![]() ![]() “Growin’ up in school, I really got the bad end of the deal,” Winter said. He told his biographer, Mary Lou Sullivan, who wrote “Raisin’ Cain,” that he developed a kinship with the black blues musicians he idolized early in life. While Winter’s guitar playing is legendary - he is ranked among the top 100 players of all time by Rolling Stone and Guitar Player magazine - some of his finest and most important work came breathing new life into the career of blues legend Muddy Waters.Īs a child, Winter would tell his audiences, he dreamed of playing with Muddy Waters. ![]() The passion that fueled his playing and singing returned, as did the national recognition - television appearances on David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel and the Grammy award. “He was really living a great life toward the end. “Unfortunately, the emphysema got him,” Nelson says. They celebrated Winter’s sobriety during a tour of Japan by getting tattoos, Nelson says. Nelson said he found it gratifying to see Winter’s health improve after kicking the drug habit. Then we realized it was poor management in the past and they were taking advantage.” “He was being written out of musical history,” Nelson says. In 1999, he seemed only a weak, frail shell of himself during a performance at the Roxy Theater in Northampton. He delivered a classic, blistering set at the Great Allentown Fair in 1991, but only as the opening act for George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Even Winter’s famous musical brother, Edgar, of “Frankenstein” fame, was kept at arm’s length.Īs a result, the recognition of Winter’s genius and, at times, even his performance suffered. In addition to the substance abuse struggles, which sapped his strength, Winter’s previous manager kept him isolated from the public and other musicians. Winter liked the songs Nelson gave him and asked him to play on his album, which was “I’m a Bluesman.” “And then he said, ‘Since you played on the album, you want to come on the road?’ Then … the friendship developed and then he had me help with his career.”īut helping with Winter’s career proved to be a more daunting task than Nelson expected. “He said he liked the way I play and so he asked me to write some songs for an album he was working on,” Nelson says. It was pretty intense.”Īs Nelson tells the story, he met Winter in a recording studio where the two were working on separate projects. “People in the theater were crying during the scene. “I believe we showed how I got him off without telling him,” Nelson says. John - to make a guest appearance on “Step Back.” To help wean Winter off of the narcotic, Nelson sought advice from another once-addicted guitar hero, Leslie West, who was one of many legendary artists - including Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Brian Setzer, Joe Perry and Dr. The film doesn’t shy away from Winter’s decades-long struggle with heroin addiction, which Nelson helped him to kick after what he says was about 30 years on methadone, a narcotic that reduces heroin withdrawal symptoms. Olliver “followed Johnny and I to Japan, when we toured China … and in the studio and to Johnny’s home, and over to Europe. Nelson, who in the last 10 years of Winter’s life became his sideman, then his manager and his friend, was executive producer of the film. The Blast Furnace concert, along with other tour dates, coincides with this month’s release on DVD and iTunes of “Johnny Winter: Down and Dirty,” a feature-length documentary on Winter’s life and career.ĭirector Greg Olliver, who also made “Lemmy,” a critically acclaimed documentary on legendary Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister, spent two years with Winter as he kept a rigorous 200-live-show-a-year touring schedule and recorded his last album. The All-Star Band also includes James Montgomery, an accomplished singer and blues harpist who backed Winter up for his 2004 release, “I’m a Bluesman.” The same lineup played with Winter on “Step Back,” his last record, which was released six weeks after he died in 2014 and won the Grammy Award for Best Blues Album in 2015 - the only Grammy Winter ever won as a solo artist. The All-Star Band features the lineup that backed Winter on stage and in the studio during the last years of his life - Nelson, bassist Scott Spray and drummer Tommy Curiale. ![]()
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