Albert Washington, a blind singer and songwriter, devoted the greater part of his working life to performances in blues clubs throughout Cincinnati, Ohio and near his Long Island, N.Y. residence. Iris Records issued two of his albums during the 1990s, Step It Up and Go in 1993 and A Brighter Day in 1994.
One of Jerry and Helen Washington’s four children, Albert revealed an early passion for blues and gospel. He recalled trying to play his uncle’s guitar at age five; at seven he assembled a homemade instrument from a gasoline can fitted with rubber bands for strings. After his father’s death when he was nine, he took an after-school dishwashing job to ease his mother’s financial burden. In his teens the family moved to Newport, Kentucky, where his mother supported continued gospel singing yet discouraged blues. At sixteen he joined the Gospelaires, then recording for Don Robey’s Duke and Peacock labels in Houston, and soon afterward formed his own gospel outfit, the Washington Singers. Throughout his late teens he slipped into nearby Cincinnati blues clubs whenever possible, absorbing the styles of Sam Cooke, Big Maybelle, Charles Brown, and Amos Milburn.
Washington named B.B. King as the chief influence on his singing and guitar playing, an approach already steeped in gospel roots. Following his mother’s death he began performing blues regularly at Cincinnati’s Vet’s Inn, working with the house band for sixteen years. His first single appeared in 1962 on the local Finch label and was later issued by Bluestown. The 1964 VLM singles, including his own composition “Haven’t Got a Friend,” drew notice in England and secured a 1966 contract with Fraternity Records; Lonnie Mack guested on several Fraternity sides cut in 1969. Two more singles followed on the Jewel label in 1970, before his debut LP for Detroit’s Eastbound Records in 1972.
Complications from diabetes ultimately robbed Washington of his sight and left his career dormant from the mid-1970s into the early 1990s.
Even so, the same hardships and the debilitating effects of diabetes never altered his fundamentally upbeat outlook.
Iris Records, operating from Long Island, released Step It Up and Go in January 1993, his first recording in two decades. He resumed regional touring and resumed playing clubs across Long Island. France’s Academie Du Jazz named the 1994 follow-up A Brighter Day one of the year’s three best blues albums. Washington continued performing in Long Island blues clubs until his death from diabetes complications on October 23, 1998.
