Albert Cummings

Albert Cummings (born 1968, Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States) is an American blues musician who is currently signed to Blind Pig Records.^[1] He also runs a successful home construction business in his New England home.^[2] He has played alongside B.B. King, Johnny Winter, and Buddy Guy.^[3]

Biography

Cummings started playing the five-string banjo at the age of twelve when his father's guitar was too big for his hands,^[4] and started learning basic chords and progressions. He later transitioned to playing guitar, being especially influenced in his college years by Stevie Ray Vaughan.^[4] In 1998, he walked into a Northeast Blues Society open jam, which led to Cummings’ winning the right to compete in the Blues Foundation’s 1999 International Blues Challenge. His first public guitar performance came in 1997, when he played at a wedding reception.^[2] In his late twenties he formed a band, Swamp Yankee, and in 1999 released an independently produced album, The Long Way. The trio spent two hours in a recording studio to record the nine songs for the album.

His next recording, 2003 From the Heart, was issued as an album with Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon, known as being part of Stevie Ray Vaughan's backing rhythm section. Serving as the album's producers, they also arranged a deal to ensure wider distribution. Only Shannon remained as the bassist for Cummings' next album. Two years later, in 2006, Cummings recorded a fourth album with new band members. He caught the attention of Blind Pig Records, who signed him to a multi-album deal beginning in 2004.^[5]

In 2008, Cummings released a live album Feels So Good, recorded at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This album is controversial as some believe it to have clips of a late 1990s recording that took place at the Rum Boogie Café in Memphis, Tennessee.

His 2012 album No Regrets debuted at No. 1 in the U.S., Canada and France on the iTunes Blues Charts and at No. 5 on the Billboard blues charts. In a 2012 interview, he called it his No Regrets his "best album yet".^[4]

In July 2015, Cummings released Someone Like You, a 12-track Blind Pig album produced by David Z.^[6]

Discography

• The Long Way (Albert Cummings and Swamp Yankee), 2000
• From the Heart, 2003
• True to Yourself, 2004
• Working Man, 2006
• Feel So Good, 2008
• No Regrets, 2012
• Someone Like You, 2015^[7]

References

External links

• Official Albert Cummings Official Site
• Blind Pig Records Official Site
• 2005 Interview with Brian D. Holland of Modern Guitars Magazine
• CNNmoney.com article - February 13, 2006
• Elmore Magazine Someone Like You 2015 article