Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

When you talk about great authentic white blues guitar players, you are surely talking about some rarified company. The key word being authentic, and in my estimation authentic white blues guitar player means that when you listen to this person playing you think it’s a black man playing. Stevie Ray Vaughn a great blues guitar player always tried to get that real blues sound. When I saw Stevie Ray for the last time a few months before his death we spoke backstage at one of his shows and I told him “man you sounded like Albert King”, Stevie smiled and said that was the biggest compliment I could have ever given him. That is what we who strum the strings in the blues strive for, to sound like our idols, the great bluesmen. Johnny Winter did this as well as anyone, and proof of this is that he was accepted amongst the great bluesman as an equal, and shared the stage with many of them with great dignity and restraint.

Johnny was born John Dawson Winter in Beaumont Texas on February 23rd 1944. Johnny (as well as his brother Edgar) were born with albinism, and being an albino made Johnny stand out, but that did not stop him from playing music with his brother Edgar. His first record was recorded when Johnny was only 15 with his band Johnny and the Jammers, but it was Johnny’s self-titled first album on Columbia that established Johnny Winter as an A-List 60’s rock icon. His second album titled Second Winter was a three sided album (a double album with a blank forth side) that further marked Johnny as a guitar hero right up there with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Mike Bloomfield.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

Johnny’s next few albums were also fantastic albums, Johnny Winter And (1970), and Johnny Winter And Live (1971) were big sellers and were just ass-kickin’ rock and roll records. Those two albums contained great tunes such as “Rock and Roll HootchieKoo” (penned by Johnny Winter And guitarist Rick Derringer) and “Mean Town Blues”.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

Johnny Winter’s years of drug addiction caught up to him in 1972 and after a hospital stay (no ‘rehab in the pre Betty Ford era) he released “Still Alive and Well” in 1973, this was to be Johnny’s last decent selling release.

Even though Johnny’s days of gold records were behind him his name alone could sell out any club, or 3000 seat venue. Johnny always delivered at a live show; his fiery approach to guitar playing was eaten up by audiences all over the world.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

As a slide guitar player (playing guitar using a glass bottle-neck or copper tube) Johnny was unparalleled in his day, just check his slide work on Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” from Johnny’s album “Second Winter”. And when you talk about sheer rock and roll guitar, Johnny Winter can stand up with any rock guitarist. His vibrato (the bending of notes on the guitar) which is the signature of any rock and blues guitarist is unmistakable.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

Johnny kept it real for the blues crowd as well, and in 1983 he produced a great record for blues legend Muddy Waters called “Hard Again”. Reticent of Muddy’s age Johnny laid back on his playing on the record and let Muddy control the dynamic range of the record, a great tribute to Muddy and Johnny as well.

To this day Johnny still can bring it live, even though he sometimes has to be led to the bandstand, which is no surprise when you understand that his lifestyle over the past 40 years makes Keith Richards look like Bruce Jenner.

Johnny Winter Guitar God, Rock and Roll Survivor, and most importantly, Legend of Rock and Roll.

Legends of Rock & Roll: Guitarist Johnny Winter from MyRareGuitars.com

Slinky: Link Wray & the Wraymen

Link learned the guitar at the age of nine from a carnie named Hambone, in town with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. They began their friendship when Hambone noticed Link strumming an old acoustic on his parents’ front porch. As an army brat, Link was used to a nomadic lifestyle. By the age of fifteen he was paying twenty dollars a night to sit in with country-great Tex Ritter, so he could continue to learn his craft.

Lacking the technical know-how of the jazz luminaries of the day, TalFarlow and Django Reinhardt being his favorites, and unable to sing due to the loss of a lung to childhood tuberculosis, Link began to experiment with his sound. He tried such original ideas as poking holes in his amplifier speakers to get a new kind of distortion. Teaming with his brother Doug and first cousin Shorty, The Wraymenwere born. Prestigious venues and Top 20 success followed in 1958, when Rumble (actually titled Oddball by Link) made the Charts.

Link Wray

This ushered in the era of the guitar instrumental, and Link stayed ahead of the pack by using unique guitars and the electronics of the day, creating probably one of the first home studios. He called it the Three Track Shack because it was housed in a shed and had only one three-track tape recorder, ;state of the art for the time. By merging chugging blues, surf twang, and psychedelia into a sound that was soulful, irreverent, and individual, Link Wray created a new music. Some people call it Rock and Roll.

A friend of mine had every Link Wray album. My education began by playing each of these albums over and over. So when Link came to town, it was the show I had been waiting. We plotted and planned, bought tickets and then lost them, bought them again. Two nights later we were ready to go. I slicked up my shoes and slimed up my hair in true Rockabilly fashion, donning a western shirt embossed with tigers. My friend was dressed to dazzle in a late 50s ruby red velvet dress and a pair of knee-high stiletto boots.

Link Wray with a Supro Dual Tone Guitar

We arrived as Link roared into Rumble. The thrust and the volume of the song was even more powerful live. Link stood firm and anchored the band with ultra-fuzz arpeggio riffs, keeping the trio in tow. With his lanky lumbering frame, a fierce ponytail, and motorcycle jacket, he hunched into his guitar. It was incredible that the man producing this wall of brute sonic strength was in his seventies. As he roared along, I realized that this timeless music has never been more alive. After Jack the Ripper, Rawhide, and Ace of Spades (some were played twice during the evening), he launched into one of his more way-out songs. He cranked it all the way up and I realized this was probably the last song of the night.

Link Wray concert ticket (October 2000)

My friend and I rushed forward to witness the rollicking rave-up. We slid in next to the stage, and with a wail of his guitar he seemed to play off of us alone, looking our way with an expression of childlike wonder. I figured he had his eye on my lady friend. Then something remarkable occurred. He walked over to face me, continuing to play. As the eyes of a shaman stared into mine, he strummed with his right hand and motioned for me to play the neck. And there I was, dear reader, simultaneously reaping the riffage with the legend himself. As tom toms rolled and cymbals crashed and the electric bass pounded to a climax, Link looked directly at me and nodded as though we had shared an intimate secret. In the next moment he was center stage again, commanding the final surge of power and sound to ecstatic applause. My friend also reveled in the moment, a firsthand witness to a dream come true.

Link Wray on stage

All the greats have come across Link at one point in their musical development. He didn’t live to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but was inducted into its Rockabilly counterpart. Bob Dylan, hearing of Link’s death, covered Rumble last week. Neil Young once said, if he could see any band in the world, he would chose Link Wray and The Wraymen. Simply put, the king is gone, but he is not forgotten.

Post by: Devin Patrick

The Night I Played Link Wray’s Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com