WINTER JOHNNY, Guitar Styles and Techniques of a Blues Legend, Signature Licks. CD TABLATURE
Johnny Winter
A Step-By-Step Breakdown of the Guitar Styles and Techniques of a Blues Legend
Series: Signature Licks Guitar
Format: Softcover with CD - TAB
Author: Dave Rubin
Artist: Johnny Winter
Take an in-depth look at the fiery blues stylings of Johnny Winter with this instructional book/CD pack. You'll learn the main licks from 12 songs, including: Bad Luck Situation - Be Careful with a Fool - Bladie Mae - Highway 61 Revisited - It Was Raining - Leland Mississippi - Mean Town Blues - Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo - Rock Me Baby - Still Alive and Well - Sweet Love & Evil Women - TV Mama. 96 pages
Inventory #HL 00695951
ISBN: 9781423416418
UPC: 884088096311
Width: 9.0"
Length: 12.0"
96 pages
JOHNNY WINTER: WHITE LIGHT
As if to mock the very notion of whether or not a "white man can play the blues,"
Johnny Winter, with his nearly translucent albino skin and blindingly white hair, blasted
down the doors starting in the late 1960s for everyone who loved the music. He once said,
perhaps ironically, "In my own mind, I was the best white blues player around," but clearly
that qualification no longer applies. The legendary Lonnie Mack and the British contingent
of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, and Jimmy Page before him had shown
the possibilities of rocking the blues, but no one was adequately prepared for Winter.
Notes flew from his fingers like blazing blue diamonds, creating shock and awe for everyone
within sight and earshot. It was the perfect culmination to the blues revival with Winter
carrying the torch while throwing gasoline on the fire. He would go on to not only influence
fellow Texans like Billy Gibbons and Stevie Ray Vaughan, but also the stone
Chicago blues cat Bernard Allison. Most significantly, for more than forty years he has
played and contributed to the musical language of the blues in ways that were only
strengthened by his numerous forays into rock.
John Dawson Winter III was born in Leland, Mississippi on February 23, 1944 to John
and Edwina, but was raised in Beaumont, Texas. The senior Winter, a career Army officer
who sang, played saxophone and banjo, and was a fan of the big bands, encouraged
Johnny and his younger brother Edgar to pursue music. John's father had been a cotton
broker in Leland and after WWII attempted to take over the business, becoming the boss
at the storied Stovall Plantation, an important figure in early blues history.
Johnny was singing and playing the clarinet by five, but eventually quit clarinet when
an orthodontist advised against it due to his overbite. Three years later he added the
ukulele to his repertoire and then was given the baritone variety by his grandfather. By
1954 he and Edgar were appearing as a duo, singing barbershop quartet songs like "Ain't
She Sweet" and "Bye Bye Blackbird," and even auditioning for the nationally broadcasted
Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour. It was about this time that Winter's father offered
the opinion that there were only two people, Ukulele Ike and Arthur Godfrey, who had ever
amounted to anything on the diminutive stringed instrument, and that the guitar might
prove to be a better choice. The advice was heeded, especially after Winter realized that
the emerging rock 'n' roll music at the time was played on the guitar. Within the year, he
was learning note-for-note guitar solos off the records he bought by mowing lawns, hauling
garbage, and saving his lunch money. T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters,
Chuck Berry, and Carl Perkins were favorites with The Best of Muddy Waters being an
early purchase and the records of Robert Johnson inspiring him to play slide guitar. He
recalls shopping regularly at a record shop owned by Keith Ferguson's father years
before Ferguson became the bassist for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Winter's first guitar
was his great-grandmother's "hundred-year old classical guitar." Later, his great-grandfather
bought him his first electric guitar, a Gibson ES-125, non-cutaway, with a single P-90 pickup.
There were not many white people in Beaumont in the 1950s as seriously into playing
and listening to the blues as Winter. One of the few was Joey Long (nee Longoria)
who was a little older, and the first white man Winter heard play the music. Like almost
all electric blues guitarists from Texas, he was profoundly influenced by T-Bone Walker.
Winter, on the other hand, while acknowledging his debt to the legendary electric blues
pioneer, also had a strong love for Chicago blues not always shared by his fellow musicians.
When Winter would hear blues guitar idols like Otis Rush push and vibrato their
strings, he would marvel at how it was done, not realizing at the time that it was as much
an expression of their inner soulfulness as the lighter gauge strings they were using. For
a while he accomplished the technique with a whammy bar. Ever open to whatever blues
caught his fancy, it was the expert string articulation of Clapton that would eventually
convince Winter around 1967 to become an acknowledged master of finger vibrato and bending.
In 1959, with Johnny on guitar and Edgar accompanying on piano, Johnny & The
Jammers promptly won a local talent contest sponsored by radio station KTRM. Their
prize consisted of a recording session, and they cut the single "School Day Blues" b/w
"You Know I Love You," ultimately released by Dart Records. It became a regional hit,
resulting in Winter being called to provide guitar on record dates supervised by local promoters
and producers. As was the custom in those days, the music he was playing was
what people wanted to hear-rock 'n' roll, R&B, and then soul music-not blues. All the
while he was compulsively woodshedding his chops and voraciously listening to all the
blues recordings he could find. A treasure trove resided at radio station KJET where DJ
and bluesman Clarence Garlow of the Bon Ton show befriended him, took his requests
on air, and let him hang at the station while also showing him guitar techniques. "I first
saw him at Jefferson Music Company where I worked as a guitar teacher," Winter
explains. "He walked in and I recognized his voice. His style was similar to T-Bone Walker.
On his show he also played a lot of his own records" laughs Winter. "I was about twelve
years old, and he was one of the first guitar players to use light gauge strings, and he
taught me how to use an unwound third. We jammed together a few times, too, including
once at my house that was great."
Winter cites Chet Atkins and Merle Travis as guitarists who really made him want to
play (and his impetus for using a thumbpick). He learned the rudiments of country fingerstyle
from Jefferson Music coworker Luther Naley and some jazz from Seymour Drugan,
the father of Dennis Drugan (the bass player for the Jammers). He briefly attended Lamar
University in Beaumont after high school, sneaking down to Louisiana on the weekends
to jam in the blues clubs. There and in Texas he was often the only white person in the
club, but felt welcome for the most part due to his obvious and sincere love for the music.
His perseverance and total immersion in the blues gained him access to the local
scene by 1963 where he got to jam with B.B. King in a momentous occasion. The following
year he took a pilgrimage to Chicago to join Dennis Drugan in the Gents where he
hoped to play blues, but instead ended up once again performing the popular music of
the day. While in the Windy City he met Michael Bloomfield at his club, the Fickle Pickle,
for what would become a solid friendship based on mutual admiration. Winter was back
in Texas a year later, however, and cut "Eternally" for the KRCO label, which leased it to
Atlantic Records, scoring a regional hit that allowed him to advance to the next leveltouring
and opening for rock acts like Jerry Lee Lewis and the Everly Brothers. In 1967
he made a fortuitous move to Houston, a hot bed for blues in the Lone Star State, and
convened a trio with bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John "Red" Turner,
who in turn encouraged Winter to concentrate on performing the blues, knowing he was
mastering the style at a rapid pace. The band became a fixture at the Vulcan Gas
Company ballroom, later dubbed Armadillo World Headquarters, and Winter's reputation
soared on the wings of his impossibly fast, furious, and fluid solos. While in residency he
got to play with Freddie King and met Muddy Waters for the first time, with whom he would
form a lifelong friendship. In addition, responding to the creative rock experimentation
going on in the late 1960s, he also tried his hand at the psychedelic experience musically
and sartorially.
Take an in-depth look at the fiery blues stylings of Johnny Winter with this instructional book/CD pack. You'll learn the main licks from 12 songs, including:
TITLE - AUTHOR - ALBUM - YEAR
Bad Luck Situation - Johnny Winter - SAINTS & SINNERS - 1974
Be Careful With A Fool - Words & Music: B.B. King, Joe Bihari - 1957 - JOHNNY WINTER - 1969
Bladie Mae - Johnny Winter - NOTHIN' BUT THE BLUES - 1977
Highway 61 Revisited - Words and Music: Bob Dylan - 1965 - SECOND WINTER - 1969
It Was Raining - Johnny Winter - NOTHIN' BUT THE BLUES - 1977
Leland Mississippi - Johnny Winter - NOTHIN' BUT THE BLUES - 1977
Mean Town Blues - Words and Music: Johnny Winter - THE PROGRESSIVE BLUES EXPERIMENT - 1969
Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo - Words and Music: Rick Derringer - JOHNNY WINTER AND - 1970
Rock Me Baby - Words and Music: B.B. King, Joe Bihan - 1964 - STILL ALIVE AND WELL - 1973
Still Alive And Well - Words and Music: Rick Derringer - JOHNNY WINTER AND - 1970
Sweet Love & Evil Women - Johnny Winter - NOTHIN' BUT THE BLUES - 1977
TV Mama - Johnny Winter - NOTHIN' BUT THE BLUES - 1977
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