Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) (38 page)
Read Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) Online
Authors: Mary Lou Sullivan
BOOK: Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition)
4.97Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Johnny Winter And: The band that earned Johnny’s only gold record. (Photo courtesy of Bobby Caldwell)
Johnny at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago in 1975. (Photo by Jim Summaria;
www.jimsummariaphoto.com
)
www.jimsummariaphoto.com
)
Saints and Sinners
billboard for the Long Beach Arena show recorded for the
King Biscuit Flower Hour
in 1974. (Photo courtesy of Doug Brockie)
billboard for the Long Beach Arena show recorded for the
King Biscuit Flower Hour
in 1974. (Photo courtesy of Doug Brockie)
Edgar sits in with Johnny in 1976. (Photo by Bob Gruen)
Johnny with bassist and close friend Ikey Sweat during the
Nothin’ But the Blues
tour. (Photo by Bob Gruen)
Nothin’ But the Blues
tour. (Photo by Bob Gruen)
Johnny and Muddy Waters at the Palladium during the
Hard Again
tour. (Photo by Steven Pearl )
Hard Again
tour. (Photo by Steven Pearl )
James Cotton blows his face out during the 1977
Hard Again
tour. (Photo by Steven Pearl)
Hard Again
tour. (Photo by Steven Pearl)
Johnny with Clarence Garlow, his mentor and main Texas guitar influence. (Photo courtesy of Johnny Winter)
Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, and Johnny jam at Chicago Stadium in June 1979. (Photo by Paul Natkin)
One of the more memorable gigs on that tour was one that didn’t happen. After playing the Fox Theater in Atlanta on August 15, the band was scheduled to play Memphis the following night. The crew, with the tractor trailer carrying the gear, left early that morning but couldn’t get into Memphis. Elvis Presley had died, traffic had stopped, and the interstate had turned into a parking lot.
“Johnny wanted to play and do a tribute to Elvis, but there was no way for us to get into Memphis,” said Rush. “The crew couldn’t get anywhere near the Coliseum. Even if they did get in and set up, we were flying in. The only way to get from the Memphis airport to downtown would have been by helicopter and there was no place to land. We’re talking 1977—logistically, it couldn’t happen. So we ended up having a night off in Atlanta. I don’t think Johnny knew Elvis but everybody was pretty upset about his death.”
Like the Johnny Winter And band that never knew what song Johnny might play, the
Nothin’ But the Blues
band had to stay on its toes. “Johnny would pull out different songs from one night to the next during the entire tour,” said Rush. “One night we did ‘Honky Tonk Women’—he just pulled it out of his hat. We all went, ‘Okay, one, two, three,’ and played it.”
Nothin’ But the Blues
band had to stay on its toes. “Johnny would pull out different songs from one night to the next during the entire tour,” said Rush. “One night we did ‘Honky Tonk Women’—he just pulled it out of his hat. We all went, ‘Okay, one, two, three,’ and played it.”
On October 11, 1977, the Hard Again band appeared on
The Mike Douglas Show,
where Johnny and Waters joined Douglas for a lengthy interview. Johnny was quite talkative; Waters didn’t a get a word in edgewise unless Douglas asked him a specific question. “Muddy wasn’t a good talker when it came to interviews,” says Johnny. “I think he was nervous; he had a hard time comin’ up with things to say.”
The Mike Douglas Show,
where Johnny and Waters joined Douglas for a lengthy interview. Johnny was quite talkative; Waters didn’t a get a word in edgewise unless Douglas asked him a specific question. “Muddy wasn’t a good talker when it came to interviews,” says Johnny. “I think he was nervous; he had a hard time comin’ up with things to say.”
Although the tour was billed as “An Evening with Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, and James Cotton,” only Johnny and Waters were invited to chat, much to Cotton’s dismay. “James got out of joint that he wasn’t gonna get to talk,” says Johnny. “He said he deserved to talk, but there just wasn’t room for him. Muddy took him back and talked to him but he was still pissed off about it. James thought he was always in Muddy’s shadow. On the road, James always felt like he was gettin’ taken advantage of. He thought he deserved more than he was getting—more respect, more money. I thought he was gettin’ plenty.”
Johnny regaled Douglas with stories of Texas clubs where “I never went to a gig without a gun in one boot and a knife in the other” and how he learned table throwing and to wipe out rednecks with his solid body guitar. Despite his obvious discomfort (Johnny put his head down and said he didn’t like to talk about it), Douglas relentlessly grilled him about his drug use. “Did you go all the way? Acid, heroin?” Douglas asked. Johnny’s amusing tale about losing his hair from doing acid and quitting because “I wouldn’t be very cute bald,” didn’t deter him. “Then what? From acid to ... ?” responded Douglas.
Other books
Clear as Day by Babette James
Gilded Latten Bones by Glen Cook
The Rozabal Line by Ashwin Sanghi
Polar Bears Past Bedtime by Mary Pope Osborne
On Blue Falls Pond by Susan Crandall
Song for Sophia by Moriah Denslea
El joven samurai: El camino de la espada by Chris Bradford
Guardian by Mayer, Shannon
Mother Load by K.G. MacGregor
Memorias de África by Isak Dinesen