Johnny Winter

For the middle album of his Johnny Winter-produced, late-'70s musical trilogy, blues giant Muddy Waters brought a new spirit to some familiar material. Starting with members of Waters' touring band – pianist Pinetop Perkins, bassist Bob Margolin, and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith – Winter added underrated guitarist (and longtime Waters foil) Jimmy Rogers and extraordinary harp player Big Walter Horton to the mix.

What do Keith Anderson, Rodney Atkins, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Winter, Delbert McClinton, Buddy Guy, Van Zant, George Thorogood, Hank Williams, Jr., Montgomery Gentry, Susan Tedeschi, and Shemekia Copeland all have in common?Triple threat, two-time Grammy®-nominated Songwriter,Singer, Producer & Drummer:TOM HAMBRIDGE!
A native son of Buffalo, New York, Tom started playing drums at the the age of 5. Tom's formal education began with a scholarship at Boston's Berklee School of Music, where he frequently returns as a guest lecturer. After years of touring and performances with many of the biggest names in the business (Chuck Berry, Roy Buchanan and many more), Tom set his sights on Nashville where he lives and works today as a producer, songwriter, and performer.Since arriving in Nashville, Hambridge has enjoyed remarkable success with countless songs being used in major motion pictures, television and by many legendary recording stars including: Buddy Guy, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Montgomery Gentry and Johnny Winter……

Alligator Records shows a different side of its house-rocking face on this 13-cut collection of acoustic blues. While Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and Bukka White don't appear here, other performers – some of whom one normally associates with overdriven electricity – are. Buddy Guy is present, as is Stevie Ray Vaughan. Koko Taylor's "The Man Next Door" is here and it's one of her greatest performances on record. In addition, Johnny Winter, who was no stranger to a National Steel string bottleneck earlier in his career, returns to give it another go, and the true roots doctor Corey Harris is here with "God Don't Ever Change," and Carey and Lurrie Bell with "Stop Running Around." Guy's "Hi Heel Sneakers" is terrific as is Winter's "Evil on My Mind." But it's those that are normally associated with the acoustic blues like Harris, Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women, Cephas & Wiggins, John Jackson and the legendary Sonny Terry who come off best, bringing the true rhythm and mystery with them into their songs.

Muddy Waters was the leading exponent of Chicago blues in the Fifties, and with him, the blues came up from the Delta and went electric. His guitar licks and repertoire have fueled innumerable blues bands.

Having released no less than six charting Christmas albums during his career including one of the Top Ten selling Christmas albums of all time (1958 s Merry Christmas, which hit the Christmas charts 16 times!), Johnny Mathis has probably sold more Christmas records than any other artist in pop music history. And, with a half dozen releases to date on our Real Gone Music label, he is also by far our biggest selling pop vocalist. Add to that the fact that Christmas music is such a big part of what we do here at Real Gone and you can see why the chance to do a truly comprehensive collection of his Christmas music has been a glimmer in our eye ever since we started the label back in 2011. Now, after years of preparation, we are finally ready to release such a collection…and it s turned out even better than we d hoped!

The Blues Masters series, much to Rhino`s credit, adopts an expansive definition of blues, allowing the likes of Count Basie, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy Waters and even Louis Prima admission. There is none of the purist`s quibbling over strict 12-bar form or the relative significance of prewar and postwar styles.
What Rhino delivers instead is the blues in all its myriad guises. This music is old and new, black and white, acoustic and electric, folksy and jazzy, performed by women and men, and yet it is all still blues at its core.