Johnny Winter at Woodstock: Mean Town Blues

[AllenLowe]

this recording (released about 40 years later) is the reason that it is so hard to write music history based on available, primarily studio, sessions - this particular performance is simply one of the greatest blues performances ever put out - goes from the Delta to Chicago to Blind Willie Johnson, to wherever the hell else he feels like, in about 11 minutes. It is the perfect balance of virtuousity and feeling. Everything you need to know about the post-1960s blues is there.

if you have not heard it, run, don't walk, to some place you can acquire it. Thank goodness I heard it before I finished editing my 1960s rock history. This is monumental.

as I said elsewhere, it makes you wonder why ANYONE needs Stevie Ray Vaughan.

this is genius -

Edited February 26, 2010 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

bumping for the benefit of human-kind.

[Joe]

Seeing this particular performance several years convinced me that I had made a grave error in overlooking / dismissing Johnny Winter as just another white dude infatuated with the blues.

For the curious...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFAEw_Foqw

Edited February 26, 2010 by Joe

[jazzbo]

I mentioned this on the board a while back. INCREDIBLE. Johnny was one of the very best then.

[AllenLowe]

amazing, too, is how he seems to go from picked to slide - though maybe he's using the slide in a picking style, I don't know...

[Dan Gould]

I am going to get slammed, but my reaction is, is that blues or rock? Hits my ears as much more rock than blues, and more than that, he sounds to me like the father of all the worst masturbatory "guitar gods" that came afterward. I can't even listen to the whole thing.

My two cents.

[paul secor]

No slam on you coming from me, Dan. I'm with you on this one.

[Joe]

I would offer these two slightly tarnished pennies: the volume, energy and occasional gestures towards vaguely "Eastern"-sounding patterns is late 60's / late psychedelia rock-ish, but overall, the performance owes much more to 12-string approach of Mississippi John Hurt.

[AllenLowe]

Dan, you gotta listen to it - it's the kind of thing that's been tainted by a 1000 bad hair-metal guitarists, but his time is just incredible, the facility and ease - and the respect for the idiom - this is much deeper than the things you guys are talking about - it's got nuance, and sense of vaiable touch - the way he goes into different registers, the sudden slide use - and, once again, his rhythm is just the end of it all. It's not the same, this has dynamics and feeling.

a lot of jazz people have trouble with this stuff; it's like your parents hearing rock and roll (or free jazz) and thinking it all sounds alike. It does not.

also -

1)I don't hear any semi-Eastern modality, and

2) John Hurt played a 6 string -

Edited February 26, 2010 by AllenLowe

[Hot Ptah]

I have always loved this recording and have thought it was Winter's best recorded moment.

[paul secor]

have thought it was Winter's best recorded moment.

IMO, that's not saying much. Just my opinion.

[AllenLowe]

well, as I said earlier, there's a difference between a wanker like SRV and Winter - but saying it all sounds the same is, to my ears, like saying Charlie Parker sounds like Cannonball Adderley sounds like Phil Woods. It takes a little time to discern within the boundaries of a particular style.

[kenny weir]

it makes you wonder why ANYONE needs Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I agree. Besides I preferred his brother when he had that swampy Slim Harpo sorta thing going on.

Allen made a good point on another thread a while ago, and one that I'd never considered.

That that era of rock, and the showmanship that went with it, had a profound effect on the blues scene.

I've spent my time as a paid-up member of the Blues Police so there've been times when I would've found some of that influence yucky.

I remember some sort of brouhaha about the legitimacy of one of the Otis Rush Cobra sides - because it had backing vocals or some such.

Bobby Bland's California Album met similar responses.

And I remember seeing Little Milton in a club in Oakland, seeing the chick singers, and thinking" "Yech!"

But these days it's much easier, more enjoyable and enlightening seeing as all the dots are being connected and we have fewer excuses for such myopia.

In that context, I'd suggest that THE most important of the tunes Robert Johnson recorded was They're Red Hot, showing him to be an entertainer and part of a broader tradition than the Johnson/Crossroads myth would allow.

Edited February 26, 2010 by kenny weir

[Joe]

Well, I hear a couple of (admittedly brief) touches a la the Butterfiled Blues Band's "East-West" in Winter's solo... or maybe's its just his going outside the established changes.

Hurt plays 12 string on a recording of "Casey Jones" from his first "comeback" session; see AVALON BLUES 1963 (Rounder). But, yeah, number of strings aside, Winter sounds to me like he is drawing from a John Hurt / Skip James / Piedmont picking tradition here.

[jazzbo]

Winter IS the real deal. I played Second Winter, especially the third and final side, over and over for a few years. He's not a poser, a wanker. He knows it back and forth.

I find it interesting here that he uses a Fender 12 string with just 6 strings. I imagine the pickups make that a hot and biting sound. No Gibson Firebird here.

[Lush Life]

Winter IS the real deal. I played Second Winter, especially the third and final side, over and over for a few years. He's not a poser, a wanker. He knows it back and forth.

I generally despise white guys trying to play blues, most of them are indeed wankers like SRV. I'll take Charley Patton and Elmore James any freakin' day of the week.

But Johnny Winter has always hit me as the real deal, and I've listened to him for 40 years. Sure, he can also play rock, and I'm not certain I'd call this particular performance his absolute best blues performance...but it's close.

Side 3 of Second Winter isn't classic blues, either....but it's incendiary, exciting stuff.

And for my money, the live "It's My Own Fault" from Johnny Winter And Live is to die for.

[medjuck]

Seeing this particular performance several years convinced me that I had made a grave error in overlooking / dismissing Johnny Winter as just another white dude infatuated with the blues.

For the curious...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFAEw_Foqw

I'm confused (as is often the case). Is this the actual performance Allen's taking about? (One of the comments suggests that a performance from Woodstock was deleted form Youtube.) If not, id it on an available cd?

(My wife heard this and just mentioned that she saw Johnny Winter at Massey Hall.)

[7/4]

Winter IS the real deal. I played Second Winter, especially the third and final side, over and over for a few years. He's not a poser, a wanker. He knows it back and forth.

I find it interesting here that he uses a Fender 12 string with just 6 strings. I imagine the pickups make that a hot and biting sound. No Gibson Firebird here.

First and Second Winter + Progressive Blues Experiment are my favorite JW albums, then the Blue Sky albums (both his solo albums and the Muddy Waters albums). He kinda lost me after that and then SRV started releasing albums. I never really liked SRV, the aftermath...the blues explosion in popularity really turned me off electric blues.

[Brad]

So would the recomendations be the ones mentioned above?

[jazzbo]

This is available on cd on this two cd set released last year:

And I also have the performance is on this Blu-Ray set:

Edited February 27, 2010 by jazzbo

[bertrand]

As Dave Barry would say, 'the masturbatory guitar gods' would be a great name for a rock band.

Bertrand.

[John L]

I agree that Johnny Winter is a real deal artist. He is tremendously talented and puts his whole heart and soul in everything that he does.

That said, I have a personal problem that limits my enjoyment of his music. It just feels like too much, too fast, in your face all the time. I tend to like blues that gives you more time to catch your breath, that leaves space between call and response. I know that is just Johnny and the way he feels it. So I wouldn't necessarily want him to do it any other way. But I would usually rather listen to somebody else.

I am also in a minority (I believe) in much preferring Winter's 70s-80s recordings over the "classic" 60s stuff. I think that his blues sensibilities deepened with time.

[JSngry]

It takes a little time to discern within the boundaries of a particular style.

Of what music, for that matter, of what anything, is this not true?

I agree that Johnny Winter is a real deal artist. He is tremendously talented and puts his whole heart and soul in everything that he does.

That said, I have a personal problem that limits my enjoyment of his music. It just feels like too much, too fast, in your face all the time. I tend to like blues that gives you more time to catch your breath, that leaves space between call and response. I know that is just Johnny and the way he feels it. So I wouldn't necessarily want him to do it any other way. But I would usually rather listen to somebody else.

Same.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

it makes you wonder why ANYONE needs Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I agree. Besides I preferred his brother when he had that swampy Slim Harpo sorta thing going on.

Allen made a good point on another thread a while ago, and one that I'd never considered.

That that era of rock, and the showmanship that went with it, had a profound effect on the blues scene.

I've spent my time as a paid-up member of the Blues Police so there've been times when I would've found some of that influence yucky.

I remember some sort of brouhaha about the legitimacy of one of the Otis Rush Cobra sides - because it had backing vocals or some such.

Bobby Bland's California Album met similar responses.

And I remember seeing Little Milton in a club in Oakland, seeing the chick singers, and thinking" "Yech!"

But these days it's much easier, more enjoyable and enlightening seeing as all the dots are being connected and we have fewer excuses for such myopia.

In that context, I'd suggest that THE most important of the tunes Robert Johnson recorded was They're Red Hot, showing him to be an entertainer and part of a broader tradition than the Johnson/Crossroads myth would allow.

It doesn't matter how good Johnny Winter is: Johnny Winter = Wynton Marsalis.

I wasn't happy with Allen Lowe's comment about the influence of Rock on the Blues, but didn't want to argue the toss at the time. But it seems to me that the big influence on the Blues in the sixties was Soul music (with some inputs from Soul Jazz, too - I don't know whether anyone has noticed the number of Soul Jazz tunes recorded by bluesmen - pick up Blues versions of "Moanin'", "Chitlin's con carne", "All about my girl", "Motoring along" and so on). Your comment about the girlie group with Little Milton addresses that Soul influence precisely. Otis Rush also experienced that influence, as did many others. I thought earlier that it was mainly the younger players, but thinking about it since then, I can hear it in people as various as Magic Sam, Junior Parker, Bobby Bland, Lowell Fulson, Slim Harpo, Junior Wells, Koko Taylor, T-Bone Walker, Jimmy McCracklin, Albert King, B B King, Freddie King, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Dawkins and Albert Collins. Oh, and one shouldn't forget the wonderful Jimmy Johnson band (the Jimmy Johnson on the west coast, not the Chicago guy).

So, yeah, girlie groups for me, please

MG

[kenny weir]

I think you're both right.

I'm sure Hendrix had an influence on the likes of Buddy Guy and many more.

And Hendrix's background was soul/R&B.

Otis performed at Monterrey. Duane Allman recorded with Wilson Pickett. Hooker and Heat. Johnny Rivers produced Al Wilson's The Snake. Freddie King recorded for Shelter.

And so on ... not so easy to slice an dice so clinically about such turbulent times, musically and otherwise.

Johnny Winter = Wynton Marsalis

Each to his own. I'm no fan of either, but this strikes me as both absurd - and inaccurate, in the sense that the cultural landscape was so different. Even if you consider Winter a "white boy playing (at) the blues", he nevertheless came up in era quite different from navel-gazing that attended WM's career.

Edited February 27, 2010 by kenny weir