Johnny Winter phoned in for his interview on Sunday night, 9 March, from his home in New York. Amazingly for a musician, he called a minute before the scheduled time (how often does THAT happen?). It had been over five years since Johnny had done an interview, and he hadn't really participated in a lengthy one since around 1989, so we were thrilled he was honoring us with his time. I found him to be polite, friendly, and open, despite being a little nervous after so many years of not talking to the press.
As a Delta boy myself, I can do a mean Mississippi accent. My folks have lived in and near Tupelo for decades, and yes, everybody up there sounds just like Elvis (that IS the accent). But imagine, when reading this, Johnny Winter's quiet voice with a real South Texas/Houston-area accent—very drawling and distinctive.
We began by chatting about a few mutual acquaintances and the fact that I spent my first eight years just down Highway 82 from Johnny's home in the Delta—not that he remembers that area well, since he was less than two years old when his family moved. Although Johnny's career and musical history are centered in southeastern Texas and west Louisiana, I was surprised by how many connections his career has had to my adopted hometown of Austin.
So here’s nearly the complete text of the interview, mostly omitting my questions about the weather at the time of his upcoming show at SXSW in Austin (it was cold and rainy, quite unusual for Austin this time of year).
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Goldmine : I grew up in Indianola, in the Delta, about 14 miles east of your old hometown of Leland, Mississippi. There seems to be some question among fans about where you were actually born.
Johnny Winter : I was born in Beaumont, and when my daddy got out of the Army, we lived in Leland for a year or so. Then we moved back to Beaumont, and I actually grew up in Beaumont, Texas.
Goldmine : You and your brother Edgar, performing as the Winter brothers, appeared on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour in New York City in 1959, didn’t you? What do you remember about that show?
Johnny Winter : Well, we auditioned for it; we didn’t actually get to go on the show. It was strange—we were very little kids. We’d never done anything like that before, and we weren’t used to staying up that late. It was very weird.
Goldmine : Did your family go up to New York with you?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, they drove us up. We had won a contest in Beaumont and got to go up there. They drove us all the way from Beaumont to New York.
Goldmine : I read in an old interview that the first time you met Muddy Waters was in Austin. Is that right? Tell us what it was like meeting one of your idols and getting to play with him.
Johnny Winter : Yeah, it was at the Vulcan Gas Company in downtown Austin. We were opening for Muddy. He played a whole weekend—two shows a night. When he wasn’t playing, we were. It was unbelievable for me. I had my tape recorder set up, and I had my camera, and I took lots of photographs. We were just recording the whole thing. I was in awe of Muddy!
Goldmine : That’s so cool. Did you actually get to play with him then, or was that later?
Johnny Winter : No, it was later that we played together. It was just unbelievable, though. I was just in awe of him. I couldn’t believe we were on the same show with him.
Goldmine : How old were you then? Still in your teens?
Johnny Winter : No, I was about 27 or 28 at the Vulcan.
Goldmine : How does someone from Beaumont, Texas, discover the blues and get into playing it?
Johnny Winter : The radio. We had stations we could get out of Nashville, Shreveport, Del Rio, and even in Mexico. I listened to all the blues I could get on the radio—that was before I was old enough to get into clubs.
Goldmine : What was the first blues song that made a big impression on you?
Johnny Winter : It was "Somebody in My Home" by Howlin' Wolf. I'll never forget that. Wolf doesn’t sound like anybody else, you know! I thought it was just wild, and I said, "What is this?" It just wiped me out.
Goldmine : Some of the earliest recordings you did were with Roy Ames down in Houston, right?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, but actually Bill Hall was the first guy to record me. Do you remember that movie Go, Johnny, Go! ? It had Chuck Berry, Jimmy Clanton, a lot of rock ‘n’ roll people in it. Along with the movie, they had this contest, the Johnny Melody contest. I won that, so I got to audition for a recording session with Bill Hall, Beaumont's only record company that I knew anything about. He had the only recording studio in town. He just said, "Let’s cut it," and I had these two songs that I had written. We went in and recorded them. I think we sold 285 copies.
Goldmine : Was that the single “School Day Blues” on Dart Records?
Johnny Winter : Yep. Dart Records.
Goldmine : I didn’t get into the blues from Rolling Stones records like a lot of people did. I think you were one of the first people I listened to playing straight blues, back when I was in college.
Johnny Winter : Oh, really? That’s great.
Goldmine : It’s been said that you were one of the first to really play straight blues and introduce it to a white audience for the first time. And that, of course, was responsible for those original blues artists actually making money when white audiences in the '60s discovered their music. Do you feel like you had a lot of influence in that way?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I think I did.
Goldmine : What was it about the blues that made you want to take it to a wider audience?
Johnny Winter : It was real music, about real people and real problems. It wasn’t about going to school or anything like that. It was very real, very raw. It was so uncontrived—they were just playing what they wanted to play. It didn’t sound like they had worked it out much.
Goldmine : You must have been a total outcast listening to the blues in Beaumont back in the '50s.
Johnny Winter : Yep, nobody else cared anything about it. I played as much blues as I could in clubs, but until the Stones made it big, I didn’t get to play too much of it.
Goldmine : I’m sure you had to play covers of popular songs in the bars?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, we did a lot of that, but I’d sneak in a blues song here and there whenever I could.
Goldmine : I understand your little brother Edgar wasn’t into the blues as much as you were.
Johnny Winter : Nah, he wasn’t. But he heard as much of it as I did. We were close, grew up together, and what I heard, he heard too.
Goldmine : From what I’ve gathered in earlier interviews, you had to drag him into the blues a little bit.
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I did. But he liked Ray Charles, Bobby Bland—he liked the big band blues.
Goldmine : What did you hear that made you want to pick up the guitar for the first time?
Johnny Winter : Wow! I was playing the clarinet when I was young, but the orthodontist told me I was getting an overbite from playing it—that was when I was about nine or ten—so I dropped the clarinet and started playing the ukulele. We had one around the house. I played that until my hands got big enough to play a guitar. I guess I was about twelve when I started playing the guitar. Just did imperfect versions of what I was hearing on the radio.
Goldmine : Did you start off with Buddy Holly, like a lot of musicians of your generation?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I started out with Buddy Holly and people like that, before I heard the blues for the first time.
Goldmine : Were you much of an Elvis fan?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, well, the old Elvis. I still love the Sun Records stuff.
Goldmine : When you were playing bars in your early years, were you able to play much blues, or did that only happen after you got a record deal?
Johnny Winter : It didn’t even happen then. I played in black clubs, and I got to play blues there with people like B.B. King and others. But mostly, I played covers and rock ‘n’ roll.
Goldmine : Were you accepted by the audiences in the black clubs?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, they sure did accept me. That was really cool.
Goldmine : Jim Dickinson is a friend of mine, and he’s told stories about sneaking into clubs around Memphis as a young kid to hear black music, sneaking in the back door and all that. He said he just couldn’t understand why everybody wasn’t into it.
Johnny Winter : Yeah, there weren’t any other white people in those clubs with us, except for a couple of my friends.
Goldmine : At least you had those friends. Man, in Beaumont, you could’ve been the only one!
Johnny Winter : Yeah, no kidding. And because I couldn’t drive, I needed somebody to take me out there too.
Goldmine : Jumping forward a bit, what was it like when Rolling Stone singled you out as “the hottest item outside of Janis Joplin”?
Johnny Winter : Scary! I just couldn’t imagine it. I never expected it, and I didn’t know it was coming out. All of a sudden, there it was in the magazine.
Goldmine : That directly led to you being signed to Columbia, didn’t it? Were you excited to be on that label, with Dylan and everything?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, it did lead directly to that. I was very excited to be on Columbia.
Goldmine : Do you still like those first couple of records?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I (emphatically) like ’em.
Goldmine : You’ve been on a zillion different labels over the years. Is there any chance of a comprehensive boxed set of all the different eras of your career?
Johnny Winter : Record labels don’t exactly cooperate with each other much. CBS has put out a good couple of CD compilations, some with a mix of blues and rock ’n’ roll records.
Goldmine : I know our readers are going to want to know what you remember about Woodstock. I’ve been fortunate enough to see hours of footage that hasn’t been aired, and it seems like many bands that played there were too dosed on LSD to perform well. But the clip of you performing “Mean Town Blues” is one of the hottest things from Woodstock.
Johnny Winter : Really? That’s good to hear.
Goldmine : You were left out of the original film and album. I’ve heard that was your manager Steve Paul’s doing. Why were you left out?
Johnny Winter : That was Steve Paul. He didn’t think it was too big of a deal, I guess. He didn’t want to do it. I think it did hurt my career. He didn’t think it was going to amount to anything, so we got left out.
Goldmine : So, what do you remember about Woodstock?
Johnny Winter : Not much, really! We were playing big gigs like that all the time around then. That year, there were so many pop festivals going on. Mainly, I remember the rain and the mud!
Goldmine : A lot of artists never actually got paid for Woodstock. Did you get paid?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, we did! We got paid.
Goldmine : Good for you! How did you come to hook up with the McCoys? They were originally a teenybopper pop band, but by the end of their career, they were getting heavily into the blues. A lot of people still fondly remember the Johnny Winter And band.
Johnny Winter : My manager had a place right across from mine. We were living in upstate New York at the time, and he was trying to help the McCoys out. At that time, they didn’t have a manager or a label anymore. They were practicing all the time, and so were we. When it came time to get a new band for me, and since the blues had kind of run its course in the marketplace—it had been popular for a while but nobody cared about it anymore—they convinced me that if I didn’t do something more commercial, I wouldn’t have a career anymore. So we broke up the band with Tommy (Shannon) and Red, and the McCoys were there. They were good, and they were nice guys. They could play blues, too, so we got together.
Goldmine : When I was in college, the Johnny Winter And and Johnny Winter And Live albums were two that nearly everyone in the fraternity house had.
Johnny Winter : And looking back, those are probably the two I care least about.
Goldmine : (Laughing) I was told you would say that.
Johnny Winter : Really?
Goldmine : Why don’t you like those albums much?
Johnny Winter : Well, I do like them, OK. I still like rock ’n’ roll, but I just missed the blues.
Goldmine : Let’s fast forward to the present. I like your new album Live in NYC '97 a great deal. It’s a really good album. You hadn’t played live in a number of years. Was this show at the Bottom Line in April 1997 specifically for recording a live album?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, it was. I picked the songs I wanted for this album—the ones I liked, not necessarily what anyone else wanted to hear. I tried to pick ones that hadn’t been recorded too much, ones that hadn’t been on too many records. Since I don’t write much myself, it’s hard to find material that hasn’t been overdone.
Goldmine : How did you get involved in the Bob Dylan anniversary tribute? A lot of people, especially Dylan fans, thought your performance was one of the night’s best. You really surprised a lot of people, blew 'em away!
Johnny Winter : They just asked me to do it. I don’t know why. It sure was fun to do.
Goldmine : Did you get to meet Dylan that night?
Johnny Winter : No, I didn’t. There were so many people there. I’ve never met him.
Goldmine : Were you pleased that the show came out on video and record?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I was really pleased about that.
Goldmine : What about the tribute album to the Rolling Stones, Cover You —were you asked to be a part of that, or did they just license your track?
Johnny Winter : What’s that? I don’t know anything about that. (After I explain what it is to him) They must have just licensed that. I’m glad to be on it, though.
Goldmine : Have you ever gotten to play with the Rolling Stones? They seem like an obvious band to put you on the bill with.
Johnny Winter : No, I haven’t.
Goldmine : I just saw them two weeks ago in Houston, and they were brilliant—one of the best tours I’ve ever seen them do. Are there any young blues players you’ve heard who you think will carry the torch for future generations, like you did?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, there are some good young players I’ve heard. I can’t really remember their names. There’s a kid who’s related to Butch Trucks—he’s really good. He’s from Florida.
Goldmine : Would you ever consider working with Edgar again?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, we definitely will, if we can get the right kind of deal. We can’t make as much money together as we do apart.
Goldmine : Have your parents been very supportive of your career? With your dad being a military man from Mississippi, it must have been pretty outrageous for him to see you playing black music.
Johnny Winter : Yeah, they were very supportive. They’ve always been supportive of both of us. The only time they weren’t was when I was about fifteen and wanted to play in clubs, and they didn’t want me in there. But eventually, they let me do it. After that, there was no turning back.
Goldmine : What did your dad say when you finally had a record out?
Johnny Winter : They were real supportive of it. They couldn’t believe it.
Goldmine : You’re a lucky guy! I’ve heard you get a new tattoo every time you put out an album. Is that true?
Johnny Winter : No, that’s not true. I haven’t gotten one in a long time.
Goldmine : (Laughing) Running out of room, huh?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I think I’ve just about had enough of ’em.
Goldmine : How old were you when you got your first tattoo?
Johnny Winter : It was right before I turned 40. I was looking for something new to do that wasn’t self-destructive. Tattoos turned out to be it. Keith Ferguson from Austin (the late bass player from the Fabulous Thunderbirds and other bands) turned me on to it. He got one of those spider webs tattooed on, and I watched him get it. That made me decide I was going to try it.
Goldmine : (Laughing) Johnny, you’ve got to be one of the only people who waited until the age of 40 to get their first tattoo.
Johnny Winter : (Laughing) I know! I waited a long time.
Goldmine : One of your fans owns that Strat that Rick Derringer is wearing on the cover of All American Boy . He wanted to know where you got it originally?
Johnny Winter : I don’t know, I sure don’t. I kept trying to play Strats because I love their sound, but I just can’t.
Goldmine : What kind of guitar are you playing now?
Johnny Winter : A Lazer, designed by a guy named Mark Erlewine from Austin. I play that mainly, and a Gibson Firebird for slide.
Goldmine : Who influenced you to start playing slide guitar?
Johnny Winter : Robert Johnson and Son House were the main influences. They really turned me on to it.
Goldmine : You’re self-taught, right? What did you use for a slide?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I was self-taught. Man, I used all kinds of things—pieces of test tubes, pieces of pipe—but nothing worked right until I played in Denver. A guy from Denver named Morris Tiding turned me on to a piece of conduit pipe—a 12-foot piece we got from a plumbing supply place. I’m still using that same piece of pipe. I just saw off another piece of it every time I need a new one.
Goldmine : Really? That’s amazing.
Johnny Winter : Yeah, it’s just a piece of pipe.
Goldmine : Unbelievable—the same piece! Do you play with a regular pick?
Johnny Winter : No, I play with thumb picks.
Goldmine : Was it Muddy Waters who turned you on to thumb picks?
Johnny Winter : No, it was Merle Travis mostly. There was a guy in Beaumont who gave me a few lessons and turned me on to finger picks. I got turned on to Chet Atkins, too, and he used one. You can’t get the right sound for that Chet Atkins/Merle Travis stuff without a thumb pick.
Goldmine : Merle Travis is just an amazing player. I got turned on to him through old kinescopes from Tex Ritter’s Ranch Party .
Johnny Winter : Yeah, he’s great.
Goldmine : Are there any new players you really like?
Johnny Winter : I still like the old stuff—Muddy, Wolf, Little Walter, Bobby Bland, Ray Charles, all those people.
Goldmine : What are some of the most memorable moments of your career? I’d imagine working with Muddy was at the top of the heap.
Johnny Winter : Yeah, getting to work with Muddy was definitely one of the best moments. Making the first CBS record was a big moment too. And making my first Dart record, hearing myself on the radio—that really wiped me out. It definitely turned me on.
Goldmine : If you had to pick three favorite records of yours, which would they be?
Johnny Winter : The first record, Johnny Winter , is one of my favorites. Still Alive and Well is my favorite of the rock ’n’ roll records. And Let Me In , the one on Point Blank, is one of my favorites.
Goldmine : What would you like to say about working with Muddy Waters?
Johnny Winter : I just loved it. I loved Muddy, and working with him was one of the high points of my career.
Goldmine : When you were working on the Grammy-winning Hard Again with Muddy in 1998, is it true that many of those songs were recorded on the first take?
Johnny Winter : A lot of it was. We didn’t hardly ever do more than two or three takes.
Goldmine : Do you like working that fast?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I do.
Goldmine : If you get a take that has the right feel, are you happy with that, as opposed to a take where every note is played perfectly?
Johnny Winter : If it’s got the right feel, that’s the main thing.
Goldmine : If you had to pick your favorite records of all time by other people, what would they be?
Johnny Winter : Wow. The Best of Muddy Waters , The Best of Little Walter , there’s a Bobby Bland record called Two Steps from the Blues that’s one of my favorites.
Goldmine : Are you looking forward to playing at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference here in Austin in a few weeks?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I am. (At which point I tell him all about the venue he’s playing in—Stubb’s, a new version of a classic joint famous for its blues and barbecue, with a large outdoor stage).
Goldmine : Is your health good enough now that you’ll be able to do some extensive touring this year for the first time in a long while?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, it is. I’m feeling really good now.
Goldmine : One last question from a fan: Have you ever thought about adding acoustic numbers—maybe on your National Steel—into your live set?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I have. I’ve actually thought about that a lot over the years. It’s very hard for me to do acoustic numbers on stage. It just doesn’t feel right to me somehow. I can’t hear my guitar the way I would want to. But I’ve thought about doing it a lot, and I talk about it all the time. Maybe one day I’ll do it.
Goldmine : (After promising to run some vintage Howlin’ Wolf clips for him and give them to him at the Austin show) Well, I know I’ve exceeded my allotted time for this interview, but we really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. I know your fans will be excited to hear from you again after so long.
Johnny Winter : Yeah, I think we’ve about covered it.
Goldmine : One last thing—since we’re putting you in a Southern Rock issue, I’ve never really identified you with that genre. Have you ever considered your music to be Southern Rock?
Johnny Winter : No, not really. Maybe a bit with the rock ’n’ roll stuff with the McCoys, but that’s about it. (Both laughing)
Goldmine : Well, you did jam with the Allman Brothers at the Atlanta Pop Festival in 1970. What was that like?
Johnny Winter : Yeah, that was great. I really enjoyed it. I loved Duane’s playing—he was great. I’m sure there must be tapes of that somewhere, but I’ve never gotten one. Nobody’s ever given one to me.
