Within a year he was playing Woodstock, and recording on and off with brother Edgar, and by 1970 he was incorporating rock into his blues. Johnny recorded his first single at 15, and released his first LP in 1968, after Columbia Record execs caught the Fillmore East gig that same year at which Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper invited Winter on stage to jam. Edgar, a musical child prodigy, mastered a plethora of instruments, while Johnny-the elder brother by two years-focused on the guitar, mandolin, and harmonica. The Winter brothers were born in the mid-1940s in the Very Pale of Settlement in the long-defunct Balkan nation-state of Albinia, where-Okay, so they were actually spit into the world in Beaumont, Texas, hometown of The Big Bopper and Blind Willie Johnson, and both attended special education classes in high school, which just confirms me in my belief that America’s educational system is in the hands of complete morons. In short, he takes no prisoners, has a killer band behind him, and can get away with literally anything, including the long flute solo in “Too Much Seconal.” The Albino Rambo of Electric Guitar slays the covers, and he kicks keister on his originals, which are top-notch. I picked it because it’s one of the hardest boogieing rock LPs ever recorded. Naw, that’s not really why I chose Still Alive and Well. The choker Edgar sports on They Only Come Out at Night looks like a Versailles chandelier. And a less flamboyant taste in neck bling. I finally opted for the latter because (1) Edgar’s a Scientologist, and I’m a bigot and (2) while Edgar boasts one fantastic set of mutton chops, Johnny has better hair. In any case, I had a heckuva time deciding whether to review They Only Come Out at Night or Johnny’s 1973 classic Still Alive and Well. Edgar, an inveterate dabbler, has recorded pop, blues, rock, boogie, jazz-fusion, and whatever the hell you call “Frankenstein,” while Johnny has played his fair share of straight-ahead hard rock. And it hasn’t been all blues by any means. The Winter Brothers have given us so much great music over the years you’d need a fleet of dump trucks to haul it all away. And God bless dem low-down pink-eyed blues. That or he’d have amended his comments to say, “cretinous goons.”īut to hell, says I, with Frank Sinatra. One look at Edgar Winter on the cover of 1972’s They Only Come Out at Night would have confirmed his every prejudice, and struck him dead with a coronary thrombosis as well. Good thing The Chairman of the Board never (I’m assuming) got a gander at the Winter Brothers, Johnny and Edgar. Ed.įamed music critic Frank Sinatra once called rock’n’roll the “most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.” The crooner who liked to eat scrambled eggs off the breasts of prostitutes added it’s the handiwork of “cretinous goons,” and called it a “rancid-smelling aphrodisiac… that fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.” Wow! Sounds great! Where do I sign up? Celebrating Johnny Winter on what would have been his 77th birthday.
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