By Shawn Ryan
Newhouse News Service
Johnny Winter says the late Alabama bluesman Johnny Shines once gave him some sage advice.
He said, "When you get to be 40, you're just getting started. There's no comparison, that's when you're just starting to get good," Winter recalls.
The 48-year-old Winter says he now knows exactly what Shines was talking about. "I've taken in every bit of those 48 years to learn and to do and he still has some learning to do."
"I used to act crazy 20 years ago," the Texas guitarist says. "I'm a lot happier than I was 20 years ago. If anything, I love the music more."
"When you're 20, you're a young guy and you can't play anything because you don't really understand anything. It's not hard to bump into still thinking about life. But life is not quite as agreeable anymore."
One kind of evidence that Winter is speaking of more than 30 years of stellar performances may need to look no further than his latest release, the critically acclaimed 'Third Degree', which critics are calling Winter's best work in years, a return to the days when he had fun playing the blues.
"After we finished doing it, I was talking to my road manager, and I was like, 'Well, what do you think, how good a job we did?' He said, 'It's one of the best you've done.' I'm not just saying this to sound conceited, but I still feel good about it."
The fun is evident in the rocking "Illustrated Man," the hell's bell's ringing blues of "Life Is Hard" and...
... the fierce slidework of "If You Got a Good Woman."
"Let Me In" was a distinct change of pace from Winter's last, the overproduced disaster "The Winter of '88." Produced by Terry Manning (ZZ Top, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the Rainmakers), Winter had that big, booming, techno-feel that Manning is so fond of. It tried to turn Winter, who's often at his best in small, smoky clubs, into an arena-rock monster.
"'The Winter of '88' was the least fun I'd ever had making a record," Winter says. "I hated making that one."
It put him off making another record until he was sure he had not only the right musical vision, but also the right group of people to help him achieve it. He found that group after signing with the blues-oriented Pointblank label, which...
... also is home to The Kinsey Report, Albert Collins, Larry McCray and Walter "Wolfman" Washington.
At the same time, Winter recruited producer Dick Shurman, who produced all three of Winter's albums in the mid-'80s for the Chicago-based Alligator Records.
"I did 'Let Me In' completely my way with my friends and people I'd worked with before," Winter says. "I didn't want anyone hanging it up or making it strange."
The record company seemed to be really on my side. They didn't pressure me when they wanted the record out. They weren't saying, 'We didn't want to hear anything like Johnny Winter.' They said just make a regular old Johnny Winter record, and that was what I'd already done."
Winter, who already has doubt has been well-documented. The universal deal with CBS Records, which unleased upon him a $300,000, five-album record contract in 1969, was like a heavy weight on his shoulders, though those early CBS records reflect more risk-taking.
The recordings before the contract, where he took a year off in 1972 to kick heroin, the recordings after, where he combined "Still Alive and Well" and 1974's "Saints and Sinners."
... working with Muddy Waters for four albums, including the Grammy-winning "Hard Again," and artistic nadirs of albums like "I'm Ready" and "Raisin' Cain." Tired of the grind, Winter retired from recording for four years, then returned in 1984 with "Guitar Slinger" on Alligator.
Even during the worst of times, the guitarist says he didn't really miss the attendant hype when it swelled during the late '70s, saying it tends to "get in the way of the music."
Still, it never went completely away, he says, and work always was available.
"It’s never gotten bad enough to where I missed it," he says. "I was always able to go out and play a club gig and have a good crowd."
Now that he's back, he's hearing things that people are saying like, "It's great to see that Texas boy back."
"That’s OK. It's kind of nice, if a little pressured," he says. "I don’t know how long it's going to be known to be a legend, but I guess it’s a lot better to be a living legend than a dead one."
