johnny winters

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<learn: culture/music> The famous shouts, hollers, and "Yeahs" in the background of Muddy Waters' 1977 recording of "Mannish Boy" were performed by blues guitarist and producer Johnny Winter. Winter produced the album Hard Again—which featured this iconic re-recording—and added the legendary background energy. John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer.[2] Winter was known for his high-energy blues rock albums, live performances, and slide guitar playing from the late 1960s into the early 2000s. He also produced three Grammy Award–winning albums for blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters.

He and his younger brother Edgar Winter (born 1946) were nurtured at an early age by their parents in musical pursuits, and both were born with albinism. Johnny and his brother began performing at an early age. When Winter was ten years old, the brothers appeared on a local children's show with Johnny playing ukulele.

Winter's recording career began at the age of 15, when his band Johnny and the Jammers released "School Day Blues" on a Houston record label.[4] During that same period, he was able to see performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland. In March 1969, his first recorded album The Progressive Blues Experiment, was released on Austin's Sonobeat Records, a division of Imperial after Winter's official release on Columbia had been released.

Winter got his biggest break in December 1968, when Mike Bloomfield, whom he met and jammed with in Chicago, invited him to sing and play a song during a Bloomfield and Al Kooper concert at the Fillmore East in New York City. As it happened, representatives of Columbia Records (which had released the Top Ten Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills Super Session album) were at the concert. Winter played and sang B.B. King's "It's My Own Fault" to loud applause, and within a few days, was signed to what was reportedly the largest advance in the history of the recording industry at that time—$600,000.[4]

Contrary to urban legend, Winter did not perform with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison on the 1968 Hendrix bootleg album Woke up this Morning and Found Myself Dead from New York City's the Scene club. According to Winter, "I never even met Jim Morrison! There's a whole album of Jimi and Jim and I'm supposedly on the album but I don't think I am 'cause I never met Jim Morrison in my life! I'm sure I never, never played with Jim Morrison at all! I don't know how that [rumor] got started."[8]

In live performances, Winter often told the story about how, as a child, he dreamed of playing with the blues guitarist Muddy Waters. He got his chance in 1974, when blues artists came together to honor Waters, the musician responsible for bringing blues to Chicago; the resulting concert presented many blues classics and was the start of a TV series, Soundstage (this particular session was called "Blues Summit in Chicago"). And in 1977, after Waters' long-time label Chess Records went out of business,[4] Winter brought Waters into the studio to record Hard Again for Blue Sky Records, a label set up by Winter's manager and distributed by Columbia.[13] In addition to producing the album, Winter played guitar with Waters veteran James Cotton on harmonica. Winter produced two more studio albums for Waters, I'm Ready (with Big Walter Horton on harmonica) and King Bee and a best-selling live album Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live.[13] The partnership produced three Grammy Awards for Waters and an additional Grammy for Winter's own Nothin' But the Blues, with backing by members of Waters' band. Waters told Deep Blues author Robert Palmer that Winter had done remarkable work in reproducing the sound and atmosphere of Waters's vintage Chess Records recordings of the 1950s. AllMusic writer Mark Deming noted: "Between Hard Again and The Last Waltz [1976 concert film by The Band], Waters enjoyed a major career boost, and he found himself touring again for large and enthusiastic crowds".[13]

In 1996, Winter and his brother Edgar filed suit against DC Comics and the creators of the Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such limited series, claiming, among other things, defamation: two characters named Johnny and Edgar Autumn in the series strongly resemble the Winters. The brothers claimed the comics falsely portrayed them as "vile, depraved, stupid, cowardly, subhuman individuals who engage in wanton acts of violence, murder and bestiality for pleasure and who should be killed."[14] The California Supreme Court sided with DC Comics, holding that the comic books were deserving of First Amendment protection.[15]

In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the first non-African-American performer to be inducted into the Hall.[32]

Winter played with a thumb pick and his fingers.[4] His picking style was inspired by Chet Atkins and Merle Travis and he never used a flat pick.[4][46] Winter preferred a plastic thumb pick sold by Gibson[42] and a steel pinky slide, later marketed by Dunlop.[4]