In 1957, after two years as a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio at
Keflavík Air Base, in Iceland, Albertson migrated to the United States, initially working for radio stations in
Philadelphia. He was naturalised as an American citizen in 1963. In 1960–61, Albertson was employed by
Riverside Records'
Bill Grauer as a producer. In this capacity, he arranged and recorded the last sessions of blues singer
Ida Cox (whom he brought out of retirement) and
boogie-woogie pianist
Meade Lux Lewis, and supervised the label's 'Living Legends' series of location recordings. clarinetist
Louis Cottrell, Jr., trumpeters
Percy Humphrey and
Kid Thomas, blues duo Billie and
De de Pierce, and trombonist
Jim Robinson. He continued the series in Chicago, with performances by
Lil Armstrong,
Alberta Hunter,
Little Brother Montgomery, and
Earl Hines. Albertson subsequently worked as producer for
Prestige Records, supervising sessions by, among others, guitarist/singer
Lonnie Johnson, whom he had pulled from obscurity while working in Philadelphia. He also founded his own production company, supervising sessions with
Howard McGhee,
Roy Eldridge,
Bud Freeman,
Ray Bryant, and
Elmer Snowden. In the mid-1960s, Albertson worked at NYC radio station WNEW, leaving there for
Pacifica Radio's NY station
WBAI, where he eventually became General Manager. In 1967, he worked for the
BBC in London, advising them on how to adapt their radio programs for sale in North America. In 1971, Albertson co-produced and hosted
The Jazz Set, a weekly television program that was aired from coast to coast by
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
Public television and featured such guests as
Charles Mingus,
Bill Evans,
Randy Weston,
Jimmy Heath, and
Ray Bryant. At this time, he was also producing reissues for
Columbia Records, including the complete
Bessie Smith LP sets. His work on these albums won Albertson 1971 two
Grammy awards (one in the
Best Album Notes category for "The World's Greatest Blues Singer" and a
Grammy Trustees Award), a Billboard Trendsetter Award and the
Montreux Jazz Festival's Grand Prix du Disque. His standard work,
Bessie, a biography of Bessie Smith, first appeared in 1972, with a revised and expanded version published by Yale University Press in 2003. The revised biography was inducted into the Blues Foundation's
Blues Hall of Fame in the
Classic of Blues Literature Hall of Fame category in May 2012. In 2015,
HBO premiered a biopic,
Bessie, starring
Queen Latifah in the title role, but Albertson's book was not credited as its basis. Albertson wrote television documentaries, including
The Story of Jazz and ''My Castle's Rocking
(a bio-documentary on Alberta Hunter), as well as articles and reviews for various publications, including Saturday Review
and Down Beat. He was a contributing editor for Stereo Review'' magazine for 28 years. Albertson died at age 87 on April 24, 2019 in his Manhattan home.
The New York Times said, “His death was confirmed by Gary King, a longtime friend, who found Mr. Albertson's body. No cause was given, but he had been ill for some time, Mr. King said.” ==Notes==