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Hear my “Tip of the Hat“ to Johnny Winter HERE! For Killer Guitar & Classic Rock, Subscribe Here: John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and record producer.[2] Winter was known for his high-energy blues rock albums, live performances and slide guitar playing from the late 1960s into the early 2000s. He also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. After his time with Waters, Winter recorded several Grammy-nominated blues albums. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, he was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time“.[3] Early life Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas, on February 23, 1944.[4] He and his younger brother Edgar Winter (born 1946) were nurtured at an early age by their parents in musical pursuits.[4] Both were born with albinism. Their father a Leland, Mississippi native John Dawson Winter Jr. (1909–2001), was also a musician who played saxophone and guitar and sang at churches, weddings, Kiwanis and Rotary Club gatherings. Johnny and his brother began performing at an early age. When Winter was ten years old, the brothers appeared on a local children's show with Johnny playing ukulele. Career Early career His recording career began at the age of 15, when his band Johnny and the Jammers released “School Day Blues“ on a Houston record label.[4] During this same period, he was able to see performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland. In the early days, Winter would sometimes sit in with Roy Head and the Traits when they performed in the Beaumont area, and in 1967, Winter recorded a single with the Traits: “Tramp“ backed with “Parchman Farm“ (Universal Records 30496). In 1968, he released his first album The Progressive Blues Experiment, on Austin's Sonobeat Records. Signing with Columbia Records Johnny Winter, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, 1969 Winter got his biggest break in December 1968, when Mike Bloomfield, whom he met and jammed with in Chicago, invited him to sing and play a song during a Bloomfield and Al Kooper concert at the Fillmore East in New York City. As it happened, representatives of Columbia Records (which had released the Top Ten Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills Super Session album) were at the concert. Winter played and sang B.B. King's “It's My Own Fault“ to loud applause, and within a few days, was signed to what was reportedly the largest advance in the history of the recording industry at that time—$600,000.[4] Winter's first Columbia album, Johnny Winter, was recorded and released in 1969.[5] It featured the same backing musicians with whom he had recorded The Progressive Blues Experiment, bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner, plus Edgar Winter on keyboards and saxophone on 2 tracks, and (for his “Mean Mistreater“) Willie Dixon on upright bass and Big Walter Horton on harmonica. The album featured a few selections that became Winter signature songs, including his song “Dallas“ (an acoustic blues, on which Winter played a steel-bodied, resonator guitar), John Lee “Sonny Boy“ Williamson's “Good Morning Little School Girl“, and B.B. King's “Be Careful with a Fool“.[5] The album's success coincided with Imperial Records picking up The Progressive Blues Experiment for wider release.[6] The same year, the Winter trio toured and performed at several rock festivals, including Woodstock.[6] With brother Edgar added as a full member of the group, Winter also recorded his second album, Second Winter, in Nashville in 1969.[7] The two-disc album only had three recorded sides (the fourth was blank). It introduced more staples of Winter's concerts, including Chuck Berry's “Johnny B. Goode“ and Bob Dylan's “Highway 61 Revisited“.[7] Johnny entered into a short-lived affair with Janis Joplin, which culminated at a concert at New York's Madison Square Garden, where Johnny joined her on stage to sing and perform Some of Rod's Teaching Material - Learn the Fretboard in 30 min or Less!: Modal Mastery Video Course and Ebook: Play Barre Chords Like a Pro!: Rod's Ultimate Album Bundle- Limited Time Only! (9 albums for less than the price of 2!): For 2 FREE DOWNLOADS of Rod's Latest singles, visit:
