Edgar Winter
Edgar Winter in 1974
Background information
Birth name	Edgar Holland Winter
Born	(1946-12-28) December 28, 1946 (age 65) Beaumont, Texas, U.S.
Genres	Rock, hard rock, jazz fusion, blues rock, blue-eyed soul, boogie rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboards, saxophone, marimba, timbales, clavinet, synthesizer, guitar
Years active	1969–present
Labels	Epic, Airline
Associated acts	Johnny Winter, Rick Derringer, The Edgar Winter Group, Sawbuck, Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, David Lee Roth, Todd Rundgren
Website	www.edgarwinter.com/home.php

Edgar Holland Winter (born December 28, 1946) is an American musician. He is famous for being a multi-instrumentalist. He is a highly skilled keyboardist, saxophonist and percussionist. He often plays an instrument while singing. He was most successful in the 1970s with his band, The Edgar Winter Group, notably with their popular songs "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride". He has albinism.

Biography[link]

Winter was born to John Winter II and Edith Winter on December 28, 1946, in Beaumont, Texas. Both he and his brother Johnny have albinism, and both were required to take special education classes in high school. Winter states, "In school I had a lot of friends. I wore a lot of white shirts to, like, blend in I guess. No one really gave me a hard time about being albino or taking special education classes. Then again, I wasn't really popular."

By the time Edgar Winter left his hometown of Beaumont, Texas, in the 1960s, he was already a proficient musician. A child prodigy who achieved international success early on, Edgar has found an audience in a number of major entertainment media, including music, film and television.

A prolific writer, Edgar's music encompasses many different genres, including rock, jazz, blues, and pop. From his critically acclaimed 1970 debut release, Entrance, he has demonstrated his unique style and ability to cross the genre lines and do the unexpected. His early recording of "Tobacco Road" propelled him into the national spotlight. Edgar followed Entrance with two hit albums backed by his group White Trash, a group originally composed of musicians from Texas and Louisiana. White Trash enjoyed huge success, both with the 1971 release of the studio album, Edgar Winter's White Trash (album), and with 1972's follow-up live gold album, Roadwork.

In late 1972, Winter brought together Dan Hartman, Ronnie Montrose and Chuck Ruff to form The Edgar Winter Group, the legendary band that created such hits as the number one "Frankenstein" and the ever popular "Free Ride". Released in 1973, They Only Come Out at Night peaked at the number 3 position on the Billboard Hot 200 and stayed on the charts for an impressive 80 weeks. It was certified gold in April 1973 and double platinum in November 1986.

Winter invented the keyboard body strap early in his career, an innovation that allows him the freedom to move around on stage during his multi-instrument high-energy performances.

After They Only Come Out At Night, Winter released Shock Treatment, featuring guitarist Rick Derringer in place of Ronnie Montrose. Later albums included Jasmine Nightdreams, The Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer, a live album, Together Live With Johnny Winter, Recycled, a reunion with White Trash, Standing On Rock, Mission Earth, Live In Japan, Not A Kid Anymore, The Real Deal, and Winter Blues.

Major national television and radio campaigns have used Winter's music to advertise their products. Winter has also made frequent television appearances, both to promote his music, and to give his opinions on everything from Politically Incorrect to a commercial with George Hamilton for Miller Lite beer. He has appeared in the film Netherworld, and the TV shows The Cape, Mysterious Ways, David Letterman, and The Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Winter's music has been used in many film and television projects, including Netherworld, Air America, My Cousin Vinny, Encino Man, Son In Law, What's Love Got to do With It, Wayne's World 2, Starkid, Wag the Dog, Knockabout Guys, Duets, Radio, The Simpsons, Queer as Folk, and Tupac Resurrection. Winter's song "Dying to Live" is featured as "Runnin” (Dying To Live) in the film Tupac Resurrection, the biography on the life of rapper Tupac Shakur. Produced by Eminem, the song includes vocals by the Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, and Edgar Winter himself. "Runnin" is on numerous Billboard charts. It peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Singles Sales chart, and the soundtrack CD was number 1 for 8 consecutive weeks.

Winter's CD and DVD, titled, "Live At The Galaxy" was recorded live at the Galaxy Theatre for Classic Pictures in 2003. It features the songs, "Keep Playing That Rock and Roll", "Turn On Your Love Light", "Free Ride", "Texas", "Show Your Love", "New Orleans", "Frankenstein" and "Tobacco Road". In addition, the DVD includes a 30 Minute Documentary, "Edgar Winter: The Man and His Music".

Winter also played with Ringo Starr in his ninth All-Starr Band in 2006, in his tenth All-Starr Band in 2008 and in his eleventh All-Starr Band in 2010-11. On the 2010-11 tour, Winter would play with Rick Derringer again.

Scientologist[link]

Winter became a Scientologist after experimenting with heroin and mushrooms in the mid 1990's. He has appeared in at least seven issues of the Church of Scientology magazine Celebrity between 1995 and 2005, which list the Scientology courses that he has completed.^[1]

Winter also produced, arranged, and performed on the album Mission Earth (1986). This album's words and music were written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard is said to have left detailed instructions and audio tapes for the musicians and producers to follow when making the album.^[2] Winter described Mission Earth as "both a return to rock’s primal roots and yet highly experimental." Winter wrote, "Ron's technical insight of the recording process was outstanding." Winter also described Hubbard's delineation of counter-rhythm in rock as something "which was nothing short of phenomenal, particularly in as much as it had then been entirely unexplored and only later heard in the African-based rhythms of Paul Simon's work, some five years after Ron’s analysis," ^[3] (despite its well-documented and thoroughly analyzed existence in all musical genres throughout recorded history).

Discography[link]

Studio/live albums[link]

Winter performing in 2006

Singles[link]

Producer[link]

• Open Fire by Ronnie Montrose - (1978) producer, piano, harpsichord
• Crazy from the Heat (1985) (David Lee Roth Session Work)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Edgar Winter

• Edgar Winter's official website
• The Johnny Winter Story
• Edgar Winter
• Edgar Winter on IMDb

Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter in 2007
Background information
Birth name	John Dawson Winter III
Born	(1944-02-23) February 23, 1944 (age 68) Beaumont, Texas, United States
Genres	Electric blues, blues rock, rock and roll, Texas blues
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Guitar, mandolin
Years active	1959–present
Associated acts	Edgar Winter
Website	johnnywinter.net
Notable instruments
Gibson Firebird Erlewine Lazer

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III (born February 23, 1944) is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters. Since his time with Waters, Johnny Winter has recorded several Grammy-nominated blues albums and continues to tour extensively. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, he was ranked 74th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"^[1] He was born with albinism.

Early career[link]

Johnny Winter, along with his brother Edgar Winter, were nurtured at an early age by their parents in musical pursuits.^[2] Both he and his brother, who were born with albinism, began performing at an early age. When he was ten years old, Winter appeared on a local children's show, playing ukelele and singing Everly Brothers songs with his brother.

His recording career began at the age of fifteen, when his band Johnny and the Jammers released "School Day Blues" on a Houston record label.^[2] During this same period, he was able to see performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland. In the early days Winter would sometimes sit in with Roy Head and the Traits when they performed in the Beaumont, Texas area, and in 1967, Winter recorded a single with the Traits: "Tramp" backed with "Parchman Farm" (Universal Records 30496). In 1968, he released his first album The Progressive Blues Experiment, on Austin's Sonobeat Records.^[3]

Signing with Columbia Records[link]

Johnny Winter, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, 1969

Winter caught his biggest break in December 1968, when Mike Bloomfield, whom he met and jammed with in Chicago, invited him to sing and play a song during a Bloomfield and Al Kooper concert at the Fillmore East in New York. As it happened, representatives of Columbia Records (which had released the Top Ten Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills Super Session album) were at the concert. Winter played and sang B.B. King's "It's My Own Fault" to loud applause and, within a few days, was signed to reportedly what was then the largest advance in the history of the recording industry—$600,000.^[2]

Winter's first Columbia album, Johnny Winter, was recorded and released in 1969. It featured the same backing musicians with whom he had recorded The Progressive Blues Experiment, bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner, plus Edgar Winter on keyboards and saxophone, and (for his "Mean Mistreater") blues legends Willie Dixon on upright bass and Big Walter Horton on harmonica. The album featured a few selections that became Winter signature songs, including his composition "Dallas" (an acoustic blues, on which Winter played a steel-bodied, resonator guitar), John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson's "Good Morning Little School Girl", and B.B. King's "Be Careful With A Fool".

The album's success coincided with Imperial Records picking up The Progressive Blues Experiment for wider release. The same year, the Winter trio toured and performed at several rock festivals, including Woodstock. With brother Edgar added as a full member of the group, Winter also recorded his second album, Second Winter, in Nashville in 1969. The two-record album, which only had three recorded sides (the fourth was blank), introduced a couple more staples of Winter's concerts, including Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" and Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited". Also at this time Johnny entered into an intimate, albeit short-lived affair with Janis Joplin which culminated in a concert at New York's Madison Square Garden where Johnny joined the then reigning Queen of R&R on stage to sing and perform.

Unofficial albums[link]

Contrary to urban legend, Johnny Winter did not perform with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison on the 1968 infamous Hendrix bootleg album Woke Up This Morning and found Myself Dead from New York City's Scene Club. According to Winter, "...I never even met Jim Morrison! There's a whole album of Jimi and Jim and I'm supposedly on the album but I don't think I am 'cause I never met Jim Morrison in my life! I'm sure I never, never played with Jim Morrison at all! I don't know how that [rumour] got started."^[4]

Beginning in 1969, the first of numerous Johnny Winter albums was released which were cobbled together from approximately fifteen singles (about 30 "sides") he recorded before signing with Columbia in 1969.^[2] Many were produced by Roy Ames, owner of Home Cooking Records/Clarity Music Publishing, who had briefly managed Winter. According to an article from the Houston Press,^[5] Winter left town for the express purpose of getting away from him. Ames died on August 14, 2003 of natural causes at age 66. As Ames left no obvious heirs, the ownership rights of the Ames master recordings remains unclear. As Winter stated in an interview when the subject of Roy Ames came up, "This guy has screwed so many people it makes me mad to even talk about him."^[5]

Johnny Winter And[link]

In 1970, when his brother Edgar released a solo album Entrance and formed Edgar Winter's White Trash, an R&B/jazz-rock group, the original trio disbanded. Johnny Winter then formed a new band with the remnants of The McCoys—guitarist Rick Derringer, bassist Randy Jo Hobbs, and drummer Randy Z (who was Derringer's brother, their family name being Zehringer). Originally to be called "Johnny Winter and The McCoys", the name was shortened to "Johnny Winter And", which was also the name of their first album.^[2] The album included Derringer's "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" and signaled a more rock-oriented direction for Winter. When Johnny Winter And began to tour, Randy Z was replaced with drummer Bobby Caldwell. Their mixture of the new rock songs with Winter's blues songs was captured on the live album Live Johnny Winter And. It included a new performance "It's My Own Fault", the song which brought Winter to the attention of Columbia Records.

Winter's momentum was throttled when he sank into heroin addiction during the Johnny Winter And days. After he sought treatment for and recovered from the addiction, manager Steve Paul courageously put Winter in front of the music press to discuss the addiction candidly.^[2] By 1973, he returned to the music scene with the release of Still Alive and Well, a basic blend between blues and hard rock, whose title track was written by Rick Derringer. His comeback concert at Long Island, N.Y.'s Nassau Colliseum featured the "And" line-up minus Rick Derringer. Performing on stage was also Johnny's wife Susie. The follow-up album, John Dawson Winter III featured Sweet Papa John, a highly-dubbed slow blues number written by Johnny, which also appeared in an extended version on the later issued "Captured Live." Saints & Sinners, continued the same direction; this was followed by another concert set, the aforementioned Captured Live!, which featured an extended performance of "Highway 61 Revisited". In 1975 Johnny returned to Bogalusa, Louisiana to produce an album for Thunderhead, a local band which included Pat Rush and Bobby "T" Torello, who would later play with Winter.

Muddy Waters sessions[link]

In live performances, Winter often told the story about how, as a child, he dreamed of playing with the blues guitarist Muddy Waters. In 1977, after Waters' long-time label Chess Records went out of business, he got his chance.^[2] Winter brought Waters into the studio to record Hard Again for Blue Sky Records, a label set up by Winter's manager and distributed by Columbia. In addition to producing the album, Winter played guitar with Waters veteran James Cotton on harmonica. Winter produced two more studio albums for Waters, I'm Ready (with Big Walter Horton on harmonica) and King Bee and a best-selling live album Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live. The partnership produced three Grammy Awards for Waters and an additional Grammy for Winter's own Nothin' But the Blues (Johnny Winter album), with backing by members of Waters' band. Waters told Deep Blues author Robert Palmer that Winter had done remarkable work in reproducing the sound and atmosphere of Waters's vintage Chess Records recordings of the 1950s. The albums gave Waters the highest profile and greatest financial successes of his life.

Later career[link]

Woodstock Reunion, Parr Meadows, Ridge, NY 1979

In 1984, Winter began recording for several labels, including Alligator Records and Point Blank Records, where he has focused on blues-oriented material.^[2] He continues to perform live, including festivals throughout North America and Europe. Winter has headlined such prestigious events as the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Chicago Blues Festival, Swedish Rock Fest, Warren Haynes X-mas jam, and Europe’s Rockpalast. He also performed with the Allman Brothers at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on the 40th anniversary of their debut. In 2007 and 2010, Winter performed at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festivals. Two guitar instructional DVDs have been produced by Cherry Lane Music and the Hal Leonard Corporation. The Gibson Guitar Company released the signature Johnny Winter Firebird guitar in a ceremony in Nashville with Slash presenting.

In 2004, Winter received a Grammy nomination for his I’m a Bluesman album. Backing him are guitarist Paul Nelson, bassist Scott Spray, and drummer Vito Liuzzi. Beginning in 2007, a series of live Winter albums titled the Live Bootleg Series and a live DVD have all entered the Top 10 Billboard Blues charts. In 2009, The Woodstock Experience album was released, which includes eight songs that Winter performed at the 1969 festival. Johnny Winter is signed to Megaforce Records, who will release a new studio album titled Roots on September 27, 2011. It will include Winter's interpretation of eleven early blues and rock 'n' roll classics and feature several guest artists (Vince Gill, Sonny Landreth, Susan Tedeschi, Edgar Winter, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, and others!!).

Recognition[link]

Winter produced three Grammy Award-winning albums by Muddy Waters, Hard Again (1977), I'm Ready (1978), and Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live (1979). Several Winter albums were also nominated for Grammy Awards.^[6] In 1980, Winter was on the cover of the first issue of Guitar World and in 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. There was a character in the video game Heavy Rain named after Winter.

Discography[link]

Throughout his career, Johnny Winter has been dogged by bootleg recordings and unauthorized re-releases of singles from his early pre-Columbia Records days. According to one biographer, only about fifteen percent of Winter's commercially-available recordings are legitimate, leaving 85 percent that he had no control over.^[2] Some of the releases were doctored with later overdubs by other musicians. Royalties were not Winter's primary concern, "I just don't want that bullshit out ... It's just bad music".^[2] The following lists Johnny Winter's official albums.

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

• Live Johnny Winter And (Columbia 1971)
• Captured Live! (Blue Sky 1976)
• Together with Edgar Winter (Blue Sky 1976)
• Live In NYC '97 (Virgin 1998)
• Live Bootleg Series, Volumes 1–7 (Friday 2007–11)
• The Woodstock Experience (Sony/Legacy 2009)
• Johnny Winter Live Fillmore East 10/3/70 (Collectors 2010)
• Rockpalast Blues Rock Legend Vol. 3 recorded in Essen April, 1979 (2011)

Compilation albums[link]

• The Johnny Winter Story aka Raised on Rock (Columbia 1980)
• Scorchin' Blues (Columbia 1992)
• A Rock N' Roll Collection (Columbia 1994)
• Anthology (Columbia 1995)
• Return of Johnny Guitar (The Best of Johnny Winter 1984–86) (Empire 1996)
• White Hot Blues (Sony 1997)
• Deluxe Edition (Alligator 2001)
• The Best of Johnny Winter (Sony 2002)
• The Johnny Winter Anthology (Shout 2009)

As producer and guitarist[link]

• Hard Again – Muddy Waters (1977)
• I'm Ready – Muddy Waters (1978)
• Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live – Muddy Waters (1979)
• King Bee – Muddy Waters (1980)
• Whoopin' – Sonny Terry (1984)
• Breakin' It Up, Breakin' It Down – Muddy Waters & James Cotton (2007)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Johnny Winter

• JohnnyWinter.net - the official webpage