ObviouslyCool Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 Johnny Winter made me want to play lead guitar. I was so inspired that I changed my whole style in the 70's. You Dudes know about this guy? I used to know everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael saulnier Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 BIG Johnny Winter fan here!!! I saw him play a few years ago... and it was scary / sad... He was thinner than usual, sort of hobbled around, and kind of swayed from foot to foot. Played OK, but lacking some of the passion I've seen in other days. I LOVE this guy, but it's too bad he's having these problems... perhaps it was just a bad day or something... guitplayer I'm still "guitplayer"! Check out my music if you like... http://www.michaelsaulnier.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Strat Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 Originally posted by ObviouslyCool: Johnny Winter made me want to play lead guitar. I was so inspired that I changed my whole style in the 70's. You Dudes know about this guy?YUP!! Got a Johnny Winter record that I'm trying to learn a little off of right now. It's got "Good Mornin' Little School Girl" on it, and "Leland Mississippi Blues" on it. BlueStrat a.k.a. "El Guapo" ...Better fuzz through science... http://geocities.com/teleman28056/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ObviouslyCool Posted September 6, 2003 Author Share Posted September 6, 2003 Strat, Got a Firebird last year and "Good Mornin' Little School Girl" sounds fine on it. Cool song. Guitar playing on that blows me away. Johnny is getting old, so maybe cut him a break. He has a lot of problems but keeps on Rockin. I used to know everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caevan O’Shite Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Johnny Winter is not only a great guitarslinger, but was the producer of the awsome albums Muddy Waters did on the Blue Sky label. Muddy called him his son, and Johnny was to him somewhat like what SRV was to Albert King. I saw him play live years ago, and when he broke out his old Firebird to play slide and fretting-style together, his playing was nothing less than blistering. Absolutely scarifyin'. Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do? ~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~ _ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlChuck Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Second Winter (the one-and-a-half record set) and Johnny Winter And were fantastic records, big influences on me early on, but somehow very little of Winter seeped into my own playing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Strat Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Originally posted by ObviouslyCool: Strat, Got a Firebird last year and "Good Mornin' Little School Girl" sounds fine on it. Cool song. Guitar playing on that blows me away. Johnny is getting old, so maybe cut him a break. He has a lot of problems but keeps on Rockin. I've heard that the Firebird is kind of a one trick pony. I've never played a Firebird, or any other solid body guitar with mini-buckers on it. What's your opinion Mr. Cool? Re-building a Strat with three SD mini's in it might be awesome!! BlueStrat a.k.a. "El Guapo" ...Better fuzz through science... http://geocities.com/teleman28056/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitefang Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Johhny Winter made a lot of us want to do something on the guitar. Primarily do BETTER! Saw him live at some free concert somewhere in Detroit back in early '69. He asked the audience to treat him kindly because, he said, "I'm pretty nervous with this huge of a crowd!" Then he proceeded to kick the shit out of ALL our senses! I vowed that if THAT was nervous, I'd start getting edgy! He's something else, all right! Whitefang I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tedster Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 John Dawson Winter III. I remember in the late 60s, early 70s, seeing this poster of "Johnny Winter"...this albino guy holding this weird looking guitar. As a result...when I started learning to play guitar, I checked out "Johnny Winter And Live" Holy shit, was I blown away! My second Gibson was a '63 Firebird. He's still one of my primary guitar influences, and kickass vocals as well (no one had more balls in his vocal cords than Johnny). Johnny's responsible for getting me into a lot of original blues guys like Muddy Waters, too. Except I lost him for a bit when he started using a phaser back in the later 70s. Didn't fit his sound at all. When I have guitar students that rave about a given guitar player, I've said "this is what rock and roll oughta sound like" and put on his version of "Rock Me Baby"...the first cut off "Still Alive And Well". His version of that song stands the test of time. "Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isxism Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 I love Johnny Winter's music! I use to have a vhs tape of him playing about 1986-87. I believe he was voted the best slide guitar player back then, but by whom, I don't know. I would have voted for him! I saw a tape of him and Bonnie Raitt( I think that's how it's spelled) battling it out on slide guitar. What an awesome sound and sight that was to see those two together!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ObviouslyCool Posted September 7, 2003 Author Share Posted September 7, 2003 Bluestrat asked about the Firebird: I bought it because Johnny used one when I saw him, and Eric Clapton used one in the past. It's a great guitar with it's own character. It wants to play old rock&roll and blues loud. I don't use it that often, but I got a lot of other guitars I've picked up over the years. Just got the Firebird last November. They take a while getting used to. Got a strange reach on it. I used to know everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeftyBlues Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 Everybody knows Edgar, but not nearly enough know his brother Johnny! Check out "Johnny Winter And" live, also "Live in NY '97", and "Guitarslinger". Alligator records has a bunch of his stuff. He made a guest appearance, fresh out of rehab, on the double album of Edgar Winter and The White Trash live, way back when. When his band was "Johnny Winter And", the "and" was Rick Derringer. Back in the late 60's, Johnny had a bass player named Tommy Shannon, of Double Trouble fame. I was born at night but I wasn't born last night... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Thorne Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 Originally posted by Bruce Downs: Everybody knows Edgar, but not nearly enough know his brother Johnny!...It was just the other way around for me. When I was about 15 (35 years ago!) I snagged a bunch of old 45s from a trash can in front of somebody's house. Among them was a demo by Johnny Winter doing a blues tune "Ease My Pain" on one side, don't remember the other. I loved it, played it often, tried to figure out the licks. Let it go somewhere, now I wish I hadn't... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magicman Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 YES! he's Muddy Water's son. JW rocks and freaks me out that he is so damn skinny. "I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none." - Ben Shahn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendrix Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 "Memory Pane" on Second Winter is just killer. When I was a teen i practiced my guitar playing to this one over and over again. I saw Johnny live in a small bar on LI last September. He could hardly walk. He sat down - and played his wicked riffs for a couple of hours. Almost nothing moved cept for his breathing and his two hands on the geetar. But they seemed to move just fine. I always felt that, with better management and promotion and just a few radio friendly tunes, he could have been much bigger in the 70's than he was. Check out some tunes here: http://www.garageband.com/artist/KenFava Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strat0124 Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 Yep Johnny Winter is one of my biggest influences as well as one of my all time fave guitarists. Yeah he looks like a vampire, and he'll play some odd guitars now and again, but what he does with them is pure Tejas. Down like a dollar comin up against a yen, doin pretty good for the shape I'm in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D_dup3 Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 Winter's a very skilled player, fo' sho'! What I think might be his most stunning achievement, in one way, was his convincing Columbia Records to release his second album for them as a three sided vinyl LP---side 1 b/w side 2 & side 3 b/w a completely blank side 4 ! Also, re: the Firebird, they are generally great guitars but they're not just for blues rock---many Motown grooves were laid down with one, too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitefang Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 Hey, d! Been a while... The funny thing about "Second Winter"...I read an article about the album where Johnny claimed he was bracing himself to put up a good fight to release only three sides. To his surprise, the Columbia brass simply said, "Yeah, OK. No problem." They actually thought it was a cool idea! You won't see THAT sort of thinking from labels this day! Whitefang I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TyPie Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 Johnny Winter And.... (Live) has to be one of my top 10 favorite albums of all time. When I first heard his versions of Jumpin' Jack Flash and Johnny B. Goode..........God DAMN!!!! Methinks it changed the way I looked at guitar forever! I too saw him a couple of years ago at a small club in New Jersey and he was looking a bit frail as he was escorted on stage. The band kicked in and Johnny swayed back and forth, fingers a-flyin! Love the guy!!! Regarding not having more 'radio friendly' or 'commercial hits', I believe I read somewhere that the time around his Johnny Winter And album were his least favorite years in the business because he felt it was 'too' commercial. "You're either WITH me, or you're AGIN' Me!" (Yosemite Sam) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tedster Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 Although Rick Derringer was the writer of the tune, I don't believe he released "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo" until well after the Johnny Winter version (And Live) was well known (which also featured Derringer). And it always fucking grinds me that Derringer's overproduced, lame-assed, watered down version of that song is the only one that ever gets any airplay. "Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlChuck Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 The version of Winwood/Capaldi's "No Time to Live" from Johnny Winter And is exquisite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miroslav Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 "Every now and then I know it's kinda' hard to tell, but I'm still alive and well." "Johnny's the boss man now"...says Muddy Waters on the album they did together. I saw Johnny, Muddy and James Cotton at the Passaic Theater in NJ, in the late 70's... ....WOW!!! To this day, that is THE best concert I've ever been to. The Rock & Roll and Blues playing was absolutely ass-kicking!!! I was so bummed out a few years later when Muddy died. I've had the pleasure of hearing Johnny a few times...once also with his brother Edgar...and once in a small club, on a small stage, standing just a few feet in front of me. The thing with all Johnny Winter concerts that I was at, was that they really didn't need any seats in the venue...because after the first song...no one ever sat down again for the rest of the concert. He'd rock your ass out for a few tunes...and then he would ask the crowd, "You all don't mind if I play a little blues now, do you?" ...and the place would go nuts!!! He had this one white, iridescent Firebird that looked real cool when the colored lights would hit itand he would just kinda hang his head down with all that long white hairand you couldnt see his facejust these long arms and fingers as they flew up and down the neck. Certainly one of the best R&R/Blues playershis slide work is excellent. miroslav - miroslavmusic.com "Just because it happened to you, it doesn't mean it's important." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
george costanza Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 People think of JW as a raucous (or "rock us") roughneck but when I saw him (long ago, with Slade as an opening act!), his arrival on stage was greeted with a slew of firecrackers launched from a certain audience section. He stopped mid-note & drawled, "Ya'll cut that shit out or I'm goin' home." Somehow that image & its memory still crack me up. As for his music, he's always been great for both his modern & still authentic/downhome approach to blues & rock...plus that cat is fast! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stage1 Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 My older brother took me to my very first concert.It was Johnny at the Montreal Forum in the mid 70's! We had 2nd row seats!!! Got to see him a few more times through the years. Unfortunatly word is that he has Parkinsons Disease. Will always be remembered as one of the best guitar players EVER! In my opinion the best "Slide Player" ever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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