{"id":11369,"date":"2016-08-26T05:30:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=11369"},"modified":"2016-08-22T13:46:59","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T17:46:59","slug":"the-edgar-winterview-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/26\/the-edgar-winterview-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Edgar (W)interview, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a> …<\/i><\/p>\n

Dan Hartman<\/b> was also an original member of The Edgar Winter Group; he was with the band 1972-75. Winter says that \u201cDan was the first person I enlisted for The Edgar Winter Group. It was a huge talent search; I listened to hundreds of demo tapes to choose talented people for what I wanted to be the quintessential American rock band.\u201d Charismatic personality and stage presence were important requirements. \u201cMore or less, I wanted them to be stars in their own right,\u201d Winter recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that I loved about Dan was that he had a youthful innocence and enthusiasm. He loved commercial music, and he didn’t have to try<\/i> to be commercial. He had a natural ability to come up with simple ideas that were never overdone.\u201d Winter valued the contrast between Montrose’s edgy, bad-boy persona and Hartman’s fresh-faced, cheerful presence. \u201cIf I had got Rick to play in that band, I don’t think it would have had the same fire. Contrast and balance is what made that band work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about Dan was that he was originally a guitarist,\u201d Winter says. \u201cI had to talk him into playing bass. He was a multi-instrumentalist like myself, but he was not a virtuoso player. Yet he would always find the right part to complement the song. Rock solid, and with the right groove. As well as being a great songwriter, he knew what to play and when to play it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"edgar_winter_now\"<\/p>\n

Edgar’s instincts regarding Hartman’s innate pop music sensibility were soon proven on the mark: as a solo artist, Dan Hartman had a massive hit with the title track off of his third solo LP, 1978’s Instant Replay<\/i>. He would score an even bigger hit in 1984 with \u201cI Can Dream About You,\u201d and his co-write and production of James Brown<\/b>‘s \u201cLiving in America\u201d earned a Grammy nomination (Best R&B Song) and award (Best Male R&B Vocal Performance), charting in fourteen countries around the world. Hartman died from an AIDS-related brain tumor in 1994 at the age of 43.<\/p>\n

The musician closest to Edgar Winter \u2013 from childhood into the 21st<\/sup> century \u2013 has always been his brother Johnny. Edgar Winter recalls their childhood in Beaumont, Texas. \u201cAll of our family was musical, but not professionally\u201d he says. \u201c’I learned a lot from my father and mother musically.\u201d He learned ukulele, piano and guitar at home, as did his brother Johnny, nearly three years his senior. Once Johnny got a record deal, not only did he ask his brother to join his band, but he encouraged Edgar to sing. Before that time, \u201cI had only considered myself an instrumentalist,\u201d Edgar says.<\/p>\n

The brothers each went their own way musically, though their paths would often cross. Johnny led his own blues trio, while Edgar put together bands that would feature his sax and synthesizer playing. Johnny would occasionally sit in, and the brothers made some albums together as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny was different than all of those other guys,\u201d Edgar says. \u201cFirst of all, Johnny is my all-time musical hero.\u201d Edgar notes that the brothers had different musical tastes. \u201cHe loved blues early on, but he didn’t really commit himself to that until much later in life. When we played together, we played everything that was on the radio: Wilson Pickett, country, ‘British Invasion’ groups like The Animals<\/b>, Kinks<\/b>, Beatles<\/b>. Everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edgar believes that the defining characteristic of his brother’s guitar style was \u201crelentless intensity as a soloist. A lot of blues players would be very conscious of space, and would play with a certain mature sensibility. But Johnny broke the mold; he was full-bore, more like a blues shredder.\u201d Edgar considers his brother a true original: \u201cHe didn’t play anything exactly the same way anybody else played it,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen we started out, he would listen to old blues records, and figure out exactly what those guys played. But as his playing developed, he altered all of those things; all of those songs ended up having Johnny’s ‘spin.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he battled addiction for many years, Johnny Winter enjoyed a fertile career that included many high points. After fading from the music scene somewhat, he roared back in the 1980s, finding a home with Bruce Iglauer<\/b>‘s Alligator Records. Winter released three highly-regarded records for that label.<\/p>\n

Johnny’s recorded output slowed after leaving Alligator, though he went on touring to enthusiastic audiences even as his health declined precipitously. \u201cIt was very sad for me to listen to Johnny in later life, because I was always accustomed to the way he played when he was young,\u201d Edgar says. Though Johnny had long been clean and sober, and had gotten his business affairs in order thanks to second guitarist and manager Paul Nelson<\/b>, he succumbed to complications from emphysema and pneumonia and died in 2014; he had made it past his 70th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\n