Nothin' But the Blues

Performer: Johnny Winter
Artist: Muddy Waters
Distributor: Sony Music Entertainment

Notes: One of Johnny Winter's most popular albums of the '70s, 1977's NOTHIN' BUT THE BLUES is a solid blues-rock effort. Like most of his Columbia output, NOTHIN' BUT THE BLUES--title aside--hews closer to the rock side of the blues-rock equation, sounding closer to a rootsier Eric Clapton or a more traditional ZZ Top than to, say, Bobby "Blue" Bland or Muddy Waters. This despite the fact that Waters, along with harp player Jimmy Cotton and pianist extraordinaire Pinetop Perkins, guests on the album. Aside from these heavy friends, Winter shoulders most of the burden for this album himself, writing all the songs except for Waters' "Walking Through the Park," and not only playing almost all of the guitars but a good chunk of the bass and drums as well. The one-man band tracks lack some of the immediacy of a good solid blues trio playing live, but Winter acquits himself very well.

Texan blues guitarist Johnny Winter, surely the first albino blues guitar hero, was already a convincing artist in the '60s when still in his teens. At the dawn of the '70s, he embraced the sound of the time, adopting a louder, more frenetic blues-rock style. Backed by the McCoys, including guitarist Rick Derringer, he released a series of classic blues-rock albums, while his keyboard-playing brother Edgar, with whom Johnny played on and off over the years, achieved stardom in his own right. At the end of the '70s, Winter produced Muddy Waters, helping him make a triumphant comeback. In the ensuing decades, Winter maintained a prolific schedule of touring and recording.

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