Albert Cummings Believe 180g LP (Blue Vinyl)

TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: Informal

TAS Rated 4/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the May/June 2020 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

One Of TAS' Ten Best Roots Albums of 2020!

It's been said that you don't seek out the blues - it seeks out you. For guitar virtuoso Albert Cummings, no words could ring more true. Cummings' masterful guitar wizardry has drawn comparisons to iconic axe legends Albert King, Freddie King, Jimi Hendrix, and even his own musical inspiration, Stevie Ray Vaughan. He has graced the stage with such esteemed luminaries as Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter, Susan Tedeschi, Sheryl Crow, and B.B. King, who called Cummings "a great guitarist".

Raised in Massachusetts and trained as a master builder, Cummings learned basic guitar chords from his father but then became intrigued with banjo and bluegrass when he was twelve. As a teenager, however, he discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan's early material and was astonished by Vaughan's mastery. It was then that Cummings picked up the guitar again and never looked back. It wasn't until he was twenty-seven that Cummings publicly played with a band for the first time - and that was all it took for him to hit the ground running with his band, Swamp Yankee. In 2003 Cummings released his first solo record, 'From the Heart', which later earned him a record deal with Blind Pig Records, and went on to secure a Blues Music Award nomination in 2017 for Best Rock Blues Album for his self-released 'Live At The '62 Center'.

Freshly signed to Provogue Records, Cummings joins the elite ranks of such guitar legends as Joe Bonamassa, Walter Trout, and Eric Gales. "It's such an honor to be a part of a label that helped shape the careers of the greatest guitar players the world has ever known," states Cummings. "I'm certain that Provogue is the right home for me, and I look forward to working with them and putting out new music to my loyal supporters".

Cummings' guitar work is sizzling

2020's first outstanding blues album opens with a blast of Stax-style horns announcing something special is at hand. Indeed, as the song unfolds with some tasty Clayton Ivy keyboards underpinning the maelstrom, Albert Cummings' gritty, measured vocal, complemented by a powerhouse female duo, signals a fresh take on the Sam & Dave classic, 'Hold On' - more bluesy and more deliberate until Cummings cuts loose with a screaming, sizzling Strat solo that elevates the whole enterprise to a higher plane. Thus the template for 'Believe': five originals interspersed among diamonds from Willie Dixon, Van Morrison, and Leon Russell along with the above-mentioned Isaac Hayes-Dave Porter monument... Throughout, the imaginative vitality of Cummings' guitar solos adds revelatory textures to the narratives, as his assured vocals, engaging and impassioned at every turn, deepen the emotions he explores here. Believe it.