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The Texas guitar tradition runs deep. It's a gutsy school
of blues playing, marked by thick tones, aggressive attack
and tons of technique, all delivered in a flamboyant, swaggering
style that is endemic to the Lone Star State. From T-Bone
Walker and Clarence Gatemouth Brown on through Albert Collins
and Freddie King, Billy Gibbons and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn,
the tradition of the Texas guitar slinger has lived on. One
name that ranks high up that exclusive list is Johnny Winter.
an international ambassador for rocking Texas blues for the
last thirty years.
Born in Beaumont, Texas on February 23, 1944 John Dawson
Winter III grew up surrounded by the blues, country and Cajun
music. His brother Edgar was born three years later and the
two showed an inclination toward music at an early age. As
Johnny told Down Beat Magazine, "We sang regularly, because
Daddy loved to sing harmony. He sang in a barbershop quartet
and in a church choir, so Edgar and I started singing as soon
as we were born, almost."
Johnny began playing clarinet at age five and switched to
ukulele a few years later. Johnny and Edgar began performing
as a duet in an Everly Brothers vein, winning talent contests
and appearing on local television shows. when Johnny was Ii
the Winter Brothers traveled to New York to audition for Ted
Mack's "Original Amateur hour". Soon after, their
first exposure to rock'n'roll came through the music of Little
Richard, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins and early Elvis Presley.
They began soaking up the sound of rhythm & blues from
DJ Clarence Garlow's Bon Ton Roulette Show on KJET radio in
Beaumont.
At age 14, Johnny organized his first band, Johnny and the
Jammers. with brother Edgar on piano. A year later, they cut
two songs at Bill Hall's Gulf Coast Recording Studios in Beaumont.
The singles School Day Blues and You Know I Love You came
out a month later on Houston-based Dart Records, gaining the
Winter brothers some local notoriety. Around this time, Johnny
began sitting in with DJ Clarence Garlow who performed around
town and had a regional hit with Bon Ton Roulette. Johnny
also frequented the Beaumont's all black Raven Club, where
the aspiring blues guitarist got to see such heroes as Muddy
Waters, B.B. King and Bobby Bland for the first time.
In the early 6O's, Johnny cut singles for regional labels
like KRCO, Frolic, Diamond, Goldband, Jim, and Todd. In 1963,
he moved to Chicago to check out the burgeoning blues scene.
Upon returning to Beaumont, Johnny cut Eternally a pop- flavored
number with horn arrangements by Edgar, which Atlantic Records
licensed. That tune became a big hit around the Texas-Louisiana
area and suddenly Johnny was opening up area coliseum shows
for the Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis. His regular band
around this time was alternately known as the Crystaliers.
It and them and Black' Plague featured Edgar on keyboards
and sax, Ikey Sweat on bass and Norman Samaha on drums. After
two-and-a-half years of barnstorming the Deep South, they
settled in Houston where they spent 1967 as the house band
at the Act III Club.
In 1968, Johnny began playing in a trio with bassist Tommy
Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner. Their gigs at places
like Austin's Vulcan Gas Company and Houston's Love Street
Light Circus attracted the attention of a Rolling Stone writer
who had been working on a piece about the Texas hippie scene.
The author devoted three paragraphs to Johnny, whom he referred
to as "the hottest item outside of Janis Joplin".
The article also created a flood of sudden interest in the
album THE PROGRESSIVE BLUES EXPERIMENT, a collection of straight
blues tunes that Johnny's trio had initially recorded at the
Vulcan Gas Company and which was quickly picked up for national
release by Imperial.
Johnny had been investigating the blues scene in England
just before the Rolling Stone issue came out. Upon returning
to Texas, he became the focus of a furious bidding war between
major labels, eventually signing to Columbia with a much ballyhooed
recording contract. His excellent debut LP, Johnny Winter,
was released late in 1968. A series of classic hard rock'n'roll
blues albums for Columbia followed: Second Winter (l969),
Still Alive and Well' (1973), and Saints and Sinners(1974).
Later in '74 Johnny joined the CBS affiliate label Blue Sky,
commencing with the rootsy John Dawson Winter III and Captured
Live (1976).
In 1977, Johnny fulfilled a dream by producing Muddy Water's
comeback album, Hard Again, which won a Grammy Award for Blue
Sky. They made a formidable team, following up that success
with the 1978's Grammy winner, I'm Ready, the 1979 Grammy
winner Muddy Mississippi Waters Live and 1980 King Bee. As
Johnny recalls of that period, "Working with Muddy made
me feel people were finally realizing that I'm not faking,
and can really play blues. I felt like those albums helped
me establish myself.". In1977, Johnny also used Muddy's
hand for one of his most acclaimed albums, the aptly named
Nothin' But The Blues.
Johnny's final projects for Blue Sky were 1978's White Hot
& Blue and 1980's Raisin' Cain. Following a four year
hiatus from recording, he returned with a blues-fueled vengeance
with his fine Alligator Records debut, the Grammy nominated
Guitar Slinger. Two equally strong, rootsy projects for the
label followed: l985's Serious Business, also nominated for
a Grammy and 1986's Third Degree recently listed in a book
by the author and Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame Archivist Robert
Santelli as one of the '101 essential blues albums'. Johnny
also produced and played on an album by blues harmonica great
Sonny Terry called I Think I Got The Blues, which was released
on Alligator. His venture for the MCA-distributed Voyager
label, The Winter of '88 was an attempt at crossing over with
a more contemporary flavored product.
Johnny Winter was definitely back on track as a no-frills
hard rocking bluesman with his Grammy-nominated Charisma/Point
Blank debut Let Me In. Co-produced by Dick Shurman, the respected
bluesologist who previously had a hand in Winter's three fine
Alligator albums, Let Me In highlights the Texas guitar slinger
at what be does best - burning shuffles, screaming slow blues,
rocking raw abandon and vocals charged with passion. The opening
track, Illustrated Man, was written especially with Johnny
in mind by Nashville tunesmith, Fred James and his wife Mary
Ann Brandon. Basically a catalog of all the many tattoos emblazoned
on Winter's skin, the song also featured Johnny's scorching
signature licks on his headless Lazer guitar (designed by
Austin luither, Mark Erlewine). The follow-up was 1992's Hey
Where's Your Brother? (Named after perhaps the most frequently
asked question Johnny has heard). It too displayed Johnny
Winter at the top of his form, melding the best of the blues
and rock 'n' roll with unsurpassed power and passion, helping
to insure his place as one of the most dependable and enduring
blues/rock stars of all time. Like Let Me In, it was produced
by Johnny and Dick Shurman and recorded in Chicago.
After a hiatus from recording except for a thrilling Highway
61 Revisited which highlighted Bob Dylan's 1992 30th anniversary
tribute (released on a Columbia CD and on a video), Johnny
and his band of longtime drummer Torn Compton and stalwart
bassist Mark Epstein took the stage at his home base, New
York City's Bottom Line, in April 1997, and recorded the hard-hitting
representative Johnny Winter Live In New York City '97 for
Pointblank, again with Shurman producing. Continuing the focus
of his two Pointblank studio albums, Johnny has chosen the
firm timeless ground of the blues. The recording follows the
standard format for Johnny's set: warm up on a smoking instrumental
medley; rock the blues on some vocals featuring his patented
Lazer guitar sound; switch over to showcase his incredible
slide chops and sound on what one audience member loudly calls
"the magic guitar", his trusty sunburst Gibson Firebird,
for two screamers; then deliver a crunching encore that goes
from Johnny's rocking blues anthem Johnny Guitar to a white
hot dose of New Orleans funk, Drop the Bomb! The crowd can
even be heard reacting near the end of Johnny's solo part
of the encore jam to another trademark: his twirl. Throughout,
the album conveys the spontaneity, creativity, rawness and
exuberant energy that are part of a peak bandstand experience.
As Johnny Winter Live In New York City 1997 makes joyously
clear, Johnny Winter remains a deep, powerfull and driving
blues artist, a commodity even more to be valued after the
recent untimely losses of so many of the music greats. Johnny
is more than just a survivor or nostalgia act; he's a vital
treasure who should be appreciated while we still have him
to savor, for what he has been and what be still is. Surely
the man who did so much to bring Muddy Waters such a glorious
final stage of his career deserves similar accolades while
he can enjoy them; they mean as much to him as he's meant
to his legion of loyal fans over the years. But this isn't
just a matter of sentiment or history, it's a matter of yet
another pile-driving serving of Johnny Winter's tradition-rooted,
but unique and legendarily masterful, take on the blues.
There's plenty to celebrate as long as Johnny is singing
'they call me Johnny Guitar. I'm comin' to play in your town"
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