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Johnny Winter has died!


LarryUK

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that's quite a shock. Its like a net is starting to close in or something. I dunno.

 

RIP JW - I never see a picture of a Firebird without him being the first thought to come to mind.

Share all of it completely. R.I.P., Johnny.

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I promoted a lot of shows with Johnny over the last 20 years. Almost had to give up on him he was in such bad shape at one point. He finally wised up an got rid of his criminal manager, cleaned up his act and had a good 10 years of playing while having his wits about him. A guy named Paul Nelson deserves a huge amount of credit for giving Johnny back a life. He was a road warrior and died doing his thing. Happy trails, Johnny. Thanks for the music.

 

DSC00157.jpg

 

If you want to read an informative article on what he went through this is a good one:

 

http://www.livebluesworld.com/profiles/blogs/1598513:BlogPost:461

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The first time that I heard Johnny play,he immediately shot to the top of my guitar hero list.Johnny's guitar playing has been a huge influence on me and the icredible sound that he gets from that beautiful old Firebird prompted me to get a set of early '60s voiced mini-hums hand wound by Craig Vineham for my Epi Firebird. The way that he covered Stones' songs made a show of the original versions,for instance with his cover of "Stray Cat Blues" from his 1973 "Saints and Sinners" is so incredible it blows the Sones' version out of the water.His voice is so lasciviously menacing on that song,that he makes Mick Jagger sound like he was with the Vienna Boys Choir and his guitar work just stomps all over Keef's playing.I was deeply saddened and shocked to hear of Johnny's death.He had lived so long abusing his mind and body with substance abuse and even heroin addiction that I figured that his years of living clean would ensure that he'd live to a very old age,but I fear that maybe his past abuse has done irreparable damage and probably the combined effects of all these abuses contributed to his untimely death.Johnny was one of the few guitarists who discovered and utilized the conduit that flows from his soul to his fingers.God Bless you Johnny thankyou for the incredible music that you have left us with and thankyou for being an inspiration and influence for millions of guitarists like myself who though they never met you,still loved and revered because of the wonderful music that you gave us.

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I missed my chance to tour with him...

 

Forgive me for my Darwinism on that one! I do kick myself enough for it...

 

I was in a band with this girl (in the early 1990's) that I had been romantically involved with prior and we just couldn't seem to pull things together and I kinda dropped out...

 

It wasn't much later that she went on tour with Johnny Winter as their opening act... This was during a run of his career that he had put out a tone of albums on Alligator Records...

 

Her (stage) name was Susan Angeletti. We came from the same home town and went to the same school...

 

She said he was very gracious and a very kind man, but had his dark side from the drugs...

 

I will miss him very much myself!

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The older I get the more of these great guitarist we lose to the ravages of time and although it's inevitable it still saddens me. I was fortunate to have seen him live in the early 90's here in Des Moines and I remember when the show was over I went home and fired up a guitar and rededicated myself to learn how to play even better. Thanks for everything Johnny. Rest in peace brother - you earned it.

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We were just talking about Johnny the other day. I had the priveledge to see him in concert during the late 70s and again in the 90s. He was one of my major guitar playing influences.

Gonna miss the man. We do have his music to be thankful for though.

RIP Johnny.

This is newerish. At least from this year. I came real close to buying his newest box set and will probably seek it out soon enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJorlXcJGJs

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