Johnny Winter (US)

Web:  http://www.johnnywinter.net/ 

Her kan du lesa frå den offisielle biografien om  Johnny Winter:

Official Biography
  The Texas guitar tradition runs deep. It's a gutsy school of blues playing, marked by thick tones, aggressive attack and tons of technique, all delivered in a flamboyant, swaggering style that is endemic to the Lone Star State. From T-Bone Walker and Clarence Gatemouth Brown on through Albert Collins and Freddie King, Billy Gibbons and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, the tradition of the Texas guitar slinger has lived on. One name that ranks high up that exclusive list is Johnny Winter, an international ambassador for rocking Texas blues for the last thirty years.

Born in Beaumont, Texas on February 23, 1944 John Dawson Winter III grew up surrounded by blues, country and Cajun music. His brother, Edgar, was born three years later and the two showed an inclination toward music at an early age. As Johnny told Down Beat Magazine, "We sang regularly, because Daddy loved to sing harmony. He sang in a barbershop quartet and in a church choir, so Edgar and I started singing as soon as we were born, almost." Johnny began playing clarinet at age five and switched to ukulele a few years later.

Johnny and Edgar began performing as a duet in an Everly Brothers vein, winning talent contests and appearing on local television shows. When Johnny was 11 the Winter Brothers traveled to New York to audition for Ted Mack's "Original Amateur Hour." Soon after, their first exposure to rock'n'roll came through the music of Little Richard, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins and early Elvis Presley. They began soaking up the sound of rhythm & blues from DJ Clarence Garlow's Bon Ton Roulette Show on KJET radio in Beaumont.

At age 14, Johnny organized his first band, Johnny and the Jammers, with brother Edgar on piano. A year later, they cut two songs at Bill Hall's Gulf Coast Recording Studios in Beaumont. The singles "School Day Blues" and "You Know I Love You" came out a month later on Houston-based Dart Records, gaining the Winter brothers some local notoriety. Around this time, Johnny began sitting in with DJ Clarence Garlow who performed around town and had a regional hit with Bon Ton Roulette. Johnny also frequented the Beaumont's all black Raven Club, where the aspiring blues guitarist got to see such heroes as Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Bobby Bland for the first time.

In the early 60's, Johnny cut singles for regional labels like KRCO, Frolic, Diamond, Goldband, Jim, and Todd. In 1963, he moved to Chicago to check out the burgeoning blues scene. Upon returning to Beaumont, Johnny cut Eternally a pop - flavored number with horn arrangements by Edgar, which Atlantic Records licensed. That tune became a big hit around the Texas-Louisiana area and suddenly Johnny was opening up area coliseum shows for the Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis. His regular band around this time was alternately known as the Crystaliers. After two-and-a-half years of barnstorming the Deep South, they settled in Houston where they spent 1967 as the house band at the Act III Club.

In 1968, Johnny began playing in a trio with bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner. Their gigs at places like Austin's Vulcan Gas Company and Houston's Love Street Light Circus attracted the attention of a Rolling Stone writer who had been working on a piece about the Texas hippie scene. The author devoted three paragraphs to Johnny, whom he referred to as "the hottest item outside of Janis Joplin."

The article also created a flood of sudden interest in the album THE PROGRESSIVE BLUES EXPERIMENT, a collection of straight blues tunes that Johnny's trio had initially recorded at the Vulcan Gas Company and which was quickly picked up for national release by Imperial.

Johnny had been investigating the blues scene in England just as the Rolling Stone issue came out. Upon returning to Texas, he became the focus of a furious bidding war between major labels, eventually signing to Columbia with a much ballyhooed recording contract. His excellent debut LP, "Johnny Winter", was released late in 1968.

A series of classic hard rock'n'roll blues albums for Columbia followed: "Second Winter" (l969), "Still Alive and Well" (1973), and "Saints and Sinners" (1974). Later in '74 Johnny joined the CBS affiliate label Blue Sky, commencing with the rootsy "John Dawson Winter III" and "Captured Live" (1976).

In 1977, Johnny fulfilled a dream by producing Muddy Waters's comeback album, "Hard Again", which won a Grammy Award for Blue Sky.

They made a formidable team, following up that success with the 1978's Grammy winner, "I'm Ready", the 1979 Grammy winner "Muddy Mississippi Waters Live" and 1980's "King Bee". As Johnny recalls of that period, "Working with Muddy made me feel people were finally realizing that I'm not faking, and can really play blues. I felt like those albums helped me establish myself." In 1977, Johnny also used Muddy's hand for one of his most acclaimed albums, the aptly named "Nothin' But The Blues".

Johnny's final projects for Blue Sky were 1978's "White Hot & Blue" and 1980's "Raisin' Cain". Following a four year hiatus from recording, he returned with a blues-fueled vengeance with his fine Alligator Records debut, the Grammy Nominated "Guitar Slinger". Two equally strong, rootsy projects for the label followed: l985's "Serious Business", also nominated for a Grammy Award, and 1986's "Third Degree" which was listed in a book by Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame Archivist Robert Santelli as one of the '101 Essential Blues Albums'. Johnny also produced and played on an album by blues harmonica great Sonny Terry called "I Think I Got The Blues," which was also...

His venture for the MCA-distributed Voyager label, "The Winter of '88" was an attempt at crossing over with a more contemporary flavored product.

Johnny Winter was definitely back on track as a no-frills hard rocking bluesman with his Grammy Nominated Charisma/Point Blank debut "Let Me In". Co-produced by Dick Shurman, the respected bluesologist who previously had a hand in Winter's three fine Alligator albums, "Let Me In" highlights the Texas guitar slinger at what be does best - burning shuffles, screaming slow blues, rocking raw abandon and vocals charged with passion. The opening track, "Illustrated Man," was written especially with Johnny in mind by Nashville tunesmith, Fred James and his wife Mary Ann Brandon. Basically a catalog of all the many tattoos emblazoned on Winter's skin, the song also featured Johnny's scorching signature licks on his headless Lazer guitar (designed by Austin Luthier, Mark Erlewine). The follow-up was 1992's "Hey Where's Your Brother?" (Named after perhaps the most frequently asked question Johnny has heard). It too displayed Johnny Winter at the top of his form, melding the best of the blues and rock 'n' roll with unsurpassed power and passion, helping to insure his place as one of the most dependable and enduring blues/rock stars of all time. Like "Let Me In", it was produced by Johnny and Dick Shurman and recorded in Chicago.

After a hiatus from recording except for a thrilling "Highway 61 Revisited" which highlighted Bob Dylan's 1992 30th anniversary tribute (released on Columbia CD & Video), Johnny and his band of longtime drummer Torn Compton and bassist Mark Epstein took the stage at his home base, New York City's Bottom Line, in April 1997, and recorded the hard-hitting representative "Johnny Winter Live In New York City" '97 for Pointblank, again with Shurman producing. Continuing the focus of his two Pointblank studio albums, Johnny has chosen the firm timeless ground of the blues.

Johnny has spent the last four years touring the United States and abroad, even in the face of recent personal tragedies, such as the loss of his father in January 2001 and his own hip injury and resulting surgery, Winter still forged on in the building of his legendary acclaim.