DEEP BLUES

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Back when bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin were vying for blues-rock supremacy, an unknown Texan was praised in Rolling Stone for playing some of "the gutsiest fluid blues guitar you've ever heard." The hype worked: Johnny Winter signed a huge deal with Columbia, stayed close to his roots, and emerged a bona fide American blues-rock guitar hero. Half a lifetime later, Winter remains true to his original vision. Johnny cut over a dozen albums under his own...

name between 1988 and '90, covering everything from acoustic blues and electrified slide to standards by Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Late in the '70s he dedicated himself to resurrecting Muddy Waters' career, producing and playing on the legend's Hard Again, I'm Ready, Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live, and King Bee. Winter signed with Alligator Records in 1984 and spitfired white-hot blues on Guitar Slinger, Serious Business, and Third Degree. He jumped to MCA/ Voyager for The Winter Of '88, but found the experience less satisfying than his Alligator stint.

Like I'm A Bluesman, his new release on Pointblank/ Virgin, Winter's Alligator material and blues approved as his best major-label material. His turns on roughshod, "industrial metal" defiantly rip through the "blues commentary" on his alternate tattoos alike: Life Is Hard showcases co-producer Dick Shurman's understated studio vision and glide on "I Smell Trouble" and "If You Got A Good Woman" and journeys downbeat on Good Time Woman and Hard Time track, recalling Robert Johnson, Son House, and early Muddy Waters.

He was in the mood to talk blues when we met in his hotel room, just one winter's eve. A few hours later, Johnny had a capacity crowd at San Francisco's Fox Warfield rocking to the classics his storied vocals, blazing solos, and mysterious slide.

Why have you dedicated your career to playing the blues?

Just because it makes me feel the best. I really like a lot of other kinds of music, but blues just does something for me. I never get tired of it or bored with it at all. I've learned things about myself by playing the blues, and I have a really enjoyable time, especially when I play the music that I grew up listening to. That's what makes it special: It's in my heart. My roots go back to the '50s rock and roll. Some of the guys in the '50s were at Nashville: I've known Rockabilly heroes and I fiddle in there somewhere. But I draw more from straight R&B and rock and roll.

Do you think the blues will be around in 50 years?

Oh yeah. Probably because I'm not much into writing new stuff. I like just fooling around with enough songs myself. I'm always looking for good new writers, so I won't have to worry about that. But it's what I grew up listening to, and that's why I still feel so strongly about it.

You seem to know an endless variety of blues songs...

It isn't just listening to a lot of tunes. There's hundreds of thousands of blues albums, and it takes years. There are those "common" blues that people have heard time and time again, but they don't want any hits. But this is a no-hit kind of album. What we've tried to do is to strip away all the fluff and find some down and dirty blues that haven't been heard before.

Who were your biggest blues heroes?

Well, definitely Robert Johnson. I like all of the earlier heroes, Son House, of course, was my man. I learned a lot from him. I remember hearing him playing Death Letter Blues, one time. He lived all of his life with it; he had to work with it and I feel like he honed his stuff that any other guitar player couldn't.

easier one because he didn't do as much. After I learned Son House stuff, it was a lot easier to graduate to the Robert Johnson, but those two albums and the Muddy Waters stuff is really where I learned the most of my slide.

Your slide on "If You Got A Good Woman" has this slide feel.

Yeah. After the record was over, [co-producer] Dick Shurman said, "You seem to play more Elmore than you did Muddy." I said, "I don't know, there's still plenty of Muddy in there." But I could kind of see what he meant—I did more in tunings than I do in standard tuning here than I've done in the A. Actually, during the last five years, if he wasn't in one of the ready Muddy tunings then he would tune his guitar to an E chord and just put his capo wherever it needed to go. Though on a lot of his early records he played the A tuning, too.

Did you and Muddy share a common admiration for any other blues musicians?

Muddy didn't talk that much about older guys. I remember asking about Robert Johnson in particular, because he had heard about Robert in Mississippi and went out to a club where he was playing. He said that Robert sounded good, he just listened for a while and left, just amazed. Muddy was real honest about how he started playing. He didn't feel like he was all that great. I remember him saying, "Well, even an old man probably can outplay me, but I got him on those songs' works" he knew what would suit the job perfectly. The older acoustic albums, he just had fun with it. He did the same stuff with that electric guitar.

Have the CD reissues of your earliest recordings been controversial?

I always kind of liked "Boot Hill" [on Guitar Slinger]. The slow blues "Third Degree" was one of the prettier songs. "Be Careful With A Fool." [Johnny Winter] was interesting. Man, it's not hard just to pick one song. Sometimes a song stinks like I break a lot of this stuff.

The slide I played in the first Columbia record—I think The Progressive Blues album is what it was. My favorite rock and roll song was played in the '50s, and Muddy was real down-to-earth. His records are always good. I just really enjoy listening to him. He has so much personality, and that's what made him my mentor. I guess Muddy was just so real when you could hear him play.

Do you have any special memories of playing the same songs on vocals?

Yeah, I don't remember a song like this funeral of somebody that I love. That real strange Robert Johnson song wasn't the point of Skip James' "Devil Got My Woman" is one of the most emotional songs I know of.

Feel bound to the songs of the past?

Yeah. There's something about both of them that's really endless to me. Nobody sounds like Skip James, not Muddy. They are emotional singers and guitar players—you just feel it. He has learned that blues doesn't sound like just repeating what he'd done before. Some of the great blues are what Muddy said.

Some songs are way down low, Earl Hooker has that. Some guitars play high. He had those ‘down-tuned’ feelings. If you really love books' record, you don't want people to learn your stuff, just play your dummy guitar—you know what I mean. When you first get into it, it's one of those "Yeah, this is great when everybody hears you, but some guys have carried blues."

What can guitarists who got stuck playing the same solo patterns do?

Just go listen to some blues players. Take a slow tune—I tell you what I do: I'll listen to a Skip James blues record and I'll go from there—I'll get a feel for what sounds real sad and I'll just repeat somebody's licks and stuff. I'll just put open on a bunch of records and I'll use it. It's hard to remember them all, so I just try not to forget. It's something you have to work at. If you're tired of it sometimes, just put it aside for a while and come back in a year or two. Then finish the song. It's just hearing it and feeling it and just putting it together at the time. I just work on adapting to play the thing all the time.

just had a great way of turning the meter around, and some of that early jazzy stuff is just amazing. He could do things right along with the horn section, just unbelievable stuff. It was more big band jazz with a blues flavor than a straight blues thing. And I always thought Lightnin' Hopkins was a real cool guy, because he could do big shows and then go out and play on the corner or on a bus or in a little juke joint. It didn't seem to bother him a bit. He could go from acoustic guitar to electric guitar or from playing by himself to playing with a band. Lightnin' was a real blues guy.

Who are the impressive modern players?

I always liked the way that Albert Collins plays. He sounds real different, I guess because he uses a different tuning, but I'm not even sure what it is.

Zzzt chord.

Wow. That's strange. He definitely doesn't sound like anybody else; I like his stuff a lot. Roy Rogers is one of my favorite new slide players. He knocks me out. Otis Rush still is great if you get him on a good night. He seems to be getting better all the time. He's an excellent player. There's so many good guys out there now.

What songs would you nominate for a blues guitarist’s hall of fame?

Wow, there's so many! One of the better ones that's always impressed me was "The Vast Minority," the Freddie King instrumental. Man, I always get chills when I hear that one. That's the one I've never forgotten. It's that flat, fat sound. I had a friend who I met in the early '60s in Texas, and he was just a genius in how he'd get sounds quite as fat as I've got now. It just wasn't the same back then, and it really fascinated me. Freddie didn't have a great memory, but he had two or three great tunes I loved. Just about any one of Otis Rush's Columbia stuff really knocks me out, like Checking On My Baby and Three Times A Fool.

Are kids growing up with computer class missing anything?

Yeah. I still don't have a CD player myself, but I think that eventually CDs will get to where they get some of that brittleness out. I'm old-fashioned about a lot of things. I like tube amps. I'm sure transistors will get warm at sound, but right now the brittleness of a lot of CDs and transistorized amps bothers me.

Have there been any constants in your equipment setup over the years?

I've pretty much changed equipment a lot. I've been using a Music Man amp that I had when I was working with Muddy. I've really liked that, but it's pretty much a copy of the old Bassman amp, just four 10s. It's got a real Bassman air tone to it. Texas—that was always my all-time favorite amp. I got one of the re-issues, and it just didn't sound exactly like I remember them. Maybe it's just the speakers in the used ones were broke in better. I tried that Bassman for years, and then a Fender Twin or a Concert or a Super Reverb, and they all do about the same thing with a little more power. The four 10s work better than any other configuration. I've used all kinds of different guitars, and they still keep making improvements. Some of the stuff I prefer, but none of it is real good.

What's the best of the new technology?

That's hard to say. I'm not a technical guy. I'm, like a lot of guys.

But you were using a headless guitar years ago.

Yeah, I still use that Lazer, but I couldn't care which end the pegs are on. I just really like the way it feels, and it has a real nice sound. I definitely used the Lazer the most on the new record. I used my Gibson Firebird for...

...the slide stuff, and a couple of Nationals for the acoustic. The action on the Firebird is real high. In fact, I've got to do something about it. The neck's been broken so many times, and it's real old. Right up by the headstock, the strings almost touch, and it was way off up by the pickups. It's crooked, and the finish is gone. I'm either going to have to have it fixed again or retire it. I've got a lot of old Firebirds, so when I completely set that one up, I can go to another one. This is the same one I used to play in the '60s.

Did you ever flatpick slide?

No, I never used a flatpick. I've never played with anything else but a thumbpick and fingers. By using my fingers more than a flatpick, I really like the sound of snapping the strings a little bit. I still use the thumbpick at the same time: I play a note down with my thumbpick and then pick up with my fingers.

How do you set your controls for slide?

I always have my amps set the same way: treble all the way on, no bass, no middle, and usually the volume's on seven-and-a-half or eight, but if I really want a super-distorted sound, I'll go ahead and turn it all the way up. The guitar is usually pretty much all the way up with all the knobs off. I've used the same slide since 1967—a piece of conduit pipe.

Do you solo during basic tracks?

Yeah. If there's a couple of guitar tracks on a song, I usually do the one that has most of the lead first. If there needs to be a little extra bass or something else, I'll do that later. As far as solos go, man, I don't know what I'm gonna do until I'm playing it. Usually I don't even know how many solos I'm gonna take. Life Is Hard didn't have any problems at all, except for the vocal. We did the four pieces before; I remember Mike [Heiberman, aka Dr. John] saying that it reminded him of a lot of early Bobby Bland stuff. Well, I learned the guitar from Bobby Bland, because he had great guitar players. My favorites are "Farther On Up The Road," "I Smell Trouble," and "Don't Want No Woman"—I don't know exactly which guys play on those, but those records are amazing. I really learned a lot from them.

Tell Mike: Rand recorded these again to catch Clarence Hollimon on guitar?

Yep. Here's the story on your steel-bodied Nationals:

My real old one's got a great, great slide sound, but the neck needs to be worked on. It can't fret at all at 1 and beyond that. I have a newer one that's by all looks exactly the same as my old one, and they both sound really good, but I just kind of insisted the playing of the old one had to be limited off the point of being played to the 12th fret instead of the 1st. It's pitched at the 14th. The strings are too close to play slide on, so I usually use both of those guitars—one for slide and the other for fretting. I don't have one that's set up exactly right where I can do both on the same guitar. I've got a lot of old Nationals, and all of them sound completely different.

What's the best way to extend Nationals’ body?

Boy, it's always hard to get a good sound on this. This time we recorded it in the bathroom, with the mic right over my head. On Third Degree we had a little trouble—it just didn't happen the way that worked—it just didn't have the same nice echo. This time I was hearing things real nice.

Did you set the vocals at the same time?

No, I never do the vocals and the guitar at the same time.

The National on "Let Me In" sounds propulsive, like Son House.

Yeah, I learned a lot of my original slide stuff from Son! There were two albums that came out on Columbia that really helped a lot: Son House and Robert Johnson. Son House didn’t play as much—it was more primitive—and I was trying to figure out by the guitar was tuned and all that. Son House was an...