Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) (25 page)

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Authors: Mary Lou Sullivan

BOOK: Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition)
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“It was horrifying, you had built up this whole vision of yourself that is really cool, had all the cool girls, a lot of cool friends, popularity, and all of a sudden you’re nobody. It was really painful. But Johnny was still our friend. I loved Johnny, he was my friend, and we used to hang out all the time. He would fly me to New York and I would stay with him a couple of weeks, just hang out; and he would have me sit in. I love him; he is still my friend. Uncle John and I forgot about all of that.”
 
With Turner and Shannon back in Texas, Johnny and the McCoys started rehearsing full time. In May 1970, the new lineup, which included Derringer on second guitar, Hobbs on bass, and Zehringer (Randy Z) on drums, rehearsed for several weeks and went into Columbia’s New York studio to record
Johnny Winter And.
Ironically, the McCoys weren’t familiar with Johnny’s music and Derringer told one reporter he was disappointed when he discovered Johnny wasn’t another Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. He also couldn’t comprehend Johnny’s widespread acclaim as a guitar player.
“The first time I heard Johnny play at the Fillmore East, I wasn’t really impressed,” Derringer told Tom Guerra during an interview for
Vintage
Guitar. “He had come on the scene with everybody telling me how great he was, and I didn’t hear it. Johnny overplayed, and because of his eyesight problems, he would sometimes go to the wrong fret and hit the wrong note. I was a little kid from Ohio that was into perfection, and I just didn’t get it! I was hearing a bunch of mistakes, when all of a sudden, he strapped on the slide guitar, and I said, ‘Now I get it.’ There was nobody at the time who was playing slide guitar like Johnny, and nobody, or no white guys at least, that was playing country blues like that on the acoustic guitar. And it was at that point that I realized what Johnny had to offer.”
Derringer desperately needed credibility and respect; teaming up with ,Johnny offered both.
“The McCoys were in a bad situation,” Derringer told Guerra. “Our music had become characterized as ‘bubblegum,’ and we didn’t want to be seen like that. We wanted a way to gain some credibility since we thought we were pretty good players. Johnny came on the scene with real respect, so we looked at this as an opportunity to get what we were looking for, some respect ourselves.”
Despite the McCoys’ lightweight reputation and teenybopper following, both Paul and Johnny were impressed with their musicianship.
“I first heard ’em play across the street from me in their house,” says Johnny. “I thought they were a good rock ’n’ roll band—I knew they weren’t a bubblegum band. ‘Hang on Sloopy’ was good for what it was, but it wasn’t what I was tryin’ to do.
“After I let my band go, I asked Steve if he thought the McCoys would be a good band to get with and he said, he thought so. They could play a lot of different kinds of music, and were looking for a leader. I took over but I didn’t realize how nuts they were. At that time, I was smokin’ [pot] and doin’ smack with Randy Hobbs, and the rest of the band was just smokin’ a little bit. I did the singing and Rick sang back up. I didn’t want to call it Johnny Winter and the McCoys because they were known as a bubblegum band. So we just called it Johnny Winter And.”
In spite of his initial misgivings that the McCoys would be too tight and clean for his musical tastes, and he’d lose his audience for straying from straight blues, Johnny enjoyed playing with the new lineup. “It didn’t take long for the band to mesh; the band came together pretty quickly,” Johnny says. “I felt more part of a whole in that band because we all played a part in it; before that it was more like my band. Steve Paul liked the new direction and Columbia seemed to like it too. Critics liked it and the audiences loved it.”
Because Derringer had produced his own albums on Mercury, Johnny invited him to share producer credits on Johnny Winter And. But he was still hesitant about having another guitar player in his band.
“We did that album in August 1970,” says Johnny. “It didn’t take long. I played a solid body Epiphone guitar—Rick played a Les Paul and a Gibson 355. I thought I’d try working with another guitar player and see what happened. People liked it. I didn’t like it though because I just wanted to play myself. I didn’t need another guitar player. I used Rick as a coproducer because I thought he knew enough to help me in the producer role. He didn’t know more than I did but he did know a lot which is why I wanted him to play with me and help me produce it. I liked the results.”
“I think he just figured I was a guy who would listen,” Derringer told writer Dan Muise during an interview for
Gallagher
,
Marriott, Derringer & Trower: Their Lives aid Music. “I think just being a guitar
player/musician in his band helped. He looked at producers and engineers as kind of executives from the record business. He looked at me as a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player. He saw me as a lot more on his wavelength.... I was inspired by Johnny. He had an idea of what direction we needed to go in. He knew that it didn’t have to be a narrow kind of version of rock ‘n’ roll. It really could be something that we created.”
The band rehearsed the songs prior to going into the studio, and the sessions were quick. Having a fellow musician who understood what he wanted in terms of production, allowed Johnny to have his input understood and implemented.
“We played all of the songs on the first
johnny Winter And
[album] every day before we recorded them, so when we got in the studio, it was totally easy, as we knew exactly what we wanted to do,” Derringer told Guerra,. “My job at that time was to communicate Johnny’s wishes to the engineers and to the people in New York. He felt that on his first projects with Eddie Kramer... his wishes weren’t getting through. So as a guitar player and a guy who has some common sense and a friend of his, I was able to communicate his wishes to the hierarchy.”
“On the
Johnny Winter And
record, we did a lot of songs Rick had already written and played with the McCoys, but hadn’t recorded,” says Johnny. “I wrote ‘Guess I’ll Go Away,’ ‘Nothing Left,’ and ‘Prodigal Son.’ Rick wrote ‘Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,’ ‘Look Up,’ ‘On a Limb,’ ‘Ain’t That a Kindness,’ and ‘Funky Music.’”
Derringer’s later version of “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,” recorded on his All
American Boy
LP in 1973, generated more airplay and sales than the single released by Johnny Winter And. But Derringer wrote it especially for Johnny.
“I specifically was there to bring more of a rock sound to Johnny,” Derringer told Muise. “And Johnny would only allow it to go so far.... The first song I wrote for Johnny was ‘Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo.’ ‘Rock and roll’ to satisfy the rock ‘n’ roll that I was supposed to be bringing into the picture, and ‘Hoochie Koo’ to satisfy the kind of blues sensibility that Johnny was supposed to maintain. And it worked out great.”
Johnny wasn’t as impressed with the record, which he said “sold worse than anything we had out.”
“I didn’t think
Johnny Winter And
was as great as everybody else thought it was, but I was glad they liked it,” says Johnny. “I didn’t know what people would think; I just hoped they would like it. The reviewers liked it. I didn’t think ‘Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo’ would do as well as it did ’cause it was a little corny. Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo. You don’t ever know.
Johnny Winter And
was more structured than most albums. Less jamming, because rock is more structured than blues.”
By 1970, mono records had become obsolete, with stereo the new standard.
Johnny Winter And
was his first LP recorded in stereo, but Johnny found that approach “very clinical” and hated to move in that direction. He bought a BACK To MONO tee shirt he saw advertised in
Rolling Stone
and wore it to express his disgust with the new format.
Zehringer played drums on Johnny Winter And, but his erratic behavior took a toll on the band. Although Johnny liked his drumming style, he only played two or three gigs with the band before Johnny had to let him go. Bobby Peterson hadn’t been the only member of the McCoys with psychological and behavioral problems.
“One day we were all in the car goin’ to look for amps,” says Johnny. “Randy, Rick’s little brother, said, ‘Look at my shirt.’We said, ‘What’s wrong with your shirt?’ He said, ‘It just doesn’t look right—I can’t go down there looking like this.’ And he jumped out of the car in the middle of the freeway and went home. Things like that. He wasn’t doin’ drugs—he was just messed up. I had to get rid of him because he wasn’t in any shape at all to be playing in a band. He told Steve he couldn’t play onstage because it made him cry and he didn’t want to cry onstage. He was also afraid the band would make him drink water. I don’t know why; it was just one of his crazy ideas. We knew we couldn’t work with him. Rick had been puttin’ up with it for years so letting him go didn’t affect him.
“It was real strange being around that band. You know these guys aren’t playing with a full deck. Randy Hobbs would call me at four o‘clock in the morning to say, ‘Weren’t we supposed to practice at four?’ ‘Yeah, we were supposed to practice at four this afternoon.’ They were nuts and I used them for a long time.”
With a full tour planned, Johnny had to act fast to fill the drummer’s position. Until he could find the right musician to take Zehringer’s place, he called on his brother to help. One of the gigs Edgar filled in as drummer was the Second Atlanta International Pop Festival, where Johnny jammed with the Allman Brothers.
Held on July 3-5, 1970, the Second Atlanta International Pop Festival had an all-star lineup that also included B. B. King, the Chambers Brothers, Mountain, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, and Ten Years After. More than 200,000 fans—some of them naked—braved the unbearable heat that hovered at one hundred degrees at 10 AM and reached 105 degrees by the afternoon. Water trucks were eventually brought in for the crowds, and salt tablets were distributed through the audience.
“I remember it being real hot,” says Johnny. “It was horrible playing in that heat. I played with the Allman Brothers. I met them at one of the festivals and we started playing together a lot. It was great music—great blues-rock. Duane was still with them. I liked him a tot—his slide ptaying—all of it. I liked Dickey’s style too. That day, I jammed with Duane and Dickey Betts on ‘Mountain Jam.’ I never felt like it was a ‘cuttin’ contest’ with Duane. Our styles went together pretty well and we took turns doin’ leads. There wasn’t any rivalry—it was just fun.”
Edgar was having the time of his life playing drums in Johnny Winter And, but his enthusiasm took its toll on his hands. “Edgar was the only person who knew the songs, but Edgar’s not a drummer,” Johnny said during an interview with
Creem.
“He said he’d help us out though till we got somebody. By the time he was done his hands were all wrecked and bloodied, just a
mess.”
“Johnny asked me to fill in when Rick Derringer’s brother left the band,” said Edgar. “I played drums for a couple of weeks. After the Atlanta Pop Festival, it just got progressively worse and worse. When I was a kid, I played drums at the clubs, but I had never played drums in that kind of situation. On a concert stage, it’s just massive levels. Johnny was using six Fender twins on each side. It was extremely loud and they didn’t really have adequate monitors so you could hear everything the way they did in later years. So I was just banging as hard as physically possible to play and still couldn’t hear what I was doing. I got to the point where I had tape and Band-Aids on my hands and had difficulty hanging onto the sticks because of it. I loved it though; it was great playing drums in a real rock band. Johnny was playing ‘Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo’ and all of the songs from
Johnny Winter And
. It was very exciting.”
“Edgar played loud no matter whether he could or not,” adds Johnny. “His hands were actually bloody from playing so hard.”
7
 
BROKE-DOWN ENGINE
 
D
espite Edgar’s heroic efforts, it was obvious Johnny had to find a new drummer fast. Johnny Winter And was gigging throughout Florida with Tin House, a Florida-based band that Steve Paul also managed, as the opening act. He discovered Tin House that April. In June, the band signed with Paul, who booked them as Johnny’s opening band, got them a record deal with Epic Records, and moved them up to Staatsburg. Tin House guitarist Floyd Radford would later play in Edgar’s White Trash, and join Johnny’s band as second guitarist in 1974.

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