Protocol January 2023

Johnny Winter's sixth Columbia album was also his second since his comeback from drug addiction. Its predecessor, Still Alive and Well, had been his highest charting effort. Saints & Sinners was just as energetically played, but its mixture of material, including '50s rock & roll oldies like Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days," Larry Williams' "Bony Moronie," and Leiber & Stoller's "Riot in Cell Block #9," recent covers like the Rolling Stones' "Stray Cat Blues," and a couple of originals, was more eclectic than inspired. (Van Morrison completists should note that the album also contains Winter's cover of Morrison's "Feedback on Highway 101," a typical bluesy groove song that Morrison recorded for his 1973 Hard Nose the Highway album but dropped. Winter's is the only released recording of the song)…

Still Alive and Well proved to the record-buying public that Johnny Winter was both. This is a truly enjoyable album, chock-full of great tunes played well. Johnny's version of the Rolling Stones' "Silver Train" revealed the potential of this song and what the Stones failed to capture. Everything here is good, so get it and dig in.

Uncle John Turner was born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas. He first played drums with Jerry LaCroix. Unc met the Winter brothers and performed with them a few times as a substitute. In 1968, Unc convinced Johnny to try a full blown blues band and sent for his friend Tommy Shannon to play bass. This group quickly got natonal recognition and began making records and shortly after that played Woodstock, with Edgar Winter as the fourth member. By late 1970, they had split up and Uncle John and Tommy moved to Austin and formed a band called Krackerjack, which had Stevie Ray Vaughan as one of the major guitarists, along with Jesse Taylor, John Stahely, and Robin Syler. But later in the seventies he was playing with the legendary Johnny Winter again, and this record is testament to the blues magick these two great bluesmen could produce when they put their mind to it.

If you ever wondered what the white blues monster sounded like at the very peak of his name, this is it! Recorded at a 1969 Johnny Winter concer in Houston, Johnny and his regular band members (brother Edgar, I.P. Sweat, Uncle John Turner) display the honed-to-perfection combination of blues with rock that ws catapulting Johnny to stardom at tis very time in music history. No longer was he merely a regional blues man doing old favorites for a cult following; Johnny was blazing forth with a totally new sound that captured big audiences everywhere.

This album was recorded in Dallas, in the fall of '69 that also featured B.B. King, Sly & the Family Stone and Ten Years After.. By this time Johnny's popularity was such that he was no longer merely an opening act but a headliner and just a everyone expected, he stole the show. Not only that, we're lucky enough to have a really good quality recording surviving from that unforgettable show.

Recorded in Paris during November 1968, Good Feelin' was the album that rekindled public interest in the life and music of Aaron "T-Bone" Walker throughout Europe and even in some portions of the United States of America. The album begins and closes with informal narration spoken by Walker while accompanying himself on the piano. The band behind him on the other ten tracks includes guitarist Slim Pezin, pianist Michel Sardaby and Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango blowing tenor alongside Pierre Holassian on alto, Francis Cournet on baritone, and a trumpeter whose identity remains a mystery. With T-Bone's electric guitar sizzling in its own juice and the horns signifying together over soulful organ grooves and freshly ground basslines, all of this music is rich and powerful. Each track is delicious; a funky instrumental strut entitled "Poontang" is the tastiest of all.

Apparently Benson got the message. Giving up the fruitless search for decent contemporary material, he switched gears and recorded an album of old standards with top-grade jazz musicians (including pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Ron Carter) and Marty Paich's classy string and brass charts. With good songs to sing, Benson gives some moving performances, particularly on "This Is All I Ask," and there is a lovely reminder of his affinity for the Beatles, "Here There and Everywhere." Moreover, his jazz instincts were fully at his command; you'll hear some remarkable Latin-slanted guitar work on "At the Mambo Inn," some brilliant bebop on "Stella By Starlight" and "I Could Write a Book," and a stunning solo performance of "Tenderly" itself…