After two late-'60s albums on Columbia, Johnny Winter hit his stride in 1970 working with Rick Derringer and the McCoys, now recruited as his sidemen and collaborators (and proving with just about every note here how far they'd gotten past "Hang on Sloopy"). In place of the bluesy focus on his first two albums, Winter extended himself into more of a rock-oriented mode here, in both his singing and his selection of material. This was hard rock with a blues edge, and had a certain commercial smoothness lacking in his earlier work. Derringer's presence on guitar and as a songwriter saw to it that Winter's blues virtuosity was balanced by perfectly placed guitar hooks, and the two guitarists complemented each other perfectly throughout as well.
After two late-'60s albums on Columbia, Johnny Winter hit his stride in 1970 working with Rick Derringer and the McCoys, now recruited as his sidemen and collaborators (and proving with just about every note here how far they'd gotten past "Hang on Sloopy"). In place of the bluesy focus on his first two albums, Winter extended himself into more of a rock-oriented mode here, in both his singing and his selection of material. This was hard rock with a blues edge, and had a certain commercial smoothness lacking in his earlier work. Derringer's presence on guitar and as a songwriter saw to it that Winter's blues virtuosity was balanced by perfectly placed guitar hooks, and the two guitarists complemented each other perfectly throughout as well…
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. Best known for his high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances in the late 1960s and 1970s, Winter 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." This box set contains 5 Johnny Winter's albums: Johnny Winter (1969), Second Winter (1969), Live (1971), Still Alive And Well (1973), Saints & Sinners (1974).
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)…
On the back cover of Captured Live!, Johnny Winter's second live album (following 1971's Live Johnny Winter And), Winter is pictured with his band (second guitarist Floyd Radford, bass player Randy Jo Hobbs, and drummer Richard Hughes) from the back, playing before a giant, open-air sports stadium full of fans. The photograph is not identified, leaving the impression, along with the large cheering heard on the LP itself, that Winter was headlining such a venue – but he couldn't have been, because he isn't that big a name. He must have been performing as part of a festival or opening for an act that can fill stadiums, like the Rolling Stones.
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.
Scorchin' Blues marries tracks from Johnny Winter's early Columbia albums - including the classic National steel-driven "Dallas" from his 1969 debut - with material from his return-to-roots Blue Sky period in the late '70s. The aggressive playing and raunchy vocals will appeal to both blues and rock fans, and Ben Sandmel crams an authoritative biography into seven pages, complete with interesting Winter quotes. The one downside: a miserly ten tracks spread over only 43 minutes of playing time.
Stepping into the role of a whirlwind albino electric blues guitar player from Texas with a brilliant slide style and a roaring voice was the very role Johnny Winter was born to fill. He released nearly 30 albums of blues and blues-rock in his 40-plus-year career, and delivered countless memorable concerts as well. His death in the summer of 2014 at the age of 70 left an unfillable void in the international blues community. Step Back is his final studio album, and it follows his 2011 release Roots in paying tribute to his various blues influences, and, like Roots, it is essentially a series of duets with all-star guests, with Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, Dr. John, Leslie West, Brian Setzer, and Joe Bonnamassa helping out this time around…
Although it could be argued that, for the most part, Johnny Winter has gotten better and better as a guitarist over the years, his career has had its ups and downs for personal and professional reasons. Especially after involving himself in the latter stages of Muddy Waters' career and helping the veteran bluesman achieve a comeback with 1977's Hard Again, Winter made superior music of his own on the blues-oriented Nothin' But the Blues and White, Hot & Blue. But those albums didn't sell as well as some of his earlier rock-oriented ones, and after his 1980 album Raisin' Cain moved back toward rock, but didn't even make the charts, he left his major label and spent a few years without a record company. Signing to the Chicago-based independent blues label Alligator Records, he staged his own comeback with 1984's Guitar Slinger, and its follow-up, Serious Business, is in the same vein…