Albert Cummings will release his sixth album titled No Regrets on August 28, 2012 via the Ivy Music Company. Poignantly capturing the core of his influences, and displaying the impact that R&B, Rock, Soul, Country and the Blues have had on both his playing and writing, No Regrets is everything the guitarist aimed to capture when returning to the studio. Cummings shares, “This album is really who I am, as an artist and a man. It’s a return to my true musical roots and the first step in really defining my identity as a mature artist. I approached this with one intent – deliver a collection of great songs that I’ll be proud to perform for the rest of my life without feeling confined to a specific genre. I am a Blues man, and I will always be one, but inevitably that foundation now reveals a couple of other floors being constructed as the house rises.”
Cummings, who has built a reputation on stages across the globe as a brawny Stevie Ray Vaughan-inspired muso, revealed a more varied and personal space with these Jim Gaines produced recordings. He reveals, “A lot of my fans don’t know that I started playing bluegrass on the five-string banjo and listening to country music. I didn’t listen to rock ‘n’ roll or even blues until I heard Stevie Ray Vaughan when I was in high school. And hearing Stevie changed my life. Immediately, I knew what I wanted to do. Now, in my position, I have complete artistic freedom, which means the music on No Regrets is really me without any filters.”
Cummings started playing banjo before his teens. Although his roots in music made by the likes of Bill Monroe, Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings are just starting to emerge in his own compositions, his early banjo finger picking style has long helped to make him a unique guitarist. After hearing Vaughan, Cummings turned to the Stratocaster and blues, devouring albums by his legendary Texas hero and by Vaughan’s influences, but carefully crafting a style all his own. In 1999 he released his self-made debut The Long Way, but his next album, 2003’s From The Heart, featured and was produced by Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, a/k/a Vaughan’s rhythm section Double Trouble. “Having them hear something in my playing that made them want to work with me was an incredible honor,” Cummings says.
True To Yourself, in 2004, began Cummings’ still-standing alliance with producer Jim Gaines, whose credits include John Lee Hooker, Santana, Huey Lewis, Tower of Power, Walter Trout and a host of other blues, rock and R&B luminaries. Next came Working Man and Feel So Good, in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Those releases cemented his reputation as one of contemporary blues guitar’s leading lights. Cummings is proud of No Regrets, and reveals, “At the end of the day, you have to be yourself or you don’t have anything to offer as an artist. And right now, this is really who I am. These are my thoughts. I’ve got my own thing and my own sound. Hopefully this is the foundation of the big house that I want to build for my music, and inevitably with that the audience and my fans will connect to these songs that mean so much to me.”
The available is available for pre-order here: http://www.albertcummingsstore.com/product/AC-CD6/Albert-Cummings—No-Regrets-CD-Presale.html