Johnny Winter

All Music Guide:

When Johnny Winter emerged on the national scene in 1969, the hope, particularly in the record business, was that he would become a superstar on the scale of Jimi Hendrix, another blues-based rock guitarist and singer who preceded him by a few years. That never quite happened, but Winter did survive the high expectations of his early admirers to become a mature, respected blues musician with a strong sense of tradition.

He was born John Dawson Winter III in Leland, Mississippi, on February 23, 1944, and as an infant moved to Beaumont, Texas, where his brother Edgar Winter was born on December 28, 1946; both brothers were albinos. They turned to music early on, Johnny Winter learning to play the guitar, while Edgar Winter took up keyboards and saxophone. Before long they were playing professionally, and soon after that recording singles for small local record labels. Both of them were members of Johnny & the Jammers, whose 45 "School Day Blues"/"You Know I Love You" was released by Dart Records in 1959. Other singles, either credited to Winter or some group pseudonym, were released over the next several years, including "Gangster of Love"/"Eternally," initially issued by Frolic Records in 1963 and picked up for national distribution by Atlantic Records in 1964, and "Gone for Bad"/"I Won't Believe It," also a 1963 Frolic single that was licensed by MGM Records in 1965. Winter had his first taste of chart success with a version of "Harlem Shuffle," recorded by the Traits, which was released by Universal Records, then picked up by Scepter Records and spent two weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1966.

In 1968, Winter decided to focus exclusively on blues-rock, and he formed a trio with Tommy Shannon on bass and John "Red" Turner on drums. He signed with the Austin, Texas, label Sonobeat Records, and in August cut The Progressive Blues Experiment, released locally. His life was changed irrevocably with the publication of the December 7, 1968, issue of Rolling Stone magazine, which contained an article by Larry Sepulvado and John Burks about the Texas music scene. "The hottest item outside of Janis Joplin," they wrote, "… remains in Texas. If you can imagine a hundred and thirty-pound cross-eyed albino with long fleecy hair playing some of the gutsiest fluid blues guitar you have ever heard, then enter Johnny Winter." Among those who read the article was New York club owner Steve Paul, who hopped a plane to Texas and convinced Winter to hire him as manager. Paul set up a bidding war among major record labels that was won in February 1969 by CBS Records, which signed Winter for an advance of $600,000, the largest sum the label had ever paid to a new solo artist.

Winter quickly went into a recording studio with his band to cut his debut for CBS' Columbia label, but in the meantime other labels discovered that he had made a lot of recordings in his youth, and they began buying or leasing the early material. Imperial Records bought The Progressive Blues Experiment from Sonobeat and re-released it in March 1969; it entered the charts and peaked at number 40. Winter's Columbia debut, titled Johnny Winter, was released on April 15 and peaked at number 23. In August, GRT Records released The Johnny Winter Story, consisting of material recorded in the early ‘60s; it got to number 111. In October, Buddah Records followed with First Winter, and Janus Records released About Blues in November. (Unfortunately, repackagings of Winter's early recordings continued to litter his discography throughout his career.)

Meanwhile, Winter appeared at the Woodstock festival in August 1969. (In 2009, The Woodstock Experience, an album of his performance, was released.) His second Columbia album, Second Winter, was released in November 1969 and reached number 55. In the spring of 1970, he disbanded his trio and enlisted the former members of the McCoys to back him: Rick Derringer (guitar), Randy Jo Hobbs (bass), and Randy Z. (drums). The group was dubbed "Johnny Winter And." Their self-titled album was released in September and peaked at a disappointing number 154, but they followed with a concert collection, Live Johnny Winter And, released in February 1971, and it reached number 40; in 1974, it was certified gold. (In 2010, Collectors' Choice Music released another concert recording from the Johnny Winter And band, Live at the Fillmore East 10/3/70.)

Winter was not able to capitalize on the career momentum generated by the success of Live Johnny Winter And. He had become addicted to heroin and suffered from suicidal depression, as a result of which he suspended his career and went home to Beaumont. In this age before rehabilitation clinics, he was hospitalized, initially in Beaumont and then, for nine months, at River Oaks Hospital in New Orleans. His next appearance on disc was as a guest on Roadwork, the live album released by Edgar Winter's White Trash in March 1972, which was preceded by Edgar Winter's introduction in which he said people kept asking him, "Where's your brother?" Johnny Winter was not able to return to action full-time until the release of his comeback album, Still Alive and Well, in March 1973. The album, which featured "Silver Train," a song specially written for Winter by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, peaked at number 22.

Winter returned to touring. His next album, Saints & Sinners, appeared in February 1974 and peaked at number 42. Before the year was out, he had another one ready, and John Dawson Winter III, featuring "Rock & Roll People," a song specially written for Winter by John Lennon, was released in November, peaking at number 78. For Captured Live!, Winter was transferred to a Steve Paul-created custom label within CBS, Blue Sky Records. The album was released in February 1976 and peaked at number 93. Edgar Winter was also on Blue Sky, and the brothers combined for a live album, Together, released in June, which peaked at number 89.

Veteran bluesman Muddy Waters was signed to Blue Sky, and Winter became his producer on a comeback LP, Hard Again, released in February 1977. It won the Grammy Award for Best Blues Album. Winter toured with Waters' band, then took them into the studio for his next album, Nothin' But the Blues, released in July 1977. It peaked at number 146. Another Winter-produced Waters album, I'm Ready, came out in February 1978 and was another Grammy winner. Winter returned to working with his usual band for his next album, White, Hot & Blue; the album, released in July 1978, got to number 141. Raisin' Cain, recorded in more of a rock mode, appeared in March 1980 and failed to chart, concluding Winter's CBS contract.

Winter signed to the independent blues label Alligator Records, for which he made Guitar Slinger, released in May 1984. It returned him to the charts, and its follow-up, Serious Business (September 1985) was another chart entry. He completed his commitment to Alligator with 3rd Degree (November 1986). He was then signed by Voyager Records, distributed by MCA Records, for The Winter of '88 (October 1988). The album represented an attempt to take him in the more commercial direction of ZZ Top's synthesized blues-boogie, but the attempt backfired, and the album did not chart. Winter returned to more of a straight-ahead blues approach after signing to Virgin Records' Point Blank/Charisma imprint on his next album, Let Me In (July 1, 1991). He followed it with Hey, Where's Your Brother? (November 3, 1992).

Winter focused more on concert work than recording after the early '90s. For Live in NYC 1997 (March 10, 1998), he had fans vote on the tracks to be included. Six years passed before the release of I'm a Bluesman (June 15, 2004). Winter inaugurated a series of archival concert collections on Friday Music with Live Bootleg Series, Vol. 1 (October 9, 2007), which was followed by Vol. 2 (March 4, 2008), Vol. 3 (July 29, 2008), Vol. 4 (February 10, 2009), and Vol. 5 (June 30, 2009). Meanwhile, a concert appearance resulted in his first new album in five years, Live at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, released by Munck Mix on December 15, 2009. On January 12, 2010, he released Live Bootleg Series, Vol. 6. In September 2010, he announced that he had signed to Megaforce Records. His label debut, Roots, appeared in 2011.

Wikipedia:

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III (born February 23, 1944) is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters. Since his time with Waters, Johnny Winter has recorded several Grammy-nominated blues albums and continues to tour extensively. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, he was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Early career[edit]

Johnny Winter, along with his musician brother Edgar Winter, were nurtured at an early age by their parents in musical pursuits. Both Johnny and his brother, who were born with albinism, began performing at an early age. When he was ten years old, Winter appeared on a local children's show, playing ukelele and singing Everly Brothers songs with his brother.

His recording career began at the age of fifteen, when his band Johnny and the Jammers released "School Day Blues" on a Houston record label. During this same period, he was able to see performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland. In the early days Winter would sometimes sit in with Roy Head and the Traits when they performed in the Beaumont, Texas area, and in 1967, Winter recorded a single with the Traits: "Tramp" backed with "Parchman Farm" (Universal Records 30496). In 1968, he released his first album The Progressive Blues Experiment, on Austin's Sonobeat Records.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Signing with Columbia Records[edit]

Winter caught his biggest break in December 1968, when Mike Bloomfield, whom he met and jammed with in Chicago, invited him to sing and play a song during a Bloomfield and Al Kooper concert at the Fillmore East in New York. As it happened, representatives of Columbia Records (which had released the Top Ten Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills Super Session album) were at the concert. Winter played and sang B.B. King's "It's My Own Fault" to loud applause and, within a few days, was signed to reportedly what was then the largest advance in the history of the recording industry—$600,000.

Winter's first Columbia album, Johnny Winter, was recorded and released in 1969. It featured the same backing musicians with whom he had recorded The Progressive Blues Experiment, bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner, plus Edgar Winter on keyboards and saxophone, and (for his "Mean Mistreater") blues legends Willie Dixon on upright bass and Big Walter Horton on harmonica. The album featured a few selections that became Winter signature songs, including his composition "Dallas" (an acoustic blues, on which Winter played a steel-bodied, resonator guitar), John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson's "Good Morning Little School Girl", and B.B. King's "Be Careful With A Fool".

The album's success coincided with Imperial Records picking up The Progressive Blues Experiment for wider release. The same year, the Winter trio toured and performed at several rock festivals, including Woodstock. With brother Edgar added as a full member of the group, Winter also recorded his second album, Second Winter, in Nashville in 1969. The two-record album, which only had three recorded sides (the fourth was blank), introduced a couple more staples of Winter's concerts, including Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" and Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited". Also at this time Johnny entered into an intimate, albeit short-lived affair with Janis Joplin which culminated in a concert at New York's Madison Square Garden where Johnny joined the then reigning Queen of R&R on stage to sing and perform.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Unofficial albums[edit]

Contrary to urban legend, Johnny Winter did not perform with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison on the 1968 infamous Hendrix bootleg album Woke Up This Morning and found Myself Dead from New York City's Scene Club. According to Winter, "...I never even met Jim Morrison! There's a whole album of Jimi and Jim and I'm supposedly on the album but I don't think I am 'cause I never met Jim Morrison in my life! I'm sure I never, never played with Jim Morrison at all! I don't know how that [rumor] got started."

Beginning in 1969, the first of numerous Johnny Winter albums was released which were cobbled together from approximately fifteen singles (about 30 "sides") he recorded before signing with Columbia in 1969. Many were produced by Roy Ames, owner of Home Cooking Records/Clarity Music Publishing, who had briefly managed Winter. According to an article from the Houston Press, Winter left town for the express purpose of getting away from him. Ames died on August 14, 2003 of natural causes at age 66. As Ames left no obvious heirs, the ownership rights of the Ames master recordings remains unclear. As Winter stated in an interview when the subject of Roy Ames came up, "This guy has screwed so many people it makes me mad to even talk about him."Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Johnny Winter And[edit]

In 1970, when his brother Edgar released a solo album Entrance and formed Edgar Winter's White Trash, an R&B/jazz-rock group, the original trio disbanded. Johnny Winter then formed a new band with the remnants of The McCoys—guitarist Rick Derringer, bassist Randy Jo Hobbs, and drummer Randy Z (who was Derringer's brother, their family name being Zehringer). Originally to be called "Johnny Winter and The McCoys", the name was shortened to "Johnny Winter And", which was also the name of their first album. The album included Derringer's "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" and signaled a more rock-oriented direction for Winter. When Johnny Winter And began to tour, Randy Z was replaced with drummer Bobby Caldwell. Their mixture of the new rock songs with Winter's blues songs was captured on the live album Live Johnny Winter And. It included a new performance "It's My Own Fault", the song which brought Winter to the attention of Columbia Records.

Winter's momentum was throttled when he sank into heroin addiction during the Johnny Winter And days. After he sought treatment for and recovered from the addiction, Winter was courageously put in front of the music press by manager Steve Paul to discuss the addiction candidly. By 1973, he returned to the music scene with the release of Still Alive and Well, a basic blend between blues and hard rock, whose title track was written by Rick Derringer. His comeback concert at Long Island, N.Y.'s Nassau Colliseum featured the "And" line-up minus Rick Derringer and Bobby Caldwell. Performing on stage was also Johnny's wife Susie. The follow-up album, John Dawson Winter III featured Sweet Papa John, a highly-dubbed slow blues number written by Johnny, which also appeared in an extended version on the later issued "Captured Live." Saints & Sinners, continued the same direction; this was followed by another concert set, the aforementioned Captured Live!, which featured an extended performance of "Highway 61 Revisited". In 1975 Johnny returned to Bogalusa, Louisiana, to produce an album for Thunderhead, a local band which included Pat Rush and Bobby "T" Torello, who would later play with Winter.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Muddy Waters sessions[edit]

In live performances, Winter often told the story about how, as a child, he dreamed of playing with the blues guitarist Muddy Waters. In 1977, after Waters' long-time label Chess Records went out of business, he got his chance. Winter brought Waters into the studio to record Hard Again for Blue Sky Records, a label set up by Winter's manager and distributed by Columbia. In addition to producing the album, Winter played guitar with Waters veteran James Cotton on harmonica. Winter produced two more studio albums for Waters, I'm Ready (with Big Walter Horton on harmonica) and King Bee and a best-selling live album Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live. The partnership produced three Grammy Awards for Waters and an additional Grammy for Winter's own Nothin' But the Blues (Johnny Winter album), with backing by members of Waters' band. Waters told Deep Blues author Robert Palmer that Winter had done remarkable work in reproducing the sound and atmosphere of Waters's vintage Chess Records recordings of the 1950s. The albums gave Waters the highest profile and greatest financial successes of his life.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Later career[edit]

After his time with Blue Sky Records, Winter began recording for several labels, including Alligator, Point Blank, and Virgin, where he focused on blues-oriented material. In 2004, he received a Grammy Award nomination for his I’m a Bluesman album. Beginning in 2007, a series of live Winter albums titled the Live Bootleg Series and a live DVD have all entered the Top 10 Billboard Blues chart. In 2009, The Woodstock Experience album was released, which includes eight songs that Winter performed at the 1969 festival. In 2011, Johnny Winter released a new studio album titled Roots on Megaforce Records. It includes Winter's interpretation of eleven early blues and rock 'n' roll classics and features several guest artists (Vince Gill, Sonny Landreth, Susan Tedeschi, Edgar Winter, Warren Haynes, and Derek Trucks).

Winter has continued to perform live, including at festivals throughout North America and Europe. He has headlined such prestigious events as the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Chicago Blues Festival, the 2009 Sweden Rock Festival, The Warren Haynes Christmas Jam, and Rockpalast. He also performed with the Allman Brothers at the Beacon Theater in New York City on the 40th anniversary of their debut. In 2007 and 2010, Winter performed at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festivals. Two guitar instructional DVDs have been produced by Cherry Lane Music and the Hal Leonard Corporation. The Gibson Guitar Company released the signature Johnny Winter Firebird guitar in a ceremony in Nashville with Slash presenting.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Recognition[edit]

Winter produced three Grammy Award-winning albums by Muddy Waters, Hard Again (1977), I'm Ready (1978), and Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live (1979). Several Winter albums were also nominated for Grammy Awards. In 1980, Winter was on the cover of the first issue of Guitar World and in 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. There was a character in the video game Heavy Rain named after Winter.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).