![]() It was the first time I ever played in front of a black audience. King, “ He didn’t know if I could play or not, and I showed him. Johnny Winter was the first non-African American to be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1988, an honour befitting this frettage arsonist new word - guitarsonist! He could light a fire with the best of them, like the night he was reluctantly called up on stage, at age 17, with none other than B.B. Here the throbbing cadence behind incendiary riffs and barking vocals mix to blues/rock perfection, so delicious that Dylan himself adapted the style for his live performances. ![]() Not unlike what Jimi Hendrix did to Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, (made it his own), Winter brings the Beaumont Texas (his hometown) blues punch to another of Dylan’s masterpieces: Highway 61 Revisited. Winter’s own concoctions such as the raucous swing of I Hate Everybody, the machine- gunned guitar licks on Hustled Down in Texas, and the salty blues/rock bite on I Love Everybody attest to the man’s commitment to fine-honed sound and groove. Other reworked classics are Little Richard’ s Slippin’ and Slidin’ and Miss Ann, plus the aforementioned The Good Love by Dennis Collins, which contain such scorching, searing solos on Johnny’s axe, “ I don’t want to wreck nobody’s soul, I just want to rock & oove me”. The song is clean and crisp, peppered by some of Edgar’s honky-tonk piano licks, and JW rips riffs that would put most guitarists on alert. Goode in a rock and rolling romp that would make the author proud. ![]() His band features his younger brother Edgar Winter on piano, organ, harpsichord and alto sax, Tommy Shannon on bass, ( Dennis Collins plays bass on The Good Love), drummer “ Uncle” John Turner, while Johnny man-handles lead guitar, mandolin and vocals. His voice, full of crushed rock and pitch perfect range is simply awesome here. The record opens with a raw, blistering eruption of Percy Mayfield’ s Memory Pain that has Winter blazing away on one of his many Gibson Firebirds, (likely his preferred Firebird V from ‘63), over a funk-filled bassline. It shows the famed bluesman in something of a transitional move towards rock and roll, honky-tonk, and swing, with raging energy and imagination that is an improvement from his self-titled album Johnny Winter, of the same year. Johnny “ the Texas Albino” Winter cut his second record for Columbia Records in 1969 titled Second Winter, an 11-song, 3-sided album (2 LPs, the fourth side was left blank) that some consider to be his finest work. ![]()
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