With his white hair flowing down to his collar in a Beatle haircut, dressed in an orange shirt with blue polka dots and puffy sleeves, and bell-bottom jeans, Johnny looked more like a rock musician than a bluesman.
“I thought of him as a rock guy—blues—rock,” said Oscher. “There were a lot of blues guys around at that time. Magic Sam was still alive, T-Bone Walker was alive, Junior Wells, Otis Rush. The white musicians who played the blues, you could count on one hand—Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, myself, Johnny Winter, John Hammond Jr., Mike Bloomfield. It wasn’t that recognizable to be a blues musician if you were white anyway.”
Bentley attended Saturday night’s performance, and remembers the buzz around Austin that Johnny’s Friday night performance was better than Muddy’s. “I heard that on Friday night, Johnny came out and was just blasting,” he said. ”And Muddy came out and didn’t do much of a set; he didn’t really pull out the stops.ʺ
Franklin, who did the poster for that show and was there both nights, agreed. “Muddy’s band and Muddy... their attitude was, ‘This is a Texas Podunk town, we’re just gonna clean up and get to Houston or where ever the next big-city gig was,ʹʺsaid Franklin. “He’s doin’ ‘Got My Mojo Workin” and he’s looking at his watch. Right in the middle of the song, ʹI got my Mojo workin’, let’s see how long this Mojo got to work tonight,ʹʺ Franklin said with a laugh. ʺThey weren’t even in the house when Johnny played the first set, so they came up and did a ho-hum, routine set. They caught Johnny’s second set and realized they better get serious because this guy was all over the place. So the next night, Muddy had his hair done, and they were all dressed up. It was a serious evening. One of the key points in Austin blues history.”
Oscher disagrees with that scenario. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “There wasn’t ever any kind of a competition. Johnny Winter cannot kick Muddy Waters’s ass. Period. At any time. It could have been just a crowd reaction. The band was Otis Spann, Luther ‘Georgia Boy/Creepin’ Snake’ Johnson, Pee Wee Madison, Sammy Lawhorn—those were pretty tough cats—great musicians.”
Regardless of which band put on a better performance on Friday, Saturday night’s sets by both artists were phenomenal.
“Johnny was great that night,” said Bentley. “He came out and was devastating; he was so good it was unbelievable. I had never heard a guy—especially a white guy—like that. It was real loud guitar but it was blues, it wasn’t rock. He was playing a lot of slide, and with just a trio, the guitar totally stood out. Johnny did most of the songs from Sonobeat’s Progressive Blues Experiment because when the record came out, I remember thinking that’s pretty much the set he played that night.
“Johnny was amazing. You could tell opening for Muddy was a big thing for him and he didn’t hold back at all. From the very first song, he went for it. I think he scared Muddy a little bit so Muddy really bore down and played. You could tell with Muddy it was, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re real good, boy, but here’s how a grown man does it.’ That night by Muddy Waters was the best blues I ever heard in my life.”
When Johnny opened for Freddie King at the Vulcan Gas Company, he was less intimidated, and jammed with that blues legend at the end of the first night.
“Freddie King was more equals meeting,” said Turner. “Freddie was more rocked out. They had a great guitar battle that night. We all jammed that night too. That’s one of the beautiful things about the experience of playing with Johnny Winter. You get to play with all these people.”
Psychedelics curtailed any thoughts of jamming with King the following night.
“We had Freddie King booked for two nights; the first night he played for thirty people at the most,” said Franklin. “Then Johnny came in and jammed with Freddie during the second set. It was sizzling. Word got out immediately. The next night the place was crammed with people. Johnny was there, but he had taken some mescaline. We’d been doing it for several years, but it was his first time, and he would never go onstage if he was not in control. Freddie didn’t know what was going on and told the audience, ‘Don’t go away. I’ll be back with my friend Johnny.’ I had to go onstage and explain Johnny is not going to play, and please don’t tear the place up.”
Three months after the gigs with Waters and King, Johnny decided he had waited long enough; it was time to take destiny in his own hands. With a copy of the tape he had made at the Vulcan, and an acetate LP of early songs he had recorded for Ken Ritter, he flew to England with his friend Keith Ferguson to get a record deal.
“We had already gone all around the states and it seemed like there was a better deal in England for white blues artists,” Johnny says. “We went to a lot of different record companies here, though we never did try Chess or those kinds of labels because they were black labels. They didn’t care about white blues artists in the States, and they did in England. There weren’t any other white blues artists in the States that I knew about at that time.
“Keith was a big blues freak—he knew a lot about the blues. Keith wanted to go to England, so we went together. I had a little money saved, and Carol gave me money to go. She didn’t mind me going without her—it was something she knew I had to do. So we flew out of Houston to see what it was like.”
“Keith Ferguson was one of the most unique people that any of us knew,” said Turner. “When I first got with Johnny, there weren’t a lot of blues collectors. Keith and Johnny had blues in common—they were islands in the stream with their blues collections. They could talk about Mississippi John Hurt or Fred McDowell. I never heard of any of those people until I met Johnny and Keith.”
Johnny went to England with a list of contacts from Mike Leadbitter, coeditor of Blues Unlimited magazine. “It was a list of people from around London—some who played blues and Chris Wellard, a guy who owned a blues record shop,” Johnny says. “They were the main contacts. I met Mike Leadbitter when he came to Houston to sign some local artists to London Records. We helped Mike find out where to go and who to see during his trip to Houston.
“He was interested in black artists—he didn’t even hear us I don’t think. He wasn’t interested in white artists at all. He had bought some of my records and was upset when he met me and found out I wasn’t black. He had bought ‘Creepy’ and ‘Gangster of Love’ and thought they were good until he found out I was white. Then he didn’t care about having them at all. He told me to my face, he sure did. It made me feel shitty but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It wasn’t just him. A lot of people thought the same way and would say it to your face. That kind of stuff always bothered me.”
Johnny and Ferguson stayed in England for two weeks, sleeping on floors, chairs, wherever they could find a place to crash. Wellard welcomed them to hang out at his record shop during the day, use it as their home base, and sleep there at night. They also spent a couple of nights in London at the home of a clerk who worked at the shop.
“I remember it was November and starting to get cold,” says Johnny. “The guy had a coal furnace. I didn’t know how to work a coal furnace, but I was damned sure gonna try to keep it from being cold in there. We slept in chairs in front of the coal furnace, so I learned to shovel coal in it and light it.”
Johnny accomplished his main goal—to find a record label willing to produce and release a white blues artist—when he met with Mike and Richard Vernon, owners of Blue Horizon Records. Formed in January 1965, Blue Horizon Records had proven to be a very successful British blues label; it released two Fleetwood Mac albums in 1968, and had a licensing deal with Epic, a subsidiary of Columbia Records, which released their records in the U.S. and Canada. During the late ’60s and early ’70s, the label released dozens of blues records including albums by Elmore James, Johnny Shines, Sunnyland Slim, Earl Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, B. B. King, and Otis Rush. The leading producer of British blues bands in the late 1960s, Mike Vernon produced the legendary Bluesbreakers: John Mayall with Eric Clapton LP. He also produced the Bluesbreakers’ only album with
Peter Green, and records by Chicken Shack, Duster Bennett, Savoy Brown, and Ten Years After.
When Johnny and Ferguson met with the Vernons, Johnny played the Vulcan Gas Company tape. He also gave them an acetate demo LP containing songs he had recorded with Ken Ritter in the early 1960s. Ironically, it was Mike Leadbitter who introduced the Vernon Brothers to Johnny’s music. Mike Vernon remembered it as “fantastic, great Texas blues with strong vocals and outstanding guitar work,” and immediately knew Johnny would be a great fit for his label.
“We started Blue Horizon as a British white blues label to challenge Chess and Atlantic,” he said. “The world needed a blues label for more than just U.S. black R&B products. Johnny Winter was exactly the kind of U.S. act we wanted to sign.”
Richard Vernon remembered the day he first heard one of Johnny’s recordings.
“I was in Bexhill-on-Sea one off-season weekend—God knows why—to see him [Leadbitter]. He always seemed to know about stuff before anyone else,” said Richard Vernon. ”He played me the Sonobeat single ‘Mean Town Blues/Rollin’ and Tumblinʺ and said, ‘This is somebody you should sign.’
“‘Is he white?’ I asked. Stupid question, I guess; and from here on it gets vaguer. I remember Johnny being in the U.K. and meeting with him to discuss a deal—I think we were going to license the Sonobeat album and sign him to a deal.”
Mike Vernon had a clearer recollection of his initial meeting with Johnny.
“I met Johnny in November 1968 when he and Keith Ferguson came over to discuss the realities and possibilities of Johnny recording for Blue Horizon,” he said. “We may have met over lunch or dinner or at our new but shabby office/record shop in Camden Town in London. Johnny was very affable—he knew what he wanted but seemed prepared to take chances when offered if it meant taking steps forward to better things. He wanted commitment and some front money—he really wanted the opportunity to have his music heard worldwide, not just locally. [We talked about] a lease deal for the Sonobeat album and then I would produce for future Blue Horizon Records. No decision was made at that time whether such sessions would take place in the U.K. or the U.S., probably the latter.ʺ
“I had a deal; I just hadn’t signed anything yet,” says Johnny. “I brought the tape back home with me and was supposed to go back and record with the Vernon Brothers. I think I was gonna use my own band—I wasn’t exactly sure how things were supposed to go. But I didnʹt have to go back to England to record because we ended up getting a big deal with Columbia in the States.”
While Johnny was meeting with the Vernon Brothers in England, Rolling Stone was going to press with an article that would change his life. On December 7, 1968, the counterculture music magazine ran a cover story written by Larry Sepulvado and John Burks, who traveled to the Lone Star State to report on the music scene. The main illustration, a photograph of Johnny in a formal seated pose with the caption JOHNNY WINTER, ALBINO BLUESMAN, was spread over two pages and ran beneath the “Texas” headline. Although the article mistakenly called Edgar his “identical twin brother,” it gave him instant credibility with Mike Bloomfield’s acknowledgement that Johnny was the “best white blues guitarist he had ever heard” and Chet Helms’s description of him as “incredible.” A former Texas resident, Helms had talked Janis Joplin into leaving Austin and later convinced Big Brother and the Holding Company to hire her as their singer. With credentials like these, along with his famed “Family Dog” concert and light-show productions at the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms, Helm’s opinion carried weight.
“When I got back to Texas, Rolling Stone had this big article that said how great I was,” says Johnny. “It was everywhere—everybody read Rolling Stone. It called me the hottest thing in Texas outside of Janis Joplin. The reporter saw me in the Love Street Light Circus but I never knew he was there. That article was excellent; I didn’t know how much it would do, but I knew it was gonna be a big help to us. It helped us get more money at the club, and I was going to New York to talk to Steve Paul, who wanted to be my manager.”
Steve Paul, a twenty-seven-year-old New York entrepreneur from the Bronx (“one of the best boroughs in town”) owned the Scene, a trendy nightclub in Manhattan. A former restaurant publicist with numerous contacts in the music industry, Paul was fascinated by the nightclub scene and remembered “loving and sneaking into all sorts of New York nightlife at an early age.... My concept [for the Scene] was organic, eclectic, and open minded,” he said. As owner of the hippest club in New York City at a time when the rock music scene was exploding, Paul enjoyed the music and company of a wide circle of rock stars and famous musicians.
“Everybody had an amazing time, including me,” he said, as he tosses off names of notable artists who frequented and jammed at his club. “Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Eric Clapton, the McCoys, the Who, the Velvet Underground, among others,” he said. “How can you not like all these people, especially when they come to your club? They’re all great musicians and interesting characters.” The Rolling Stones, Beatles, and Led Zeppelin also frequented the Scene, and Paul considered Johnny “equal to the best of them.”
Before Johnny met with Paul, he and his band flew to San Francisco to talk to record executives at Mercury Records. Texas native Doug Sahm, founder of the Sir Douglas Quintet, whose single “She’s About a Mover” on Mercury Records reached thirteen on the charts, set up the meeting.
“Doug Sahm got Mercury Records to pay our way to San Francisco,” said Turner. “The Rolling Stone article came out at the same time. Record labels were calling our hotel room from the East Coast saying don’t sign anything yet—give us a chance. I donʹt know how they knew we were in San Francisco. I guess the word got out.”
Also in relentless pursuit, Paul who had talked to Johnny for hours on the payphone at the Vulcan Gas Company, left phone messages at Johnny’s parents’ house, and tracked him across the country. “I was really into blues and great players and Johnny seemed like an exciting and colorful musician, which indeed he is,” said Paul.
“When I went to California, he called me at every place I was there,” Johnny says. “I don’t know how he got my number. He’d call me at restaurants, everywhere. I thought he was kind of an idiot. I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not. Believed he really was who he said he was.”
Johnny and company stayed on the West Coast for several weeks. Mercury Records arranged for them to play a Tuesday night audition at the Fillmore and a gig at the Matrix, a small, hip club near North Beach.
“The Matrix was owned by Grace Slick’s husband,” said Turner. “Jerry Garcia was there; he was part owner. It was a club like the Scene, although it was nowhere as big or as cool. But it was a cool place to play; there were a lot of record people there.”
Although Mercury Records offered Johnny a lucrative deal, the label wanted artistic control, something Johnny was determined not to give up. He returned to Texas to see what Paul had to offer.
“Steve Paul looked up my number in the phone book and called me when he flew in to Houston,” says Johnny. “He came to my house. I thought he was kinda crazy; he saw us but he never said he liked us or not. We couldn’t figure out why he was so excited about signing us if he didn’t have any feelings for us. It was very strange that he never said he liked us.”
Paul may not have told Johnny he liked the band, but considered that meeting “exciting and enjoyable” and on a personal level, found Johnny to be “really smart, funny, and enjoyable to be with.” Nevertheless, Johnny doesn’t think that goodwill ever extended to the rest of the band.
“Later on I found out he didn’t like Tommy or Uncle John at all,” says Johnny. “He didn’t think they were as good musically as they needed to be, but he didn’t say anything about that for a good while. He waited. He never did have opinions of his own. He would ask his friends what their opinions were and he’d get enough opinions in one direction and that would be his decision. He was real strange about that.”
&nb
sp; Despite Paul’s comments that he loved the blues and blues artists—Muddy Waters was the first recording artist he hired to play at the Scene—Johnny believes he only embraced the genre because it was trendy in the late ’60s.
“Steve Paul wasn’t into blues—not particularly. He just knew blues was very popular at the time. He was a New Yorker, a fast talker. He wasn’t like anybody I ever knew. He never seemed to have a thing for girls—he never liked guys either. We couldn’t figure out what he was, but he just didn’t go for either sex. He didn’t want us to know—I guess he felt we would be down on him if he told us he was gay, so he didn’t tell us.
“He said, ‘Let’s go to New York and Iʹll show you what I can do.’ And he did. I stayed at his house and he took me to the Fillmore to see Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. I sat in with them and played ‘It’s My Own Fault,’ and blew everybody away. The crowd gave me a standing ovation. They just flipped out completely. They’d seen all the stuff in Rolling Stone and were waitin’ to see what I was like. Everybody wanted to sign me up after that. Steve didn’t make me sign until after he had gotten a deal with Columbia—I had already signed with Columbia when I signed a management deal with him. He had owned the Scene for several years when I met him. It was a big club on Forty-Sixth and Eighth Avenue, a basement club under a dirty bookstore. I played a lot at the Scene and played with a lot of people there including Jimi Hendrix.”
“Steve Paul was a cool person,” said Turner. “A brilliant, fast-thinking New Yorker, he hung with the Warhol crowd. Steve Paul delivered the $600,000 deal. He got the money and he also brought Johnny to New York to his club and got him to jam with Jimi Hendrix. In our mind, this guy was powerful.”
Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) Page 11
