I really wish I’d learned to play without a pick, but when I tried to play with just my fingers, it didn’t sound as good to me as I would have liked. Later on, I kind of wished I hadn’t stuck with the thumb pick, because it probably slowed me down a little. A lot of the blues guys, like Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed, used a thumb pick, too. Luther was into the Chet Atkins style, and he got me into using the thumb pick, which is what you need to use for playing fingerstyle. Right around that time, I met a guy named Luther Nally, who began to teach me the guitar. WINTER: Yeah, Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. My father encouraged me to move onto the guitar, too, because he said the only famous people he knew of that played the ukulele were Arthur Godfrey and Ukulele Ike! He thought I had better chances for success with the guitar.ĪA: Were there any particular guitar players that piqued your interest in the guitar? Before I turned eleven, my hands weren’t really big enough to play some of the bigger, six-string chords on the guitar. After playing the uke for a while, I switched over to the guitar, because that was just the natural progression. I was pretty upset that I had to stop playing the clarinet, but I had no choice. I had to stop playing the clarinet because I wore braces, and playing the clarinet was making my overbite worse. He’d make stuff up as he went along.ĪA: How old were you when you first picked up the guitar? My mother had to read the music, but my dad could jam on anything. WINTER: We did some of that, and it was always great fun. I liked music because it made me feel good when I played it, and when I listened to it, too.ĪA: Did the family ever have little jam sessions together?
He’d show me some of the old standards like “Bye Bye Blackbird” and “Ain’t She Sweet,” things like that.ĪA: Where you very enthusiastic about music from the get-go?
JOHNNY WINTER YOUNG HOW TO
I can remember my daddy teaching me how to play chords on the banjo and the ukulele when I was very young. His real job was as a contractor, building houses.ĪA: Would you say that music played a significant role in your life from very early on? Both of my parents were musicians my mother played the piano, mostly just for fun, and my father played saxophone and the banjo, and played gigs on the weekends. I started on the clarinet when I was about four years old. Goode”, the same one that made me wear out my copy of the landmark J ohnny Winter And Live LP.Johnny Winter audio interview at bottom of page!ĪNDY ALEDORT: You are one of rock guitar’s greatest living legends, but the guitar was not the first instrument that grabbed your interest, was it?
Larry Williams’ “Bony Moronie” had the sellout crowd bellowing for more of the same, and he gave it to them with his famous rendition of “Johnny B. After a few more blues-drenched numbers he pulled out his trusty Gibson Firebird and reached into his pocket to snag a slide for “Shake Your Moneymaker”.
Winter may have the fastest right thumb in rock, and when you buy a ticket to one of his shows, you get every nickel’s worth of notes.įor his second selection, Johnny went all the way back to 1945 for Bill Broonzy’s “Rock Me Baby”, a tune he also covered on the excellent Still Alive and Well album of ’73. Johnny headed straight into a rockin’ 12-bar blues jam, with just a drummer and bassist-harp player providing the backdrop for his speed-demon riffs.
JOHNNY WINTER YOUNG FULL
After a well-received opening set by local party band The Fins, Winter took to the stage in his trademark black cowboy hat, jeans, and a sleeveless jean jacket that revealed arms full of fancy tattoos. He may not sell as many records or draw the crowds that fellow Texan Stevie Ray Vaughan does, but you gotta remember–before Stevie Ray could even copy the Ventures‘ “Pipeline”, Johnny was knocking people dead with lightning-fast blues licks and searing slide guitar.Īnd he was doing just that at the Commodore last Friday (September 18) too. When Johnny was just 15, the two released their first single, “Schoolboy Blues”, and the stage was set for Johnny to become one of the most prominent white blues players in the U.S. It’s also famous for an albino guitarist named Johnny Winter, who grew up in Beaumont, Texas, with a keyboard whiz brother named Edgar. Charles campbell photo ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, SEPT.
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