Regarding Johnny Winter

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Author Message Guitarman (Guitarman) Posted on Friday, May 16, 2003 - 6:30 pm:    Hi CCs, I read with great interests on an old thread "Rediscovering Johnny Winter" of yours about Johnny Winter's Live album. I remember that album so well. I was 16 yrs old then and still living in my tiny little home town of Malaysia on the island of Borneo. My group of friends and I just can't get enough of that album. There is not one song there that is mediocre. Many have said Winter is the best slide guitar player around and he has proven it over and over again. Check out Highway 61 revisited and the ever raunchy (lyrics) of Sweet Papa John. The opening intro of Bony Moronie just slam you right in the face. Unbelievable. During those time, my friends and I are also into another three piece band that is very closely associated with Johnny Winter and that is Tin House - headed by Floyd Radford before he join Winter on that Live album. Ever since immigrating to Canada in 1977 I have never known of a single soul that have heard of this band. Are you or any of you readers out there familiar with Tin House? Floyd's playing is very different from Johnny's. In the Live album you will hear Winter's soloing mostly in Minor Pentatonic scale whereas Floyd will be doing mostly Major Pentatonic. During those young days it was driving me nuts trying to figure out what the hell is going on... I envy those of you that have seen Winter during his rock n roll days - it must be unbelievable. I defintiely will go see him if he comes to town, not so much because I'm so into his music these days but because I just want to see one of the greatest blues guitarist in the world. Otherwise it may be "too late". I'm glad I have seen Miles Davis, Tony Williams, Lenny Breau, Tito Puente, Lester Bowie (AOC), just to name but a few as they are no longer with us today. Anyway, attached is a picture of Johnny Winter these days. Still wild and rocking away. Please share your stories... Cheers, Vic Raceboy (Raceboy) Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 9:12 am:    I've seen Johnny a few times. The most memorable was sometime in the mid 70's in Houston. As I recall, it was at the Hofheinz (sp?) Pavilion and it was unofficially billed as his homecoming concert because it had been several years since he had played in Houston. I recall it was also his dad's birthday, and he brought him up onstage for birthday wishes. The music was vintage Johnny Winter and completely rocked the house. My memory says that Edgar was there that night too, but I won't swear to it. I've also seen Edgar Winter a number of times. Guitarman (Guitarman) Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 3:36 am:    Hi Raceboy, I think the early to mid 70's was his wildest and most famous days and also, he was about to change. His first big change came around '78 or '79 with the release of "Nothin' but the blues" which I got. It was really back to the roots and pretty cool sounding. Man, you are lucky to have seen him in his rocking days. He will never do that again, I think. I saw a clip of him from the '70s recently in a classic rock compilation video. It was very interesting. Raceboy (Raceboy) Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 8:15 am:    I feel extremely fortunate to have grown up in the era I did. I watched it all from pre Elvis on. My high school days were all in the San Francisco bay area during the heyday of the hippie generation. Concerts with three bands at Fillmore were $3.50 every night. A New Year's gig at Fillmore or Winterland would cost you $7.00 and include a buffet breakfast the following morning and a lineup of top bands that played all night. I was even at the famed Rolling Stones free concert at Altimont where the movie Gimme Shelter was filmed. During high school, some friends and I started a production company that took care of all the details for putting on school dances. We worked with Bill Graham's booking agency and others. Our first concert was an all day gig at the Berkeley Community Theater and our headliner was Mike Bloomfield with Nick Gravenites and Southern Comfort. I have lots of great memories from those days. I got to see some extraordinary concerts.

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