DESPITE ALL THE hair metal, shred, synth-pop and early-stage hip-hop, the Eighties was actually an incredibly fertile period for blues guitar. Obviously, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble were among the primary forces behind the genre’s rebirth (in its traditional and/or modern forms); but, just as the British blues boom of the mid Sixties had inspired young listeners to look beyond Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor and rediscover an earlier generation of American blues masters, fans of the Vaughan brothers started to look backwards and rediscover their heroes’ heroes.
Interestingly, a lot of those heroes — including Albert Collins, Son Seals, Lonnie Mack, Johnny Winter and Roy Buchanan — had found a home on Chicago’s Alligator Records by the mid Eighties. It is against that backdrop that in 1985, Alligator released one of its most popular and successful albums, Showdown!, which brought together three guitar greats — Alligator Records star (and outright Texas legend) Albert Collins, young Strat hero Robert Cray and Mr. Texas Twister (and big-time Peavey T60 fan), Johnny Copeland.