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He was educated in Iceland, Denmark and England before studying commercial art in Copenhagen. In 1947, Albertson made a discovery which was to change his life when he happened upon a Bessie Smith recording on the Danish radio; it led to an abiding interest in jazz and blues music. On his home tape machine, Albertson recorded visiting British New Orleans revivalist s Ken Colyer , Chris Barber and Lonnie DoneganLonnie Donegan ( April 29, 1931- November 3, 2002) was a skiffle musician, possibly the most famous of them all. He is sometimes called the King of Skiffle and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in in 19531953 is a common year starting on Thursday (click on link for the calendar). Events January events January 7 President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. January 13 Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugosl. These recordings were subsequently released on the Danish Storyville RecordsStoryville Records is a Denmark based record label set up in 1950 by jazz fan Karl Knudsen. It specializes in jazz and blues music. It was named after Storyville, a neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana sometimes associated with the early days of jazz. and BritishThe word British has several different uses. See the article on Britain for more details. In a geographical context, it usually applies to a person or object from, or the people or nation of ("the British") the island of Great Britain though, confusingly, Tempo RecordsTempo Records was a mid- 20th century United States based record label, headquartered in Hollywood, California. TEMPO Records was run by Irving B. This company worked with the Navy in the early 1960s. List of record labels Record labels. labels, and remain in the former's catalog.

In 1957Events January January 2 San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge. January 3 Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch January 4 After 69 years the last issue of Colliers magazine is published January 5 Russell Endean becomes t, Albertson migrated to the United States (naturalised 1963) initially working in commercial radio in Philadelphia, WCAU (a CBS affiliate) and WHAT-FM, a 24-hour jazz station. At these stations, he conducted a number of interviews, including a rare one with Lester Young, one of only two extant with the tenor-saxophonist.

In 1960- 61 he 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 legendary boogie woogie pianist Meade Lux Lewis, and supervised the label's memorable Living Legends series of location recordings. The initial albums in this series were made in New Orleans and featured such pioneer jazz musicians as pianist Sweet Emma Barrett , clarinetist Louis Cottrell , trumpeters Percy Humphrey and Kid Thomas, blues duo Billie and Dede 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 started his own production company, supervising sessions that included Howard McGhee , Roy Eldridge, Bud Freeman , Ray Bryant , and Elmer Snowden. In the mid-sixties, following a period as general manager of Pacifica station, WBAI, in New York, Albertson went to work for the BBC in London, advising them on how to adapt their radio programmes 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 the PBS network 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, most notably the complete Bessie Smith sets. His work on these sets won Albertson two Grammy awards, a Billboard Trendsetter Award, and the Montreaux Jazz Festival's Grand Prix du Disque. His standard work Bessie," a biography of Bessie Smith first appeared in 1973, with a revised and expanded version published in 2003). Albertson has written articles for various publications, including Saturday Review and Down Beat, and he was a contributing editor for Stereo Review magazine for twenty-eight years.

In recent years, Albertson has been a prominent contributor to several jazz bulletin boards on the internet, and he is currently working on an autobiography.