Don't Lose Your Cool is Albert Collins's fourth studio record for Alligator, released in March 1983 (catalog AL 4730) and the first Alligator album officially billed to "Albert Collins and the Icebreakers." It was recorded and mixed at Red Label Recording in Winnetka, Illinois, co-produced by Collins with Dick Shurman, and it's a tighter, more horn-driven record than most of what he'd been cutting. The title track revisits one of his Texas-era hits in an all-new arrangement.
The Icebreakers lineup is stacked: Chris Foreman on keyboards, A.C. Reed and Abb Locke on tenors, Dino Spells on alto, Johnny B. Gayden on bass, Larry Burton on second guitar, and Casey Jones on drums and co-vocals. That's a horn-heavy, road-tested nine-piece that could swing, shuffle, or funk whatever needed to happen.
Cool stuff:
- Title track is a remake "Don't Lose Your Cool" was originally one of Collins's big Texas-era singles before Alligator; this is his own mature reimagining of it.
- Guitar Slim cover The album's "Quicksand" is from Guitar Slim, one of Collins's biggest influences and the godfather of wild blues-guitar showmanship.
- Percy Mayfield deep cut "My Mind Is Trying to Leave Me" was written by Mayfield, who Collins loved as a singer; covering him on a blues record was a tell about where Collins's ear really lived.
- Three-horn Icebreakers Reed, Locke, and Spells form a full three-tenor/alto front line — the biggest horn section on any Collins studio record.
Spin it for: horn-heavy early-'80s Texas blues from the Master of the Telecaster's tightest road band.
Standouts: "Don't Lose Your Cool" · "Quicksand" · "My Mind Is Trying to Leave Me" · "Get to Gettin'"
Sources: Wikipedia — Don't Lose Your Cool · Alligator Records · Discogs release · Bandcamp