The Johnny Winter Anthology

Performer: Johnny Winter
Engineer: Ray Thompson; Shelly Yakus
Producer: Jeff Palo; Dick Shurman; Johnny Winter; Rick Derringer; Shelly Yakus; Tom Hambridge; Rim Kelley; Bill Josey; Bruce Iglauer; David McLees (Compilation); Robert Y. Kim (Compilation)
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel: Johnny Winter (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, slide guitar, harp, mandolin, drums); Rick Derringer (vocals, guitar, slide guitar, background vocals); Randy Jo Hobbs (vocals, background vocals); Muddy Waters (vocals); Dan Hartman (guitar, piano, background vocals); Floyd Radford, Pat Rush (guitar); Jon Paris (harmonica, bass guitar, background vocals); Edgar Winter (saxophone, alto saxophone, piano, harpsichord, organ, keyboards); Tom Strohman (alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone); Albert Wynn Butler, Terry Ogolini (tenor saxophone); Norman Ray, Steve Eisen (baritone saxophone); Karl Garin, Don Tenuto (trumpet); Jim Exum (trombone); Mark "Moogy" Klingman, Pinetop Perkins (piano); Ken Saydak (keyboards); Jeff Ganz (upright bass, electric bass, 8-string bass, fretless bass); Tommy Shannon, Charles Calmese (electric bass); Tom Compton (drums, percussion); Tom Hambridge, Bobby Torello (drums, background vocals); Bobby Caldwell , Red Turner, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Richard Hughes, Chuck Ruff (drums); Dave Still (tambourine); Barbara Massey, Peggy Bowers, Elsie Senter, Carrie Hossell, Lani Groves, Mark Epstein, Tasha Thomas, Carl Hall (background vocals). Recording information: Bill Graham's Fillmore East, NY; Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, CA; Pirate's World, Dania, FL; Royal Albert Hall, London, England; Sports Arena, San Diego, CA; Swing Auditorium, San Bernadino, CA; The Bottom Line, New York, NY; The Vulcan Gas Company Nightclub, Austin, TX. Johnny Winter has been delivering his hard-edged brand of Texas blues to the world at large since the 1960s, and this two-disc collection covers nearly every phase of his long career. Winter's blues roots were so deep that he was able to produce and play on some of Muddy Waters' greatest latter-day records, but as we hear over the course of THE JOHNNY WINTER ANTHOLOGY, he often hopped back and forth across the line between blues and rock. He brings a rock & roll energy and freneticism to blues standards like "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and "Rollin' and Tumblin'," but his take on blues-rock is more rooted than most, even when he's pushing the pedal to the floor on a cover of Rick Derringer's classic-rock chestnut "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo." In the absence of a proper Johnny Winter box set, one that chronicles the best tracks from The Progressive Blues Experiment through his brilliant tenure with Columbia Records and its subsidiaries, one that digs deep into his work as a recording artist as well as a producer of Muddy Waters' fine last recordings, this will have to do. And as such, it does pretty well. Shout Factory has assembled a two-disc collection here; it contains 35 cuts that cross-license music from 1967 through to 2004 on Imperial, Columbia, Blue Sky (a defunct Columbia imprint), Alligator, Pointblank, and Virgin. Some fans might be deeply satisfied with this set because it concentrates on Winter's more ferocious guitar wizardry and his blues and roots rock pedigrees. The set commences with "Rollin' and Tumblin'" from 1967's The Progressive Blues Experiment and then jumps right into the Columbia years with his cover of B.B. King's "Be Careful with a Fool," "Country Girl," and "I'm Yours and I'm Hers" from his raucous self-titled debut for the label in 1969, recorded with Uncle John Turner and Tommy Shannon, who would later become Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble. Tracks from Second Winter, Johnny Winter And, Live Johnny Winter And, Still Alive and Well, Saints & Sinners, John Dawson Winter III, Captured Live!, Together: Johnny and Edgar Winter, White Hot & Blue, Raisin' Cain, and Nothin' But the Blues are included. The final four tracks are from his later labels, and bottom line don't really measure up to the Columbia material. So what's the problem? For starters, the early records, those recorded between 1969 and 1974, are all rich, deep, and varied. Winter plays acoustic as well as electric, and there is a real lack of the acoustic tracks here. Next, the middle period of the Columbia albums, the ones where Winter really brought the electric blues to what was then the mainstream of hard rock, are given short shrift -- particularly Still Alive and Well and Saints & Sinners. Finally, Winter served as producer and guitarist on two of Muddy Waters' final three records, and sent the great bluesman -- and his inspiration -- out like a lion. These recordings appeared on Blue Sky and there isn't a track from either of them here, which is inexcusable. That said, what is included provides little to complain about. The rock fans will love that the live rock & roll medley is here, as well as the original studio version of "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo," and some may be thrilled to find "Self-Destructive Blues" and the latter-year cover of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" to accompany the version he did of the bard's "Highway 61 Revisited" from Second Winter. So, while it is quite incomplete, it's a solid Winter mix, and one that does get to the real spirit of the artist, even if it doesn't capture the depth and range of his craft. ~ Thom Jurek

Dirty Linen (p.54) - "With his covers of 'Highway 61 Revisited' and 'Like a Rolling Stone,' Winter turns Dylan's songs into personal statements of his own."

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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