RIP Johnny Winter

Track Rat

Track Rat

Just Your Average Sized Member
Just read that Johnny Winter just died. Saw him play many times. Another legend gone.
 
I've got a tour jacket, shirts and a bunch of JW signature picks.
I'll make a shrine today.

He and Deringer made a good team.
 
Now that's some sad news. :(

I was a JW fanatic back in the day....saw him in concert several times, including his tour with Muddy Waters and James Cotton....one of the best concerts I ever went to. The last time I saw JW was a few years after that in small club concert...got to stand about 6 feet away from him to see him play.

I always thought he never got the full recognition for his guitar playing like some other player got. I remember when I first hear SRV...I thought, what's the big deal, Johnny Winter could smoke him and was doing that same flavor of R&R/Blues long before.
Just listen to the first cut in the YT video.....that's some great lead playing.
(I'm not trying to take anythng away from SRV ( a great player), so don't anyone get upset.....just sayin' that JW was as good in his own right.)



Play on Johnny...........
 
Johnny was one of Hendrixs good buddies, was one of his pall bearers. There are lots of tapes floating around somewhere of them jamming. Heard a few takes. Went to see Johnny once back in the day and we climbed up and out the rafters directly over the stage, yelling down to Johnny, "play mean town blues", he looking up, probably wondering, these kids today. Those were the days whey you could get away with anything at concerts.
 
miroslav said:
Now that's some sad news. :(

I was a JW fanatic back in the day....saw him in concert several times, including his tour with Muddy Waters and James Cotton....one of the best concerts I ever went to. The last time I saw JW was a few years after that in small club concert...got to stand about 6 feet away from him to see him play.

I always thought he never got the full recognition for his guitar playing like some other player got. I remember when I first hear SRV...I thought, what's the big deal, Johnny Winter could smoke him and was doing that same flavor of R&R/Blues long before.
Just listen to the first cut in the YT video.....that's some great lead playing.
(I'm not trying to take anythng away from SRV ( a great player), so don't anyone get upset.....just sayin' that JW was as good in his own right.)



Play on Johnny...........
Click to expand...

Man, I was going to post the exact same album and tell people to listen to the first tune, or the whole album for that matter. That album is the definition of pure, raw, 3 guys in a room, hard rock. It's probably one of my top 3 all time albums, from beginning to end.

I'm not much of a blues fan, so I can't appreciate a lot of what else he did, but this album and his slide playing are from another planet. :cool:
 
I had a backstage pass to see him at the Commodore in Vancouver...and...and...and he cancelled FML

RIP
 
miroslav said:
Now that's some sad news. :(

I was a JW fanatic back in the day....saw him in concert several times, including his tour with Muddy Waters and James Cotton....one of the best concerts I ever went to. The last time I saw JW was a few years after that in small club concert...got to stand about 6 feet away from him to see him play.

I always thought he never got the full recognition for his guitar playing like some other player got. I remember when I first hear SRV...I thought, what's the big deal, Johnny Winter could smoke him and was doing that same flavor of R&R/Blues long before.
Just listen to the first cut in the YT video.....that's some great lead playing.
(I'm not trying to take anythng away from SRV ( a great player), so don't anyone get upset.....just sayin' that JW was as good in his own right.)



Play on Johnny...........
Click to expand...


Man, it's kinda funny that you posted this because I felt the same way the first time I heard SRV (Austin city limits). I'm like " what's all the fuss about? Johnny winter was doing this back in 1969...with the SAME bass player even!" Yeah man, Johnny didn't really get the noteriety that SRV did...but it was a different place in time so it hard to compare.
I was lucky enough to see SRV, Albert King, as Johnny Winter on the same bill. It was the annual Memphis in may festival. ...the same year SRV got killed.
not to take anything away from SRV (I'm. Huge fan) but he wasn't really on that day and Johnny was a out as "on" as one can get.
yeah...Winter mopped the floor with him. 80,000 people screaming "go johnny go!!!" During johnny BGoode would be hard to follow each end if you were on though
 
RAMI said:
I'm not much of a blues fan, so I can't appreciate a lot of what else he did, but this album and his slide playing are from another planet. :cool:
Click to expand...

That was the cool thing about JW....he played blues, but he played the blues unlike your typical shoe-gazer players just standing there and drooling away... ;)....and he played more than blues. Some of the best R&R, Boogie and there are even mellower Pop-ish cuts scattered on his albums that are well done, plus his work with brother Edgar was yet another dimension.
Yeah, he played blues, but I can tell you that at his concerts, no one was ever bored to death by the blues.
Every time I saw him, about 30 seconds into the first song, no one was sitting anymore, and they stayed on their feet to the end.
He would bang out some up tempo R&R....then switch guitars and ask the crowd, "You'll don't mind if I play some blues"...and the place would go wild. His blues playing style was very raw and energetic...not just twiddling.


jimistone said:
Man, it's kinda funny that you posted this because I felt the same way the first time I heard SRV (Austin city limits). I'm like " what's all the fuss about? Johnny winter was doing this back in 1969...
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Yeah....one thread here and another in the Cave. :)
But honestly, I think SRV was gifted, but those were my exact thoughts when I first encountered the SRV craze back in the mid-80s. The first thing I could think of was JW, and how he was playing that same kind of stuff long before.
SRV's finger playing style was slightly different, but yet when you hear a lot of the runs/licks that JW does, you hear a lot of similarity from SRV.
Anyway....I gained a great appreciation for SRV over the years, so not meaning to minimize his playing in any way.....just saying that JW in his prime could smoke a lot of the guys who are considered great players, or at the least, hang with any of them and not miss a beat.
A lot of folks see YT vids of him from later years, when JW was getting old and could hardly stand anymore....but man, back in the 70's, he was very entertaining on stage and really rocked.
I'm still so bummed about his passing.... :( ...but I knew he was close, he just looked so frail the last few years.
 
And the rocker that drank and drugged as hard as any of them and been written off for dead numerous times...The killer Jerry Lee Lewis...lives on.and still rocks the piano.
Will he reach 100?
I think he may.
 
dobro said:
You can live too long.

Click to expand...


Lol
Yes you can. But, for an 80 year old guy that the doctors said would not live to see 1982...
I'm willing to cut him some slack and say "not bad killer, play that piano until death do you part! "

Kind of the same way I felt about an aging frail johnny winter sitting in a chair and singing off key...timing issues...botched guitar licks...
He (or jerry lee) has nothing to prove at this point. The massive talent and jaw dropping performances are well documented. At this point they are old men who have paid their dues and not at the top of their game any longer...but they still love to play.
They have inspired me and given me immense pleasure through their music for decades. The least I can do is cut them some slack and maybe go to a show or buy a record to enable them to continue playing in the winter of life.
 
I saw Stephane Grappelli play three times. The first time he was in his late sixties or even seventies, the second time he was in his eighties and the last time he was in his early nineties, I think. They escorted him out to the stage and sat him in a chair, and he played really well. There wasn't much difference between the playing in the sixties and the playing in the nineties. The really old guy didn't have quite as much speed and brilliance, but the chops were all intact. If you're going to perform, that's how it should be. I don't think you should get yourself propped up and go through the motions and then people clap, not cuz you're any good, but because you used to be great. Another related issue is guys who continue to do music they did when they were twenty - I find it kind of awkward watching septuagenarians doing teenage throb rock. The Beach Boys syndrome. Performers can get trapped in the setlist that made them famous when they were young - everybody knows that - but sometimes it's just inappropriate. BTW, after I posted the link to the geriatric Jerry tune, I found a video to a concert he'd done only a few years (six or eight) earlier, and it was really good. Sure, the tunes were too young for an old man, but at least they were tight.
 
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