{"id":27102,"date":"2024-05-06T05:30:18","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T09:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27102"},"modified":"2024-04-09T14:35:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T18:35:30","slug":"take-five-fiery-tracks-from-johnny-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/06\/take-five-fiery-tracks-from-johnny-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Fiery Tracks from Johnny Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Legendary Texas guitar slinger Johnny Winter released <em>Saints &amp; Sinners<\/em>, his sixth studio album, 50 years ago. Winter was at the top of his game in the mid-\u201970s; his fiery approach combined the power of rock and roll with the historic musical values of the blues. One of fleet-fingered Winter\u2019s unique skills was his ability to bend a song to his needs; even when playing the work of other songwriters, Johnny Winter put his own indelible stamp on the material. Winter\u2019s recording career extended up until his death, and there are solid titles from every period of his recording years. Focusing here on his \u201870s output, here are five songs featuring the interpretive artistry of guitar hero Johnny Winter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cHighway 61 Revisited\u201d from <em>Second Winter<\/em> (1969)<\/strong><br \/>\nIn its original configuration, the album-and-a-half <em>Second Winter<\/em> was spread across three sides of vinyl (side 4 was blank). Winter\u2019s definitive take on Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cHighway 61 Revisited\u201d became a blues classic once the Texas guitarist recorded it. On this record, Winter was joined by brother Edgar on keyboards, sax and more; drummer \u201cUncle\u201d John Turner and bassist Tommy Shannon; in later years the latter two would work with fellow Texas guitarist Steve Ray Vaughan. Here, Winter casts Dylan\u2019s mythical lyrics into something much more hard-hitting and feral.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vUXhoIf1eQU?si=AkOQczasbHZVMtXq\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cRock and Roll Hoochie Koo\u201d from <em>Johnny Winter And<\/em> (1970)<\/strong><br \/>\nRick Zehringer (later Derringer) was guitarist for the McCoys, famous for \u201cHang On Sloopy.\u201d When that group began to work with Winter, they billed themselves as And. Derringer would score a hit with his immortal rocker \u201cRock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,\u201d but not until re-recording it for his own album <em>All American Boy<\/em> some three years after the Johnny Winter And version. Both are excellent, but Winter\u2019s commanding, roaring vocal arguably gives his version the edge.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4rN8raAgkMo?si=2IvJSwJY2wgZ8NEb\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cRock Me Baby\u201d from <em>Still Alive and Well<\/em> (1973)<\/strong><br \/>\nWinter went to ground after releasing <em>Johnny Winter And<\/em>; he wouldn&#8217;t return until three years later. When he did, he used many of the same musicians as before, with Todd Rundgren and his then-Utopia band mate Mark Klingman guesting on a few tracks. The highlight of the pointedly-titled <em>Still Alive and Well<\/em> is its opening track, the swinging \u201cRock Me Baby.\u201d A classic from Big Bill Broonzy and Arthur Crudup, it\u2019s delivered by Winter in a style that recalls both Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yfrYmKiAAaE?si=0Ac3EIZBMGax4R_1\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cStray Cat Blues\u201d from <em>Saints &amp; Sinners<\/em> (1974)<\/strong><br \/>\nThis languid rocker from the pens of Mick Jagger and Keith Richard was first heard on the Rolling Stones LP <em>Beggars Banquet<\/em> in 1968. Johnny Winter\u2019s reading of the song adds a busy, thundering bass line and sizzling lead guitar lines that weave in and out of the arrangement. And Winter\u2019s inimitable vocals serve to make the song truly his.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IEog1Nopc8M?si=oXUhzjptmk4DWMeq\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cWalkin\u2019 By Myself\u201d from <em>White, Hot &amp; Blue<\/em> (1978)<\/strong><br \/>\nWhile Johnny Winter often had one foot in the rock idiom, at heart he was a bluesman. So while he would often venture off for rock and roll excursions, he\u2019d always come home to the blues. Jimmy Rogers first recorded his classic \u201cWalkin\u2019 By Myself\u201d in 1956; by the time Johnny Winter got his hands on the tune for his 1978 studio album, he infused the song with some stinging lead slide guitar, helped along by a bravura harmonica solo (from either Winter or Pat Ramsey).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aSmf6Yz8KGo?si=ks4opYsnM3-mbXGj\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legendary Texas guitar slinger Johnny Winter released Saints &amp; Sinners, his sixth studio album, 50 years ago. Winter was at the top of his game in the mid-\u201970s; his fiery [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,27],"tags":[1204],"class_list":["post-27102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-essay","tag-johnny-winter","cat-9-id","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27103,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27102\/revisions\/27103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}