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| Johnny Winter to Headline 14th Annual Southwest Florida Blues Festival  Saturday, November 23, 2013 Johnny Winter will perform at the 14th Annual Southwest Florida Blues Festival. Johnny Winter has been a guitar hero without equal. Signing to Columbia records in 1969, called the largest solo artist deal of its time. Johnny immediately laid out the blueprint for his fresh take on classic blues, a prime combination for the legions of fans just discovering the blues via the likes of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton.Constantly shifting between simple country blues in the vein of Robert Johnson, to all-out electric slide guitar blues-rock, – Johnny has always been one of the most respected singers and guitar players in rock and the clear link between British blues-rock and American Southern rock (a la the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd.) Throughout the '70s and '80s, Johnny was the unofficial torch-bearer for the blues, championing and aiding the careers of his idols like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Johnny Winter is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances. Johnny Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters. The partnership not only produced three Grammy Awards for Waters but an additional Grammy for Winter's own "Nothin' But the Blues" (Johnny Winter album), with backing by members of Waters' band. Muddy Waters told Deep Blues author Robert Palmer that Johnny Winter had done remarkable work in reproducing the sound and atmosphere of Waters's vintage Chess Records recordings of the 1950s. The albums gave Muddy Waters the highest profile and greatest financial successes of his life. Since his time with Waters, Johnny Winter has recorded several Grammy-nominated blues albums and continues to tour extensively. In 1980, Winter was on the cover of the first issue of Guitar World and in 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, Johnny was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Throughout his career, Johnny Winter has been dogged by bootleg recordings and unauthorized re-releases of singles from his early pre-Columbia Records days. According to one biographer, only about fifteen percent of Winter's commercially-available recordings are legitimate, leaving 85 percent that he had no control over. Some of the releases were doctored with later overdubs by other musicians. Royalties were not Winter's primary concern, "I just don't want that bullshit out ... It's just bad music." Johnny was once quoted by saying, "I think the blues will always be around. People need it." With a music career spanning six decades, eighteen (18) official album releases, various Grammy awards and his induction into the Blues Hall of Fame, Johnny Winter is, "Still Alive and Well". Johnny Winter, once the fastest blues guitarist around, has been eligible for social security for a half decade or more, yet his fingers remain as youthful as someone half his age. Winter tore down the house at New Haven's Toad's Place on a recent Friday night, a modest bar and dance club surrounded by the dormitories of Yale University. "I was pretty impressed, " said Bob Machaud of Cromwell. "The last time I saw Johnny was 1970. He had more energy for this show than he did then. He may be getting older but he's getting better. Johnny Winter Rockin' the Blues Like No Other By Kirk Lang – February 13, 2013, American Blues Scene. It's not often that one gets to experience a blues legend. There is no substitute for the real thing when it comes to the blues - and Johnny Winter is most definitely one of the all time greats. By Jared Corgan 88.1 KDHX, September 2012 My advice would be, get to the show when it rolls through your town, or you just might miss out on seeing one of the few true legends that are still with us today. RockMusicstar.com write your comments about the article :: © 2013 Jazz News :: home page |