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…
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…
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…
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".
The textbook charge usually levelled against Alligator sessions are that they're sanitized. You couldn't lodge that one against this set with a straight face; if anything, somebody turned Sonny Terry loose. It didn't hurt that Johnny Winter was around on guitar and piano, playing gritty blues with a passion. It didn't help that Terry didn't put any amplified muscle behind his harmonica, however. Otherwise, this is a strong session.
The rockin’ blues guitar legend Johnny Winter is showcased in a parade of relentless hot licks and menacing growls on this Alligator compilation. The material here was culled from three of Winter’s strongest Alligator albums-1984’s Third Degree, 1985’s Guitar Slinger and 1986’s Serious Business. It includes two previously unissued tracks in the Smiley Lewis flavored "Georgianna," which features Dr. John tickling the ivories, and the Delta-flavored "Nothing but the Devil," featuring James Cotton on harmonica.
Johnny Winter's Live Through The '70s DVD was a fine document of a seminal period in the blues guitarist's career, and a welcome addition to the collection of every J.W. fan. Start saving up your pennies, kids, 'cause on August 24, 2010 our friends at Music Video Distributors will be releasing Winter's Live Through The '80s on DVD, providing more of the same from the blues legend's personal archives.
Blues(Rock)fans can these days really the heart go on, what new concert-DVD's concerns. Recently, these really highly satisfactory 1981 appearance by Muddy Waters has also come out only with the stones, and so now this delicacy. Sure - Johnny is no longer quite so fast as in the past and sometimes playful he even a little, but truly does not on its authenticity and the feeling that lies in his still impressive Blues game. On this DVD "live from Tokyo", is just this "late" Johnny winter game captured and preserved…..