![]() ![]() After the Bay area success of fellow Texan (and friend) Janis Joplin, Steve Miller, and other acts, there was considerable interest in the Texas blues scene. He cut some singles for small labels and barnstormed, settling in Houston in ’68. The early and mid-’60s was dues paying time for Johnny, who played in Chicago (where he met Mike Bloomfield, later with the Butterfield Blues Band), and the Southern blues circuit, in bands of his own, and with Edgar. Around this time, Johnny was sneaking into black blues clubs to hear Waters, Bobby Blue Bland, and BB King play the blues. He and Edgar formed a duo based on the Everly Brothers and in 1959 appeared on local TV several times, recorded singles, and went to New York for Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour auditions. Johnny started on clarinet, then ukulele, but gravitated toward guitar. ![]() “We both had a problem with our skin being the wrong color.” Growing up, he and his brother listened to plenty of ’50s rock ‘n’ roll on the radio-the Big Bopper of “Chantilly Lace” fame was a local disc jockey. He later attributed this to his kinship with black musicians. Having to take special education classes in high school, he got into a lot of fights, which he felt led to a sense of alienation. Johnny was born Februin Beaumont, Texas, like his younger brother Edgar, an albino, his crossed eyes seeing only 20/400 vision in his better eye. In his youth he took Texas blues nationwide, becoming an American guitar hero after the British blues boom made players like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page superstars later on, he played on and produced excellent blues albums by blues great Muddy Waters, while returning the focus to the blues himself. His clean, quicksilver blues guitar lines - on both regular and slide guitar - and his soulful, growling voice conveyed an old soul who had lived the blues. The blues-rock guitar virtuoso passed away July 16 at age 70 after a career marked by breakthroughs, comebacks, personal health struggles, and a lot of great music. His name was so cool, kind of like “Billy Summer,” and being snow-white, it fit him perfectly. The flowing mane of white hair, the skinny guy with all the tattoos, and the cowboy hat with two rattlesnake skulls on the brim, howling and playing lightning-fast guitar riffs - Johnny Winter was always an iconic figure. ![]()
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