In fact, the stories of his hard living were better known to me than his musical history.Įdgar gave me many of his albums and many of Johnny’s albums and had me pay particular attention to Johnny’s albums “Johnny Winter And…” and “Second Winter”. And by the time I had met Johnny he was sitting down to play and was looking addled and a lot older than his years. Many of my guitar player friends asked me if I had met Johnny Winter and was he really any good or just another sloppy “blues man”. And I just kinda said “…yeah yeah yeah…” while rolling my eyes. While we got to know each other he often told me that Johnny was the shit back in the day, he was all fire etc etc etc…. Without digressing any further from Johnny, I only wish to make the point that while I had been into the blues in the modern sense, I had finally come to appreciate, love and understand it, for real, in the more traditional sense.Ĭut to many years later, and I get the gig with Johnny’s younger bro, Edgar Winter. Through SRV I came to Hendrix, and then onto the past masters. SRV had just died and I listened to him and loved it. In my late teens I finally got Hendrix whom to that point I had despised. Not traditional blues by any means, but a new, modern, highly stylized blues. My exposure to the blues was limited to Angus, Eddie, Warren, Yngwie (sometimes bluesy), etc etc. I came up in the time of Eddie Van Halen (Long may He Rule) and other 80’s metal gods of shred. Im not sure but, someone, sometime played me some Johnny Winter and, to be honest, I wasn’t impressed. I knew the image: Bluesman with the voodoo hat and the uber-bright blue tattoos. Not unlike a kid who’s into baseball and has an “awareness” of The Babe. I thought I’d share my thoughts and my experiences with Johnny.Īs a guitar player, Johnny was always in my consciousness. This helped secure a substantial recording contract from Columbia Records in 1969 that led to an appearance at the Woodstock Festival and gave him a wide following among college students and young blues fans.Ĭrowds were dazzled by the speed - and volume - of his guitar playing, which had its roots in urban blues but incorporated elements of rock ’n’ roll.Johnny Winter passed away this week. His career received a big boost early on when Rolling Stone singled him out as one of the best blues guitarists on the Texas scene. But his addiction problems with heroin during that decade and later battles with alcohol and prescription medication, including methadone, also drew attention. Winter was one of the most popular live acts of the early 1970s, when his signature fast blues guitar solos attracted a wide following. He was the older brother of Edgar Winter, also an albino, who rose to musical fame with the Edgar Winter Group. 23, 1944, in Mississippi, but was raised in Beaumont, Texas. The tour, a documentary that premiered at the SXSW Festival exploring his music, youth and substance abuse battles, and a newly released four-CD set of recordings were all part of Winter’s celebration of turning 70 this year. His last performance was on Saturday at the Lovely Days Festival in Wiesen, Austria. Winter had been on an extensive tour this year that recently brought him to Europe. There was no immediate word on the cause of death. The statement said his wife, family and bandmates were all saddened by the loss of one of the world’s finest guitarists. His representative, Carla Parisi, confirmed Thursday that Winter died in a hotel room in Zurich a day earlier.