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You had just released a fantastic studio album, Hey, Where’s Your Brother, and in October of that year you participated in the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden in New York, where you stole the show with your incredible version of Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited.” But in reality, things had started to go wrong, culminating in your hospitalization in 1993. GUITAR WORLD Back in 1992, things seemed to be going very well for you, career-wise. In the following interview, Winter discusses candidly the reasons for his descent into drug and alcohol dependence in the Nineties, his emergence from the depths to his new-found state of good health, his development as a blues musician and his love and dedication to performing live. He plays more than 100 dates a year, many of which are as headliner for large blues festivals around the world. At present, things are going very well for Winter. Heroin addiction sidelined his momentum in the early Seventies, but he rebounded in 1973 with Still Alive and Well. Suddenly, Winter had two albums in circulation at the same time. At the same time, Imperial Records released The Progressive Blues Experiment, an album of demos he’d recorded earlier in Austin, that was a strong outing as well. CBS Records gave him a six-figure signing bonus and in early 1969 released his first CBS record, Johnny Winter. In 1968, Rolling Stone published a story about the young blues upstart, describing Winter as “a cross-eyed albino with long, fleecy hair, who plays some of the gutsiest, fluid blues guitar you’ve ever heard.” And thus Winter’s rapid-fire ascent to super-stardom began. ”Įventually, Winter gave in to his true love and became a full-time blues guitarist. “I didn’t think there was any money in playing blues, so we cut everything we could think of. “At the time, I was cutting as many records as I could, in pursuit of a radio hit,” says Winter. From 1962 to 1968, Johnny recorded prodigiously for a variety of record labels and in a great variety of musical styles. At 15, Johnny formed his first band, and by the time he was 18 was making records.

Along with younger brother Edgar, the two appeared as a duet on children’s television shows and talent contests. Starting on the clarinet at age four, at 11 he moved over to the ukulele. Johnny Winter was born February 23, 1944, in Beaumont, Texas, and displayed great musical proficiency from a very young age. “Everything is so much better,” he says with a smile. Performing these days with his band-Nelson, bassist Scott Spray and drummer Vito Luizzi, Winter has a new-found enthusiasm and appreciation for playing. With Nelson’s help, Winter began to recover, and his health, as well as his playing, improved.

JOHNNY WINTER FACEBOOK FULL

Soon Nelson was able to see the full extent to which Winter’s problems were affecting the guitarist both personally and professionally. In his absence, Nelson opened Winter’s shows and doubled as his tour manager. In January 2003, Slatus’ own substance abuse problems landed him in one of his many stints in rehab. Like many around Winter at the time, Nelson had the feeling Slatus was not doing right by Winter’s career. Slatus was looking to place Nelson in the band as second guitarist and manage him as well. Paul Nelson, a top session and touring guitarist who had been instructed by Steve Vai, Steve Khan and Mike Stern, was invited by Johnny to participate as a guitarist and songwriter in the recording of Winter’s Grammy-nominated 2004 album I’m a Bluesman. In 1999, Winter met a guitar player that would change his life.

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