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The
next Stevie Ray? Blues maven Albert Cummings.
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Zoned
for Success
At
home in Williamstown, Albert Cummings is just a regular guy
with a construction business. But when he straps on his Stratocaster,
the blues world takes notice
By
Erik Hage
There
seem to be two sides to Albert Cummings. One is the blues
guitarslinger and vocalist, a man who has toured with the
likes of B.B. King and played and recorded with (and become
a close ally of) Double Trouble, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rhythm
section. This Albert Cummings is fast becoming one of the
most renowned blues guitarist-songwriters to ever call our
region home, a man who stands on the stage lip with his Stratocaster
and goes deep into that other place, beyond thought and technique—call
it “the zone,” because the cliché works—and wrenches out heart-shredding
emotional storms that call to mind (in pure, screaming, visceral
impact) his hero Vaughan, who died in a helicopter crash in
1990.
But there’s also that other Albert Cummings: the way-down-to-earth
character who punctuates his anecdotes with a hearty laugh
and takes an attitude of utter wonderment toward his success,
coming off like an amused spectator of his own career. For
example: In recalling the drive down the Northway in the fall
of 2000 when Double Trouble’s Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton
told him they wanted to not only play on his next album
(From the Heart), but produce it, the 36-year-old
Cummings offers a deep, rich guffaw. It was right after the
second show he had ever played with the duo, and he was taking
them back to their hotel. (Their first gig had been the night
before at RPI’s Houston Field House.) “I was so floored that
I drove all the way down almost to Western Avenue. I missed
all the exits to Troy!” he says, laughing.
From
the Heart turned out to be the first time that Double
Trouble had been the sole producers of an album. It was also
the first time Layton, Shannon and keyboardist Reese Wynans
had backed an artist for an entire LP since Vaughan. “I still
don’t believe it happened,” Cummings says, once again cracking
up at his good fortune.
This “other” Albert Cummings is just a friendly, easy-to-talk-to
kind of guy; the kind of person you could blow the foam off
some beers and have a laugh with after a long workday. He’s
the fourth Albert of an old Williamstown, Mass., family—and
the fourth Albert to run a successful family construction
business. But he’s also got a spate of Midwestern shows to
play in the coming weeks. And his new LP, True to Yourself—on
blues label Blind Pig—is set to hit the streets at the end
of August. And he’s got a lot of people (national booking
agents, managers, label, fans and fellow musicians) expecting
a whole lot from him.
The new album was recorded both in Austin and at Memphis’
famed Ardent studios, with Jim Gaines, a producer who has
worked extensively with Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughan. But
Cummings wasn’t planning on working with Double Trouble this
time around, because, as he points out, “You get people who
say, ‘Aw, he’s [just] a Stevie Ray wannabe.’ I mean, I wish
I could play like Stevie Ray.” But his plans to break
away from the Vaughan legacy were thwarted when he mentioned
to Tommy Shannon, who had become a great friend in the intervening
years, that he was putting together a new album. “[Tommy]
said, ‘I’m going to be on your album or I’m going to kick
your ass,’” Cummings chuckles. “I was like, ‘OK, I guess I
got my bass player.’”
Cummings says the new album, all originals, is “a lot more
energetic—a little more driven” than its predecessor. “It
has a real live feel to it because a lot of it was spontaneous.”
That resulted from an increased comfort level in the studio
this time around. “The first time I was in the studio [for
From the Heart], Tommy Shannon joked that I had ‘red
light fever’ because every time the recording button would
go on, I would tense up.” In his defense, Cummings points
out, “Could you imagine sitting in the studio and having Double
Trouble lookin’ in on you? ‘Go ahead—perform. Entertain
us.’” (The album title actually came from some coaching that
Shannon gave Cummings in the studio: “Play from the heart.”)
Talk to Cummings about guitar playing, and one encounters
two issues: one, he’s extremely (overly) modest about what
he does, and two, he frequently talks about “the zone”—that
is, getting into that space beyond technique and thought.
(“He’s unconscious,” we used to say in high-school
basketball when a player went there.) “There’s an old line:
‘If you’re thinkin’, you’re stinkin’,” Cummings notes by way
of illustration. “I always try to get to that point—and sometimes
you just can’t. But when you get there, it’s a fun place to
be. . . . You just dial into that sixth sense.” Cummings says
he’s heard certain live recordings of his own shows, and it’s
like listening to another person. “I listen to it and I think,
‘Man, I’ve got to learn that.’”
Cummings says Shannon told him that “Stevie’d be on the road
and he’d grab a guitar and he’d be in that zone instantly.
He’d just go there, sitting in the corner of a hotel
room on a chair.” Shannon would look over, and Vaughan’s eyes
would have the sheen of someone who had simply checked out
for a while.
Like many of Cummings’ stories, the tale of his initial guitar
inspiration has to do with Vaughan, a sort of omnipresent
guiding spirit. Cummings had grown up playing five-string
banjo and cutting his teeth at impromptu jams at bluegrass
fests. But in 1987, as a 19-year-old student at Wentworth
College in Boston, he stumbled upon a Stevie Ray Vaughan &
Double Trouble show at the Orpheum completely by chance. Walking
by, he spotted two tour buses, one of them with a painting
on the side of a crossed Strat and Les Paul, like some kind
of blues-rocker coat of arms. Drawn in by the talisman, Cummings
realized who it was. “It was one of those life-changing moments,”
he says. At that instant, he said to himself, “I’ve got
to play guitar.”
As life would have it, the last time he saw Vaughan &
Double Trouble in concert was at RPI in the late ’80s. The
next time he saw Double Trouble play, he says, he was walking
on the same stage with them: “It was freaky.” The intervening
years had seen Cummings working at his construction business
and playing around the area with his band Swamp Yankee. He
had also gotten a big boost from the Northeast Blues Society
in the late ’90s and had become a Capital Region blues-guitar
favorite. Then his and Double Trouble’s paths crossed.
RPI was planning a “Blues Day” and looking to match up a national
headliner with the hottest local act. Absolutely joking, Cummings
told the organizers, “Why don’t you have Double Trouble play
with me?” A Cummings CD was sent to the duo and they agreed.
Soon Cummings found himself onstage with Shannon and Layton
and in the shoes of his idol. More live shows, an album, a
friendship and a music alliance followed. Afterward, drummer
Chris Layton was quoted as saying, “I dug Albert because I
felt I hadn’t run into anyone with as much enthusiasm and
excitement toward playing in a long time.”
That enthusiasm is palpable even in conversation. Cummings
has enough notches on his belt to start getting a little “over
it,” but it’s simply not happening. He talks about his new
album with almost giddy excitement and can’t wait for folks
to hear it. One senses that Cummings is making the most of
every moment. For example, when opening for B.B. King over
the course of 19 shows, Cummings would always wait until the
end of the night, after the concert—after King had talked
to sometimes a hundred people—for a chance to chat a little
with the master.
One night, in New Jersey, King sent one of his people to fetch
Cummings: “Mr. King wants to see you.”
“Oh
my God. What did I do wrong? Did I say something onstage?”
Cummings thought, because King runs a tight ship. Cummings
remembers that B.B. simply said, “Sit down, Albert,” and then,
“I just wanted to tell you that you were hot tonight.”
“It
was so unreal,” Cummings says. King also said he wanted to
take Cummings out on the road again in the future. With that
possibility and so many more tours on the horizon, Cummings
admits that it is sometimes a little difficult balancing the
construction business with music, but he notes that his wife
Christina helps manage things a lot, plus he has a great crew
of guys.
But what do the guys think of all these musical escapades?
“Aw, they all love it. They have their hobbies too . . . NASCAR
or whatever the guys are into. My hobby is music. But I guess
it’s becoming a heck of a lot more than a hobby.”
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