John Winter Talks About Raising Two Musicians in the Family
By Brent Snyder / The Beaumont Enterprise / December 1997
John Winter reminisces about his sons playing music in the family garage, the smile on his face stretching from ear to ear as he recalls the loud rock 'n' roll blasting down the street for all the neighbors to hear.
“Their music is always good,” he said, sitting in his rocking chair. “Of course, a lot of their music is pretty rough.”
Winter, 88, the father of fair-haired and fair-skinned classic rock legends Johnny and Edgar Winter, is sitting in his corner room on the fifth floor of the Hotel Beaumont, with a view that overlooks George Jones Place and the historic Jefferson Theater.
Winter moved into the hotel in March. He lives on the assisted living floor, for residents who require extra help with day-to-day activities. He says he's staying at the hotel until his wife, Edwina, recovers from hip-replacement surgery and bowel surgery.
Winter doesn’t know how long he’ll have to live at the hotel, but he says staying there is OK for now.
“The hotel is real nice,” Winter said. “The facilities are good ... run down, worn out, and in a hell of a fix, but good.”
Winter stresses that he's not complaining.
“They want to keep me busy and occupied, which is good,” he said. “They wash my clothes for me, and do all that sort of stuff. And the food they have in some instances isn’t too bad.”
But Winter would rather talk about his two famous rock star sons.
“Johnny always loved to play the guitar, man,” Winter said. “That’s his thing. Edgar, on the other hand, likes more to compose and produce music. But you probably already know that.”
Johnny and Edgar — best known for Edgar’s classic '60s rock hits such as “Frankenstein” and “Free Ride” and Johnny’s album First Winter — regularly send their father CDs of their music.
“I love to hear it when I can,” he said. “I can’t listen to it in the hotel — only because I don’t have a stereo — but at home, I listen to them all the time. I like them all just as much. I remember when they sent me their first records. I get just as excited and proud when I hear their new CDs today.”
The elder Winter says Johnny and Edgar got their love for music honestly because he and his wife — who plays the piano — have their own musical backgrounds.
Born and raised in Leland, Miss., Winter and his family performed as a five-piece band on the front porch of his parents’ home.
“My mother played the piano. I played the sax. One sister played drums and another sister played guitar, and my father played the flute,” Winter said. “We’d play and sing and all the neighbors would come to hear us.”
Winter left Mississippi to serve in the Army during World War II, seeing action in North Africa, Italy, and the South Pacific. While overseas, Winter learned of his first son’s birth.
“When Johnny was born in 1944, I was still in the Army. And they wrote me and said I had a son, but they didn’t send any pictures,” Winter said.
“They told me Johnny was an albino,” he said.
Winter had no idea why Johnny was born an albino, someone whose skin, hair, and eyes lack normal pigmentation. There was no record of albinos in either his or his wife’s families — but Winter said it didn’t matter to him.
“He was my son,” he said.
Winter didn’t get to see his son until he came home from the war in 1946, when Johnny was 3. That same year, Winter moved the family to Beaumont, where he built houses and sold men’s furnishings.
“We told the doctors we would like to have another child, and we asked what the chances were of another baby being an albino,” Winter said.
The doctors said that the chances were one in 100,000 that they would have another albino child, Winter said.
“And we had Edgar in 1946 and he was exactly like Johnny!” Winter said, laughing. “We found out after Edgar was born that the chances for another albino child were actually one out of four.”
Both Johnny and Edgar have decided not to have any children of their own because of the possibility that they may be born albino, Winter said, adding that he and his wife don’t regret not having any grandchildren. “We respect their decision.”
Raising two albino sons in the late 1940s in Southeast Texas wasn’t easy, Winter said, but it wasn’t an impossible task either.
“Wherever they go, they have to have somebody come with them to help take care of them,” he said. “They’re legally blind. They can’t drive a car.”
Both brothers attended Beaumont High School and took special education classes. “Because they couldn’t see anything sitting there, you could understand why it wouldn’t be like a normal classroom situation,” Winter said. “But they got over that, and they handled themselves awfully well in school.”
Winter says that his sons were well treated by both teachers and students in school. “Everyone tried their best to help them as much as they could,” he said.
At ages 14 and 11, Johnny and Edgar formed a band called Johnny and the Jammers. The group won a talent contest, and as their prize, they recorded “Schoolday Blues” and “You Know I Love You.”
“They have a natural God-given talent for music,” their father said. “When we realized that they were musical, we bought them instruments and did everything we could to encourage their music.”
Johnny finished Beaumont High School and decided to go to Lamar University to learn more about music.
“Well, he got out to Lamar, and he said they just weren’t doing anything for him, and he said, ‘I’m gonna quit and get up a band,’” Winter said.
Which he did. “He talked Edgar into going with him,” Winter said. “Edgar hadn’t finished high school yet, but we made sure that he did finish later on. Edgar wanted to do it, and that’s what he did best, play music. And he loved his brother, and he wanted to help his brother if he could, so we didn’t stop them. We told them, ‘You go ahead.’”
The rest, they say, is history.
Winter has nothing but praise for his sons. “They’re not lazy at all,” he said. “They want to work. They want to keep busy. They’ve always liked to get up and go and do something.
“We’re both very proud of both of them and we’ll do anything we can for them,” he said.
Winter hasn’t seen his two sons in several years. Johnny is currently on tour and Edgar is in the studio working on a new album. “They don’t visit nearly enough,” their father said.
Meanwhile, Winter is pursuing his own musical aspirations. Tuesday afternoon, he was one of the featured singers at Josephine Houston’s 92nd birthday party in the lobby of the hotel. He sang a selection of Christmas carols with several other residents, and he was clearly enjoying himself.
“As you can tell, I really love music,” he said with a smile.
