![]() ![]() He recorded the single “Eternity ” for the Ritter label who then leased it to Atlantic. Winter dropped out of Lamar State College and headed north to Chicago to join his friend Dennis Drugan ’s band, the Gents, but by 1963 he was back in Texas. So there was just nobody to hear until the young English guys started picking up on it. “The black people were ashamed of it, and white people didn ’t like it yet. ![]() “The old stuff, blues, just went out, ” he recalled in The Guitar Player Book. ” It was during this period that Winter began jamming with black blues artists at a local club called the Raven, until problems began to surface. “Had he not become a celebrity, he would still have been a legend. “Winter ’s early recordings now stand as a testament to his youthful range and prowess, offering examples of blues, soul, rock, pop, and psychedelia far superior to many highly touted recent reissues by more obscure artists, ” wrote Larry Birnbaum in down beat. These first cuts were later released after Winter became famous and are considered collector ’s items today. Guitar Slim, Black Plague, and Johnny and the Jammers. Record company -Voyager, 424 35th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122. Solo recording and live performance artist and sideman, 1960 -.Īddresses: Home - New York City. ![]() son of an Army officer.īegan playing the clarinet at 5, switched briefly to the ukelele won a talent contest playing “School Day Blues ” on guitar when 15 years old, scored a local Number 8 hit with the recording recorded for various labels until signed with Columbia in 1969 toured the south in 1964. Johnny moved on to record for the Jin, KRCO, Pacemaker, and Diamond labels under various titles: Texas For the Record …įull name, John Dawson Winter, III born February 23, 1944, in Leland, Miss. Edgar ’s style, however, was much more jazz-based than blues, though he scored a monster hit with “Frankenstein ” later down the road. At 15 Winter won a talent contest for “School Day Blues ” and, after recording the tune on Pappy Dailey ’s Dart label, it immediately shot to Number 8 in Beaumont.Īlthough Edgar appeared on Johnny ’s first two LPs, he was featured more on the latter in an effort to bring the younger sibling a share of the spotlight. Winter and his brother Edgar played together in various teenage bands and the two albino brothers made quite an impression in their hometown. He also learned country licks from Luther Nalley, a Beaumont music store employee, as well as the current rock tunes of the late 1950s. “After I kind of got the feel of what was supposed to be going on, I just took what I heard and assimilated it, and I guess it would come out part mine and part everybody else ’s … I tried to make it my own after I got the basic things down. “I would learn how to play a record note-for-note, ” Winter told Don Menn in The Guitar Player Book. The two soon became friends as Winter began to build up an impressive record collection that allowed him to study the blues masters and cop their licks. A local disc jockey named Clarence Garlow turned Winter on to the blues through his Bon Ton Show on radio station KJET. His father advised him to switch to guitar because there weren ’t too many famous ukulele players that came to his mind. Winter switched to ukelele but that only lasted until rock and roll came out. He continued on the instrument for four years but had to quit when an orthodontist informed the youth that he had a serious overbite. Winter ’s own musical legacy began as a 5-year-old playing clarinet in Beaumont, Texas. “Like Bloomfield ’s band and the Blues Project, he pulled blues classics, like ‘Mean Mistreater ’ and ‘When You Got A Good Friend, ’ back into the mainstream of rock music and forced rock guitarists once again to pay attention to their musical heritage and draw from it. “He played the blues, real driving blues that had the heaviness of Chicago pumping underneath it and his darting lines dancing melodically over it, ” wrote Gene Santoro in The Guitar: The History, The Music, The Players. ” By 1969 Johnny Winter had signed with Columbia Records for a reported $300, 000 and soon released his incredible self-titled debut LP. In 1968 an article in Roiling Stone, written by Larry Sepulvado and John Burks, entitled “ Texas ” stated, “Imagine a 130-pound cross-eyed albino bluesman with long fleecy hair playing some of the gutsiest blues guitar you have ever heard. ![]()
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