John Dawson Winter III was born on February 23, 1944, and passed away on July 16, 2014. He was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. Winter was known for his high-energy blues rock music, live performances, and slide guitar playing from the late 1960s until the early 2000s. He produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. After working with Waters, Winter created several blues albums that were nominated for Grammy Awards. In 1988, he was added to the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. In 2003, he was listed as the 63rd greatest guitarist of all time in Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" ranking.

Early life

Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas, on February 23, 1944. His younger brother, Edgar Winter, was born in 1946. Both Johnny and Edgar were born with albinism. Their father, John Dawson Winter Jr., was born in Leland, Mississippi, in 1909 and passed away in 2001. He was a musician who played the saxophone, guitar, and sang at churches, weddings, and community events. Johnny and his brother started performing music when they were young. When Johnny was ten years old, he and his brother appeared on a local children's television show, where Johnny played the ukulele.

Career

At 15 years old, Johnny Winter began his music career when his band, Johnny and the Jammers, released the song "School Day Blues" on a record label in Houston. Around the same time, he saw live performances by famous blues musicians like Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland. In the early years of his career, Winter sometimes played with the band Roy Head and the Traits in the Beaumont area. In 1967, he recorded a single with the Traits called "Tramp" backed by "Parchman Farm" (Universal Records 30496). In 1968, his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was released by Sonobeat Records in Austin.

Winter’s biggest opportunity came in December 1968 when Mike Bloomfield, a musician he met and jammed with in Chicago, invited him to perform at a concert in New York City. Representatives from Columbia Records, which had released the album Super Session, were at the event. Winter performed B.B. King’s song "It's My Own Fault" and received loud applause. Soon after, Columbia Records signed him to a contract, reportedly the largest advance in the history of the recording industry at that time—$600,000.

Winter’s first album for Columbia Records, Johnny Winter, was released in 1969. It included musicians he had worked with before, such as bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner, plus Edgar Winter on keyboards and saxophone on two tracks. The album included songs that became some of Winter’s most famous, such as "Dallas" (an acoustic blues song with Winter playing 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 success of the album coincided with Imperial Records re-releasing The Progressive Blues Experiment for wider distribution. In 1969, the Winter trio performed at several rock festivals, including Woodstock. With his brother Edgar joining as a full-time member, Winter recorded his second album, Second Winter, in Nashville. The two-disc album had only three recorded sides (the fourth was blank). It included songs like Chuck Berry’s "Johnny B. Goode" and Bob Dylan’s "Highway 61 Revisited." Winter also briefly dated Janis Joplin, and they performed together at a concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Contrary to some stories, Johnny Winter did not perform with Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison on the 1968 bootleg album Woke up this Morning and Found Myself Dead. Winter said, "I never met Jim Morrison! I don’t think I’m on that album because I never met him in my life."

Starting in 1969, Columbia Records released several of Winter’s albums made by combining about 15 singles (about 30 songs) he had recorded before signing with Columbia. Many of these were produced by Roy Ames, who had briefly managed Winter. According to a report in the Houston Press, Winter left town to avoid Ames. Ames died in 2003, and the ownership of his recordings remains unclear. Winter once said, "This guy has hurt so many people it makes me mad to even talk about him."

In 1970, after his brother Edgar released a solo album and formed a new band called Edgar Winter’s White Trash, the original trio disbanded. Winter then formed a new band with members of the McCoys—guitarist Rick Derringer, bassist Randy Jo Hobbs, and drummer Randy Z (whose family name was Zehringer). The band was originally called "Johnny Winter and the McCoys" but later shortened to "Johnny Winter And." Their first album included Derringer’s song "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" and marked a shift toward rock music. Later, drummer Bobby Caldwell replaced Randy Z. A live album, Live Johnny Winter And, captured performances of songs like "It's My Own Fault," which had helped Winter gain attention from Columbia Records.

Winter’s career slowed when he struggled with a heroin addiction during the time he was with the "And" band. After recovering, he spoke openly about his addiction with the help of his manager, Steve Paul. In 1973, he returned with the album Still Alive and Well, a mix of blues and rock. A concert at Nassau Coliseum in New York featured the "And" band without Derringer and Caldwell, with Winter’s wife Susie also performing. Two more albums, Saints & Sinners and John Dawson Winter III, were released in 1974. In 1975, Winter returned to Bogalusa, Louisiana, to produce an album for the band Thunderhead. A live album, Captured Live!, was released in 1976 and included a long version of "Highway 61 Revisited."

During live performances, Winter often shared a story about dreaming as a child of playing with blues guitarist Muddy Waters. He got his chance in 1974 when blues artists gathered to honor Waters, the musician who helped bring blues to Chicago. This event led to a TV series called Soundstage and a concert called "Blues Summit in Chicago." In 1977, after Muddy Waters’ record label, Chess Records, closed, Winter helped Waters record the album Hard Again for Blue Sky Records, a label set up by Winter’s manager and distributed by Columbia. Winter also produced two more albums for Waters and a live album called Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live. Their partnership earned three Grammy Awards for Waters and one for Winter’s own album Nothin’ But the Blues. Muddy Waters praised Winter for capturing the sound of his classic recordings from the 1950s. A music writer noted that Hard Again and the 1976 concert film The Last Waltz helped Waters regain popularity and attract large audiences.

Lawsuit against DC Comics

In 1996, Winter and his brother Edgar sued DC Comics and the creators of the comic series Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such, claiming defamation. They argued that two characters in the series, named Johnny and Edgar Autumn, looked very similar to them and were shown in a false and harmful way. The brothers said the comics portrayed them as "very bad, immoral, and cruel people who do violent and harmful things for pleasure and who should be killed." The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of DC Comics, stating that the comic books are protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to free speech in the United States.

Later career

After leaving Blue Sky Records, Johnny Winter recorded music for several other labels, including Alligator, Pointblank, and Virgin. He worked on music that focused more on the blues. In 2004, he received a Grammy Award nomination for his album I'm a Bluesman. Starting in 2007, a series of live recordings called the Live Bootleg Series and a live DVD entered the Top 10 Billboard Blues chart. In 2009, an album called The Woodstock Experience was released. It included eight songs Johnny performed at the 1969 Woodstock festival. In 2011, Johnny released an album called Roots on Megaforce Records. This album included his versions of eleven early blues and rock 'n' roll songs and featured guest artists like Vince Gill, Sonny Landreth, Susan Tedeschi, Edgar Winter, Warren Haynes, and Derek Trucks. His final studio album, Step Back, was released on September 2, 2014. It included appearances by Joe Bonamassa, Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Leslie West, Brian Setzer, Dr. John, Paul Nelson, Ben Harper, and Joe Perry. In 2015, Johnny and Paul Nelson won a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album for Step Back. Paul Nelson said Johnny believed the album would win and told him, "If we don't win a Grammy for this, they're nuts."

Johnny continued to perform live at festivals in North America and Europe. He performed at events like the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Chicago Blues Festival, the 2009 Sweden Rock Festival, the Warren Haynes Christmas Jam, and Rockpalast. He also played with the Allman Brothers at the Beacon Theatre in New York City to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut. In 2007 and 2010, Johnny performed at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festivals. Two guitar instructional DVDs were made by Cherry Lane Music and the Hal Leonard Corporation. The Gibson Guitar Company released a special Johnny Winter Firebird guitar during a ceremony in Nashville, where Slash presented it.

While Teddy Slatus was Johnny’s manager from 1984 to 2005, it was claimed that Slatus used his position in a harmful way and gave Johnny methadone to stop him from asking about being paid. Johnny struggled to speak or play music until Paul Nelson became his manager in 2005. Paul Nelson helped Johnny stop using drugs, alcohol, and smoking.

Personal life and death

In 1993, Winter married Susan Warford, who passed away in 2019.

Winter continued his professional work until his death on July 16, 2014, near Zürich, Switzerland. He was discovered dead in his hotel room two days after his final performance at the Cahors Blues Festival in France. The official cause of his death was not announced. However, his guitarist friend and record producer Paul Nelson stated that Winter died from emphysema and pneumonia combined.

In an article for Rolling Stone magazine, David Marchese wrote that Winter was one of the first blues rock guitar experts. He released many popular and energetic albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming a well-known performer at large concerts. He also made a famous life by playing the blues.

Winter is buried at Union Cemetery in Easton, Connecticut.

Winter produced three Grammy Award-winning albums by Muddy Waters: Hard Again (1977), I'm Ready (1978), and Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live (1979). Some of Winter’s own albums were nominated for Grammy Awards, including Guitar Slinger (1984) and Serious Business (1985) for Best Traditional Blues Album, and Let Me In (1991) and I'm a Bluesman (2004) for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In 2015, Winter won a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album for Step Back after his death. The album also won the 2015 Blues Music Award for Best Rock Blues Album. At the 18th Maple Blues Awards in 2015, Winter was also honored posthumously with the B.B. King International Artist of The Year Award.

In 1980, Winter appeared on the cover of the first issue of Guitar World. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, becoming the first non-African-American performer to be included in the Hall.

Many guitarists have said Winter influenced their playing, including Joe Perry, Frank Marino, Michael Schenker, Adrian Smith, Alex Skolnick, and Billy Corgan. Corgan’s band, The Smashing Pumpkins, released a song called "Tribute to Johnny."

In her audiobook May You Live in Interesting Times: A Memoir (2021), comedian and Saturday Night Live cast member Laraine Newman shared that she lost her virginity to Johnny Winter at age 17 in the late 1960s.

In 2008, Winter appeared with his brother Edgar in the documentary film American Music: Off the Record, directed by Benjamin Meade.

Guitars and picking style

Winter played many different guitars throughout his career, but he is most famous for using Gibson Firebird models. He owned several Firebirds, but he preferred a 1963 Firebird V. Winter explained that the original Firebird was different from Gibson’s usual designs, as it used special "sidewinder" pickups instead of the company’s standard PAF humbucker or P-90 single-coil pickups. Later Firebird models used a different pickup design, which may explain why Winter favored the 1963 version. Firebird pickups were still distinct from Gibson’s Mini-Humbuckers, though these terms are often confused. Firebird pickups naturally produce a brighter sound compared to Mini-Humbuckers. In a 2014 interview, Winter described the tone of his guitar.

In 2008, Gibson Custom Shop released a special Johnny Winter Firebird V model during a ceremony in Nashville, where Slash presented it.

In 1984, a guitar maker named Mark Erlewine introduced Winter to his Lazer electric guitar. This guitar had an unusual design for the time, with no headstock and a small body. Winter said, "The first day I plugged it in, it sounded so good that I wanted to use it for a gig that night."

Other guitars Winter owned and played include a Gibson ES-125 (his first electric guitar), a Fender Stratocaster, a Gibson Les Paul/SG Custom, a Fender Mustang, a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop with P-90 pickups, a Gibson Flying V, an Epiphone Wilshire, a Gibson Black Beauty, a Fender Electric XII (strung with only six strings), and an acoustic National Resonator.

Winter played using a thumb pick and his fingers. His picking style was inspired by guitarists Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, and he never used a flat pick. He preferred a plastic thumb pick sold by Gibson and a steel pinky slide, later sold by Dunlop.

Discography

• The Progressive Blues Experiment (Sonobeat 1968, re-released by UA/Imperial 1969)
• Johnny Winter (Columbia 1969)
• Second Winter (Columbia 1969)
• Johnny Winter And (Columbia 1970)
• Still Alive and Well (Columbia 1973)
• Saints & Sinners (Columbia 1974)
• John Dawson Winter III (Columbia 1974)
• Nothin' but the Blues (Blue Sky 1977)
• White, Hot and Blue (Blue Sky 1978)
• Raisin' Cain (Blue Sky 1980)
• Guitar Slinger (Alligator 1984)
• Serious Business (Alligator 1985)
• Third Degree (Alligator 1986)
• The Winter of '88 (MCA/Voyager 1988)
• Let Me In (Pointblank 1991)
• Hey, Where's Your Brother? (Pointblank 1992)
• I'm a Bluesman (Virgin 2004)
• Roots (Megaforce 2011)
• Step Back (Megaforce 2014)

• Live Johnny Winter And (Columbia 1971)
• Captured Live! (Blue Sky 1976)
• Together (Blue Sky 1976) – with Edgar Winter
• Live in NYC '97 (Virgin 1998)
• The Woodstock Experience (Sony/Legacy 2009)
• Live at the Fillmore East 10/3/70 (Collectors' Choice 2010)