![]() Their relaxed Chicago-approved whomp smoothed down Winter’s tendency towards hyperthyroid excess without dimming his fire or softening his punch, and he rose to the occasion with some of the most passionate and authentic performances of his career. In the immediate wake of his triumphant production of Muddy Waters’ 1977 comeback album Hard Again and the subsequent tour, Winter took the same band – including James Cotton (harp), Pinetop Perkins (piano) and the great Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith (drums), not to mention The Big Mud himself stepping up for a duet vocal on Walkin’ Through The Park – into the same studio to cut an album of his own. Superior (The releases that built his reputation)Ĭareer-defining performances with Muddy Waters’ band. Relegated to the vaults after Winter dumped his original band in favour of the former McCoys, it was replaced on the release schedule by the subtle-it-ain’t-overwhelming-it-is Live Johnny Winter And, loaded with nuggets such as Good Morning Little Schoolgirl and Jumpin’ Jack Flash, which turned out to be his all-time bestseller. His official major-label debut was both underweight and overcooked, lacking the raw spontaneity of his Austin demos, but the ‘three-sided’ Second Winter brought it all home, mapping JW’s blues-rock landscape in all its idiosyncratic glory.Īdding younger brother Edgar to the team on sax and keys, it had a great Richard Avedon sleeve-shot and a prime selection of originals and covers, including the 120mph fireball version of Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Little Richard’s Miss Ann slowed down to a languorous Lowell Fulson-style shuffle and a hectic sprint through Chuckleberry’s Johnny B Goode which should be entirely unnecessary but somehow isn’t.Īnd the home-brewed tunes which made up the final vinyl side were just spectacular: the stomping slide epics I Love Everybody and Fast Life Rider, the hyper-speed Hustled Down In Texas and the jazzy I Hate Everybody all revealed Winter to be more than just another white boy lost in the blues.Īnd, to add to this embarrassment of Roadhouse Deluxe riches, the Legacy edition comes bundled with a scorchio 1970 live set cut at the Albert Hall (and including an early version of bro’ Edgar’s Frankenstein, not to mention his finest enraged-bee vocal impression on the Nashville Teens’ Tobacco Road). Writing in Rolling Stone magazine, after Winter’s death, David Marchese said, “Winter was one of the first blues rock guitar virtuosos, releasing a string of popular and fiery albums in the late Sixties and early Seventies, becoming an arena-level concert draw in the process” … “made an iconic life for himself by playing the blues”.Johnny Winter performing with Muddy Waters (Image credit: Getty)Ĭombines scorching covers and stomping originals to spectacular effect. ![]() He was found dead in his hotel room two days after his last performance. Johnny Winter was professionally active until the time of his death near Zürich, Switzerland, on July 16, 2014. In 2003, he was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the first non-African-American performer to be inducted into the Hall. In 1980, Winter was on the cover of the first issue of Guitar World. King International Artist of The Year Award. At the 18th Maple Blues Awards in 2015, Winter was also posthumously awarded the B.B. The album also won the 2015 Blues Music Award for Best Rock Blues Album. In 2015 Johnny Winter posthumously won the Grammy Award for Best Blues Album for Step Back. Several of Winter’s own albums were nominated for Grammy Awards – Guitar Slinger (1984) and Serious Business (1985) for Best Traditional Blues Album, and Let Me In (1991) and I’m a Bluesman (2004) for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Johnny Winter produced three Grammy Award-winning albums by Muddy Waters – Hard Again (1977), I’m Ready (1978), and Muddy “Mississippi” Waters – Live (1979). HEY LOCO FANS – Happy Birthday to Texas Blues Legend Johnny Winter who was born this day in 1944! Winter was best known for his high-energy blues rock albums and live performances in the late 1960s and 1970s.
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