Winter Journeyм

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.

Edgar Winter delves into a newfound fascination with sci-fi, and the resulting two albums are the end product. A confusing mixed bag of lyrics, this sounds unlike anything Winter has produced before. Considering his immense body of excellent work, from White Trash to the Edgar Winter Group, Standing On Rock comes across as something of a disappointment. That is, until Mission Earth came along in 1986. While there are a few good moments on Standing On Rock, its successor doesn't fare nearly as well. Thankfully, Edgar got back on track later in his career, and the "sci-fi" years became nothing more than a bad memory.

A two-CD survey of Winter's recordings for Columbia between 1969 and 1979, the era of his greatest commercial success. This collects many of his most popular tracks, though it doesn't do much to argue a case for artistic diversity. Includes two otherwise unavailable songs: an alternate take of "30 Days," and a previously unreleased 1973 cover of Robert Johnson's "Come on in My Kitchen."

After two stellar sets for the independent blues label Alligator Records, Johnny Winter wisely changes things up on his third Alligator LP. He brings in Dr. John to play organ on "Love, Life and Money" and, more prominently, piano on "Tin Pan Alley." He plays a National steel guitar on "Bad Girl Blues" (a blues about lesbians!) and uses his slide with another National on "Evil on My Mind." And, most significant, he reunites with his old rhythm section of bass player Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John "Red" Turner (with whom he played from the late ‘60s to 1970) on "See See Baby," "Shake Your Moneymaker," and "Broke and Lonely." Particularly on those three tracks, he sounds like the blues-rock singer/guitarist who garnered so much attention when he first emerged from Texas as an "overnight" national star in 1969. Those days have passed, but Winter has matured into a dependable blues musician able to shine in a variety of styles and bring out the best in his fellow musicians.

Although his early Columbia albums brought him worldwide stardom, it was this modest little album (first released on Imperial before the Columbia sides) that first brought Johnny Winter to the attention of guitarheads in America. It's also Winter at the beginning of a long career, playing the blues as if his life depends on it, without applying a glimmer of rock commercialism. The standard classic repertoire here includes "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "I Got Love if You Want It," "Forty-Four," "It's My Own Fault," and "Help Me," with Winter mixing it up with his original Texas trio of Red Turner on drums and Tommy Shannon (later of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble) on bass. A true classic, this is one dirty, dangerous, and visionary album. The set was issued in a sonically screaming 24-bit remastered edition on CD by Capitol in 2005.

Described in the notes as "comprehensively forgotten," Peter von Winter was born three years before and died two years before Ludwig van Beethoven. He started as a member of the Mannheim Orchestra when that ensemble was creating the Classical style and he became the kapellmeister of the Munich Court and was later made a Knight. When he died, the streets were lined with people in mourning as his coffin was carried through the city to the cemetery. And with his internment, the music of Peter von Winter fell into oblivion and his reputation faded into obscurity.

A two-CD survey of Winter's recordings for Columbia between 1969 and 1979, the era of his greatest commercial success. This collects many of his most popular tracks, though it doesn't do much to argue a case for artistic diversity. Includes two otherwise unavailable songs: an alternate take of "30 Days," and a previously unreleased 1973 cover of Robert Johnson's "Come on in My Kitchen."

This Winter Machine sign to White Knight Records. The album is the first to feature new members Leigh Perkins on keys and backing vocals and John Cook on guitar. Returning are Dave Close on bass, Alan Wilson on drums and Al Winter on vocals. The Clockwork Man is a concept album in the traditional sense. It covers issues such as personal identity, bigotry and freedom of choice wrapped up in a story about cloning and identity".

This album was originally released in 1969 as "First Winter". When Johnny Winter emerged on the national scene in 1969, the hope, particularly in the record business, was that he would become a superstar on the scale of Jimi Hendrix, another blues-based rock guitarist and singer who preceded him by a few years. That never quite happened, but Winter did survive the high expectations of his early admirers to become a mature, respected blues musician with a strong sense of tradition. 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".