DUDE'S A SMORGASBORD

Good God, if there was one guy who never met a style of blues based music he didn't like, it's Johnny Winter, at least on his first ten or so LPs.  They flow pretty well, chronologically, that first ten or so.  But some of the changes from LP to LP have been drastic, and some single LPs in that first ten are like K-Tel records, the styles of songs are so varied.  But back in the day, he managed to keep my interest for a long stretch.

One thing you probably know is that Johnny Winter is a hot shit guitarist.  He is.  After playing in bands around Beaumont Texas in the sixties,and releasing records on no chance record labels, he met Mike Bloomfield in Chicago.  Bloomfield, impressed, later invites Winter onstage at Fillmore East where he is playing a Super Session era show with Al Kooper.  Winter plays B.B. King's "It's My Own Fault", and the audience goes ape. Columbia Records people in audience take note.  He's signed to the major within days.

His first LP on Columbia, Johnny Winter was straightforward blues, some acoustic, some electric with horns.  So there's a couple styles right there.  But it works.  Right about the time this LP is released, Imperial Records licenses an earlier LP The Progressive Blues Experiment (originally released by Sonobeat in 1968). The Progressive Blues Experiment is a similar mix of acoustic and electric, but the electric is more like a cheap John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, not that it's a bad thing.  It's raw sounding, the studio budget nowhere near the Columbia job. And it adds another style.

The Columbia follow-up, Second Winter must have been a shock for early Winter freaks. It's dominated by wah-wah and electric slide, more rock 'n' roll than blues. And, it's another style.  Three LPs in, he's already off on a bunch of tangents, and that's just the first couple years. There's not enough time or available effort at this end (not tonight) to go into detail about the ensuing LPs (really, I just couldn't find samples), but here's some from the first three.

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Listen:
Johhny Winter - Meantown Blues mp3 at Sunrise Musics from Progressive Blues Experiment
Johnny Winter - Dallas mp3 at David Fulmer from Johnny Winter 
Johnny Winter – When You Got a Good Friend at Cover Me from Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter - Hustled Down In Texas mp3 at Review Stalker from Second Winter
Viisit:
Johnny Winter at Wikipedia