Johnny Winter [Remaster]

Performer: Johnny Winter
Artist: Willie Dixon; Edgar Winter
Producer: Johnny Winter
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Also available in a 3-pack with SECOND WINTER and CAPTURED LIVE. Personnel include: Johnny Winter; Edgar Winter, John Turner, Tommy Shannon, Willie Dixon. Recording information: Nashville, Tennessee (02/1969); San Francisco, California (03/05/1969). When Johnny Winter burst upon the American music scene in the late 1960s, he was initially looked upon as a something of an oddity--an albino guitarist playing and singing the blues--until people actually heard him perform. The Texas native played a sharp, bracing style of (mostly) electric blues with few concessions to rock & roll audiences. His 1969 self-titled debut reveals a fierce talent out to show the world that he could play the blues with the best of them. Inspired by the raw sounds of blues icons Lightnin' Hopkins and Muddy Waters (whom he would often work with in the '70s), this set sizzles with passionate, incendiary electric soloing (B.B. King's "Be Careful with a Fool"); slashing, Delta-style acoustic slide guitar (Robert Johnson's "When You Got a Good Friend," the ominous original "Dallas"); and soulful, horn-accented balladry ("Two Steps from the Blues," one of three bonus tracks on this 2004 remastered edition). Winter would go on to record many albums in both blues and rock & roll styles--and play with artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers, and Sonny Terry--but his first remains one of his finest.

Q (5/97, p.144) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...Winter's vocals rasp with a raw edge that matches his cranium-scooping guitar sound...Before the '70s, Winter was burrowing beneath some deep blues roots." Down Beat (p.68) - 3 1/2 stars out of 5 - "His lines, even the speediest and the wildest, have a sense of order. Back then, Winter could really sing, too..."

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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