Johnny Winter: a Firebird in open D and a Texas slide sound | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

JOHNNY WINTER played the blues loud, fast and in open tunings, and from 1977 he produced four Muddy Waters albums. The Blues Foundation counts 16 albums on the Billboard 200. It also describes him as the first non-African American performer elected to its Hall of Fame.

His last record, Step Back, came out seven weeks after he died and won the Grammy for Best Blues Album. It was his only win from six entries.

Early life

He was born in Beaumont, Texas, on 23 February 1944. His mother had gone there for the birth while the family was living in Mississippi. He and his younger brother Edgar were both born with albinism.

He had a guitar by 12. At 15 he cut a single, School Day Blues, with Johnny and the Jammers on a local label. His first solo single, in 1967, was a cover of Jimmy McCracklin’s Tramp.

Career chapters

1. 1944Born in Beaumont, Texas
2. 1959School Day Blues, with Johnny and the Jammers
3. 1968Records The Progressive Blues Experiment in Austin
4. 1968Rolling Stone’s Texas feature singles him out
5. 1969Signs to Columbia; plays Woodstock on 18 August
6. 1970Johnny Winter And, with Rick Derringer
7. 1977Produces Muddy Waters’ Hard Again
8. 2004Meets Paul Nelson
9. 2014Plays his 70th birthday show in New York; dies in Zurich on 16 July
10. 2015Grammy for Step Back

Austin and the Rolling Stone feature 1967 to 1969

In August 1968 he recorded The Progressive Blues Experiment at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin. A December 1968 Rolling Stone feature on Texas blues praised his guitar playing. Grammy.com says it called him the hottest item in Texas outside Janis Joplin.

He then sat in with Michael Bloomfield and Al Kooper at the Fillmore East, playing B.B. King’s, Who’s Who number 2 It’s My Own Fault. Columbia signed him with an advance reported at US$600,000, called a record at the time.

Woodstock 1969

He played Woodstock on Monday 18 August 1969, from midnight to 1:10am, with Tommy Shannon on bass and “Uncle” John Turner on drums. Edgar joined for the rest of the set. The Bethel Woods museum notes the set was left out of both the film and the soundtrack.

Johnny Winter And 1970 to 1973

In 1970 he formed Johnny Winter And with Rick Derringer. Derringer wrote Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo for Johnny and that band. Live Johnny Winter And (1971) reached number 40, and its Jumpin’ Jack Flash, a Rolling Stones cover, got to number 89 on the Hot 100, his only Hot 100 single. Still Alive and Well followed in 1973.

Producing Muddy Waters 1977 onwards

He produced Muddy Waters’ Hard Again in 1977, then I’m Ready and the live Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live, and all three won Grammys for Waters. King Bee followed in 1981. Winter called Muddy “the best blues guy that’s ever been”, and NPR reported Muddy’s verdict on him: “He plays eight notes to my one!”

Alligator and the late albums 1984 to 2014

On Alligator Records, Guitar Slinger and Serious Business earned Grammy nominations in 1985 and 1986. Let Me In, Hey, Where’s Your Brother? and I’m a Bluesman were nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

He met Paul Nelson in 2004. Nelson became his guitarist, manager and producer and helped him off a long methadone dependence. Roots, in 2011, had Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi and Vince Gill as guests.

On 23 February 2014 he played his 70th birthday show at the B.B. King Blues Club in New York. He died in Zurich on 16 July 2014, aged 70, during a European tour.

Step Back came out on 2 September 2014. The guests included Eric Clapton, Who’s Who number 3, Billy Gibbons, Who’s Who number 5, Joe Perry, Who’s Who number 17, Leslie West and Dr. John. It won the Grammy in 2015.

Craft, sound and style

The Firebird in open D

His main slide guitar was a vintage Gibson Firebird V, kept in open D. Winter said it was all stock, though Premier Guitar reports the bridge had been changed before he bought it.

His first slide was cut from a cymbal stand, Vintage Guitar says.

The Lazer

Later he also played an Erlewine Lazer, from Erlewine Guitars. He told Premier Guitar it stayed in tune, sounded trebly like a Fender and played like a Gibson.

Tunings, strings and the thumbpick

Open D and open G for slide, and sometimes open A. In 2014 he said he’d dropped his standard tuning a whole step, to D, about 20 years earlier. Strings were DR Pure Blues, .010 to .046.

He picked with a Fender medium thumbpick and his fingers, a habit he took from Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. “I still come at it from an emotional perspective,” he told Premier Guitar in 2014, “not technical.”

Amps and the chorus pedal

Early on he played Fender Super Reverbs, then moved up in wattage. Around 1977 or 1978 he tried Bob Margolin’s Music Man 4x10 combo in Muddy Waters’ band and got one of his own. “That amp is loud as hell!” he told Vintage Guitar. He set volume and treble on 10 and everything else at zero.

The one pedal was a Boss CE-2 Chorus, and he left it on all the time.

Who picked it up

Derringer rated his slide playing above anyone’s at the time. Tom Keifer of Cinderella has named Winter, and his slide and National Steel playing, as a huge influence. Lance Lopez, writing for Classic Rock, credits him with starting a line of Texas blues-rock guitarists.

Stories people still tell

1. Johnny Cool Daddy Winter.

   Billy Gibbons, Who’s Who number 5 remembered him from the Texas days by an early nickname, “Johnny Cool Daddy Winter”.

2. A bluesman to the end.

   “I will be a bluesman until the day I die,” he told The Blues magazine. His most played live song, by setlist.fm’s count, was Chuck Berry’s, Who’s Who number 36 Johnny B. Goode, with 399 logged shows.

Legacy

The Grammy for Step Back came in 2015, after his death. Rolling Stone ranked him number 63 of its 100 greatest guitarists. Paul Nelson said Winter also wanted to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.