TEAM RNS PRESENTS

ARTIST: Johnny Winter

TITLE: I'm A Bluesman

LABEL: Virgin / EMI

RIPPER: Team RNS

213kbps avg - Blues
0hr 51min total- 82.3mb

RELEASE DATE: 2004-06-15
RIP DATE: 2004-07-09

05 So Much Love                   3:22
06 The Monkey Song                6:13

08 Sweet Little Baby              2:48
09 Pack Your Bags                 4:04

11 That Wouldn't Satisfy          4:08
12 Sugar Coated Love              4:00
13 Let's Start All Over Again     4:25

For more than 30 years, Johnny Winter
has been at the forefront
of modern blues and blues-rock, and his
new I'm A Bluesman disc, arriving June
15 from Virgin Records, figures to add

For this release, Johnny has again paired
with his long-time producer Dick Shurman
(Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Roy
Buchanan), as well as Tom Hambridge
(Susan Tedeschi, George Thorogood).

Backing him is his road-tested touring
band of ace harmonica man James
Montgomery, bassist Scott Spray and
drummer Wayne June, along with guitarist
Paul Nelson with guest appearances by
such friends as keyboardist Reese Wynans
(from Stevie Ray Vaughan's celebrated
backing group Double Trouble) among

I'm A Bluesman is Johnny's first new
collection in nearly eight years.

It was a question of finding the time
and the right material, he says, plus a
long recuperation from hip surgery.

The 13-track collection includes three
tunes by his friend Paul Nelson,
a Connecticut-based guitar player who
writes with Winter's bassist Scott

They collaborated on the prison-themed

relationship-gone-bad song titled "Pack
Your Bags" and the album's
title track, which Nelson describes as
an attempt at a Johnny Winter biography.

"Johnny is a real hero to me, and I
wanted to do a song about his life.

I know how Johnny talks, how he phrases
things, and I wanted to capture his

It's about who he is, what he represents
to other musicians and what he's
accomplished. I'm really proud that when
he first heard the song he said I'd
gotten it right." Nelson also provides
guitar on the song and plays on many
other tracks as well.

Winter also opted to record two new
songs by producer Hambridge, "Cheatin'
Blues" and the first album single, "Lone

Johnny says it's always been something
of a mystery to him how singles get
picked, but he's especially happy with
how his electric slide-playing turned
out on this track. "It's a really good
song," he vouches.

He's also pleased to have finally
recorded "So Much Love," a tune by former
bandmate Jon Paris which Johnny has
played live on a number
of occasions and has meant to record

"It's about time I've finally got around
to doing it for an album," he says.

Johnny reaches back into his past for
songs by two musicians, Hop Wilson and
Lazy Lester, who inspired him during the
early days in Texas.

The nod to Wilson (1927-1975) comes in
the form of a spine-tingling solo
acoustic version of "That Wouldn't
Satisfy," a tune Hop originally recorded
for the Goldband label in 1958.

"Hop was one of my heroes coming up. I
never got over to see him in
Houston, but I liked his records a lot.
He had a real different way of playing

The salute to the still active Lester
comes in a cover of his Jay
Miller-written hit on Excello, "Sugar
Coated Love." Winter says, "I'm a big
fan of Lazy Lester. He even played on one
of my earliest records,
æThat's What Love Does,' when I was

Johnny's own compositions on I'm A
Bluesman include "Sweet Little Baby," a
slide-drenched song he wrote during a
tour stop in Central Europe's
picturesque Prague, and the disc-closing
"Let's Start Over Again," composed with
harmonica player James Montgomery who
joined Johnny's band last year after a
long career leading his own group and
releasing seven albums under his own

Johnny and his players cut the tracks
for I'm A Bluesman at several studios
in New England, where Winter makes his
home these days. But Winter remains a
native Texan, born and bred in Beaumont,
the town where the famous Spindletop
gusher came in to kick off the "black
gold" rush in 1901.

Winter, born on Feb. 23,1944, can barely
remember a time when music wasn't at the
core of his life.

The Winter family, once his career Army
officer father came back from the war,
used to sing together, and Johnny took

age five, followed by ukulele and then

Growing up in rough-and-tumble town
populated by oilfield wildcatters and
shipyard workers, he spent long hours
listening to a local deejay named J.P.

Richardson û The Big Bopper of
"Chantilly Lace" fame û and became
hooked on '50s rock & roll.

He formed his first band, Johnny and The
Jammers, in 1959 at the
age of 15, with his 12-year-old brother
Edgar on keyboards.

Racial tensions in Beaumont were still
high in those days.

The town had been the site of one of
the worst race riots in Texas history
just nine months before Johnny's birth.

Mobs wandered the streets, businesses
burned, martial law went into effect,
and more than 2,000 uniformed National
Guardsmen and Texas
Rangers sealed off the town from the
rest of the world until tempers

Despite that brutal legacy, Johnny
remembers never hesitating as a kid to
venture into black neighborhoods to
hear and play music.

Looking back, he believes people in the
black community knew that he was
sincere, that he was genuinely
possessed by the blues.

"Nothing ever happened to me. I went to
black clubs all the time, and nobody
ever bothered me. I always felt

He also became friends with Clarence
Garlow, a deejay at the black radio
station KJET in Beaumont, who opened
Winter's eyes and ears
to rural blues and Cajun music.

Clarence, who recorded for the
swamp-boogie specialty label Goldband,
even taught him a few things on guitar.

Johnny made his recording debut in 1960
with two of his own compositions,
"School Days Blues" and "You Know I

on a tiny Houston label called Dart

Over the next few years, as he learned
his craft, he cut 45s for
Goldband, KRCO, Frolic, Diamond,
Moon-Lite, Hall-Way and other

There's a famous story about a time in
1962 when Johnny and his brother went to
see B.B. King at a Beaumont club called

The only whites in the crowd, they no
doubt stood out.

But Johnny already had his chops down
and wanted to play with the revered

"I was about 17," Johnny remembers, "and
B.B. didn't want to let me
on stage at first.

He asked me for a union card, and I had

Also I kept sending people over to ask
him to let me play.

Finally, he decided that there were
enough people who wanted to hear me
that, no matter if I was good or not,
it would be worth it to let me on stage.

He gave me his guitar and let me play. I
got a standing ovation, and he took his

Winter's big breakthrough came a few
years later in 1968 when Rolling Stone
writers Larry Sepulvado and John Burks
featured him in a piece on the Texas
music scene, which prompted a bidding
war among major labels that Columbia

Johnny's self-titled 1969 disc
announced loudly that there was a new
guitar-slinger on the national scene.

The disc included audacious covers of
such blues classics as B.B. King's "Be
Careful with a Fool," Sonny Boy
Williamson II's "Good Morning Little
School Girl," Robert Johnson's "When You

Friend" and fellow Texan Lightnin'
Hopkins' "Back Door Friend."

It also featured two prime original
Winter songs, "Dallas" and the
controversial "I'm Yours and I'm Hers,"
that went into heavy rotation
on FM underground radio.

The album peaked at No. 24 on the
Billboard chart and was promptly
followed by Second Winter later that
same year. Looking back, writer Cub Koda
described the period as one when
"Straight out of Texas with a hot trio,
Winter made blues-rock music for the

That trio, by the way, included bassist
Tommy Shannon who would go on to be
part of SRV's Double Trouble and

Winter stayed with Columbia and its
boutique Blue Sky label for more than a
decade, turning out such well-received
platters as Johnny Winter And (1970),
Still Alive and Well (1973) and John
Dawson Winter III (1974). He also
helped to introduce blues giant Muddy
Waters to another generation of
listeners by producing and playing
guitar on the Grammy-winning Hard Again
(1977), as well as the Grammy-nominated
I'm Ready (1978), Muddy "Mississippi"
Waters Live (1979) and King Bee (1981).

The collaborations were so successful
that Waters took to referring to Johnny
as his "adopted son" in interviews.

After a three-year hiatus, Johnny
returned with three acclaimed albums for
the blues specialty label Alligator,
releasing the Grammy-nominated Guitar
Slinger in 1984, the also nominated
Serious Business in 1985 and Third Degree

Johnny made the jump to the Virgin
family of labels in 1991 with Let Me
In, a strong collection boasting guest
appearances by Dr. John and Albert

Produced by Dick Shurman, the disc
featured the memorable "Illustrated Man,"
a song by the Nashville team of Fred
James and Mary-Ann Brandon chronicling
Johnny's well-tattooed torso.

Other tracks include Winter's own title
tune and his equally stand-out
"If You Got a Good Woman," as well as
Dr. John's "You Lie Too Much" with the
good doctor on ivories.

Winter has gone on to record for Virgin
his Hey, Where's Your Brother (1992),
Live in NYC '97 (1998) and now the new
I'm A Bluesman, which he feels is some
of his best work.

For the future, Johnny, who just turned
60, figures he will stick to
the plan he's had since his young days
in Beaumont: "I just want to
keep doing what I'm doing. Keep playing

It's worked so far.