Blues” co-written by Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon of Double Trouble originally appeared on Cummings’ first CD From The Heart which was co-produced by Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rhythm section. Here he slaps, strokes, squeezes, cajoles, tweaks and ultimately has his way with his Strat. Dedicated to his wife Christina, “Together As One” shows the smoother side of Cummings with its sweet seductive roll while “Hoochie Coochie Man/Dixie Chicken” leads a charge that turns the lathered crowd into more than bit players in Cummings High Noon scenario. From Muddy Waters to Little Feat without so much as a skip or slip, and we’re all part of the party. On the original “Sleep” from his Blind Pig debut True to Yourself Cummings seduces the fans with a delicate Flamenco-influenced ballad that slips into a lazy psychedelic delirium cajoled by his distinctive voice emphasizing dynamics that capture the spirit in the line “Go to sleep, my child.” Recorded in one night of hometown bravura and bombast, Feel So Good redefines call and response for the 21st century. It all may haves started when Albert saw Stevie Ray Vaughan in Boston, and decided there was something more to life than simply taking over as the fourth generation head of the family construction business. “The Other Guy” emerged the first time he opened for B.B King. In 1998 he walked into a Northeast Blues Society open jam one Sunday night and announced that he and Swamp Yankee, his fledgling band from Williamstown, Massachusetts, were going to play some souped up blues. That jam led to Cummings’ winning the Society’s Colossal Contenders contest, and he journeyed to Beale Street to compete in the Blues Foundation’s 1999 International Blues Challenge. That relationship also opened up an opportunity for him to work with Tommy Shannon, Reese Winans and Chris Layton of Double Trouble. The Society brought the four together in 2000 for Communiversity Day at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. That began a relationship that has included touring together, co-producing From The Heart as well as Tommy Shannon’s appearance on his Blind Pig debut, True To Yourself along with Austin session kingpins Riley Osborne on keyboards and B. E. Frosty Smith on drums. Produced by Jim Gaines, the CD garnered enthusiastic reviews and was well received by new fans and old fans alike. Albert’s second Blind Pig release, Working Man, another Jim Gaines production, opened with Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues,” a reference to his ”Other Guy” role as a builder. About that album Cummings told BluesWax, “I’m starting to realize how my voice is my instrument. I used to hide behind the guitar more and use the voice as the secondary, but now it’s rivaling the guitar.” Today, The “Other Guy” competes for time with Albert The Builder. During the day, Cummings builds multi-million dollar homes that have made him the talk of builders around the country and have been featured on numerous trade magazine covers. Cummings finds his construction work helps him relate to his fans. “I’ll go somewhere where nobody knows me. They think I’m some great super human that can play the guitar and sing. They realize, “No, he’s not. He’s a builder, man. He’s like a regular guy. He’s like the guy you meet at the coffee shop and hang out with. And that’s the thing.” © Don Wilcock, © 2006 Blind Pig Records, a division of Whole Hog, Inc. - All Rights Reserved

SHORT BIO

Albert Cummings was born in Williamston, MA, and has made his home in the New England region all his life, where he runs a successful home construction business. He started playing the five-string banjo when he was 12 and appeared headed for a regional career in bluegrass when he encountered the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan in his late teens, and soon made the transition to electric guitar. His first public performance on guitar came at a wedding reception when he was 27 years old, but soon he was on the Northeast blues circuit with his band, Swamp Yankee, and an independent CD, The Long Way, was released in 1999. A chance encounter with Vaughan's old band, Double Trouble, led to Cummings' first solo record, From the Heart, which was recorded in Austin, TX, and featured Cummings fronting Double Trouble. The record was self-released by Cummings, but was soon picked up for distribution by Under the Radar and released in 2003. Cummings' soulful and explosive approach to blues and rock caught the attention of Blind Pig Records, which signed him to a multi-album deal. His debut album on the label, True to Yourself, was released in 2004. He has since shared the bill with B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Charlie Musselwhite, John Hammond, Susan Tedeschi, Tommy Castro, Chris Duarte, Bernard Allison, the Neville Brothers, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Sheryl Crow and Duke Robillard. He released his third album, Working Man in 2006. © Steve Leggett, All Music Guide

MORE ABOUT ALBERT CUMMINGS

Breaking every cliché associated with the blues while producing some of the most powerful music of the 21st century comes as natural to Albert Cummings as swinging a hammer while constructing one of his award-winning custom built homes. The Massachusetts native learned the requisite three chords on the guitar from his father, but then switched to playing banjo at age 12 and became a fan of bluegrass music. Like everything he tackles, he threw himself headlong into the pursuit, going to festivals and winning several picking contests in high school. Before graduating he heard the early recordings of Stevie Ray Vaughan, however, and was floored by the virtuosity. While in college in 1987 he saw Vaughan perform and he returned to the guitar with a new outlook and resolve. He had another tradition to live up to first, however, and he studied the building trade in order to follow his family into the home building business. Not until he was 27, an age when other musicians were either already established or had long ago put their dream aside for the realities of life, did Albert finally decide to go for it. An intense period of wood shedding resulted Albert sharing a bill with Double Trouble, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rhythm section. So taken with Albert’s fire and passion were bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton that they volunteered to play on and produce his debut recording. In 2003 the aptly-titled From the Heart (Under the Radar), with the awesome power of a Nor’easter and the soul of a natural born artist. No less a giant of the blues than B.B. King, who Cummings acknowledged with a funky version of “Rock Me, Baby,” dubbed Cummings “…a great guitarist.” In an era of cowboy-hatted poseurs, Cumming delivered the goods straight from the heart and shoulder with a wallop generated by his talent rather than his wardrobe. A year later Double Trouble joined Cummings again as he signed with Blind Pig Records to create True to Yourself. This time they brought in legendary producer Jim Gaines to control the sessions. The all-original release further showcased Albert’s rapidly developing songwriting chops and deeply emotional vocals as well as stunning guitar pyrotechnics that put the metallurgical properties of his strings to the test. Tours and shows with blues legends B.B. King, Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy and others brought his music to an audience grateful for the opportunity to be rocked hard by a man possessed to play every song like his life depended on it. Working Man (Blind Pig), Albert’s summer of 2006 blockbuster release, is the culmination to date of a guitar hero’s career just taking off. A punchy, stomping cover of Merle Haggard’s blue collar standard “Working Man Blues” brings it all home for the master builder and musician. The swinging Texas blues of “Please,” the instant barroom boogie classic “Party Right Here,” the snaky slow drag “Rumors” and the rousing rocker “Feeling End” show variety well beyond the typical slow blues and shuffles of so much contemporary music. The deeply emotive ballad “Last Dance” that closes the disc is so evocative that a Hollywood movie could be written around it. Albert Cummings is a man of his times and the man for the times. As he has done with his innovative homes, he has taken tradition and built his own musical edifice that expresses his thoughts and dreams. It is a vision that alternately excites and soothes while also clearly providing a glimpse of his unlimited future. The best is yet to come. © bellyup4blues.com