Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) (57 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 bittersweet,” said Shannon. “It was a lot of fun playing; the chemistry was just like the old days, like we never lost anything. But it brought back a lot of memories, including the pain of when Uncle John and I left.”
“It was fun—it had been a long time,” Turner said in March 2007. “I went early and chatted with Johnny a little bit before the show. He doesn’t have much to say to anybody anymore, so I just chat a little bit and get out of the way. I wish we could’ve got to play some more. That’s probably the last time we’ll take a stage together. I’d play with him again when he came back to town, but—to tell you the truth—I doubt if we’ll ever do that.”
Turner was right. Less than three months after he spoke those words, Turner was hospitalized for complications due to Hepatitis C. He had been accepted on the University of Texas Health Science Center’s liver-transplant list in December 2006 and had been moved up in April 2007. In May, Austin musicians Carolyn Wonderland and Erin Jaimes began planning benefits to help with medical costs. By June, Shannon’s wife Kumi Smedley, club owner Susan Antone, and booking agent/web designer Beverly Howell joined the team. They wanted to ask Johnny to headline Uncathons in Austin and San Antonio, but Turner refused to violate his friend’s privacy by giving out his home phone number. They contacted Johnny through Nelson, and when Johnny called to say he’d be coming down to play the benefits, Turner was thrilled.
“You cannot believe how happy and relieved Unc was when he found out Johnny was actually coming,” said his wife Morgan. “He thought maybe Johnny and Paul could come down but he never dreamed Johnny would come with his full band. He was really humbled that Johnny was coming. I don’t believe he ever thought it would be possible, and when he found out it was, then it was a big emotional sigh of relief. It was the last time I ever saw him really happy. He even planned out where he was going to sit during the performance and how he would be able to get to talk to Johnny. By this time he was in a wheelchair. At first he felt bad about the chair, but decided that the important thing was that his old friend was coming down to support him, and nothing else mattered. He knew Johnny’s presence was going to make a big difference in attendance and the money, and boy did it, but the most important thing to him was Johnny.”
Although Turner didn’t live long enough to see his old friend again, Morgan met with Johnny in his bus before the Antone’s benefit in Austin on August 1, 2007. It was an emotional moment for both of them.
“I sat with Johnny for a while before the performance and he was crying,” she said. “That made it harder but I loved him for it. He said Unc had been his best friend and he was going to miss him very much. I was so moved that he cried in front of me. Tears just rolled down his cheeks. He was completely broken up and told me he had hoped that he would get to Austin in time to see Unc again.
“When Unc and I had come earlier to a concert, they talked for quite a long time. Unc was the only person he wanted to talk to. He asked Unc all kinds of questions about how he was feeling and what he needed. He asked about the transplant and Unc’s symptoms. They were both so earnest and talked for a long time.”
When Johnny played the Uncathon at Antone’s, the line snaked in front of the club and down Fifth Street for several blocks. Tickets sold out before the benefit; scores of people had to be turned away.
“Susan Antone told me it was the biggest benefit that Antone’s had ever held,” said Morgan. “It was more than sold out. There was an incredible crush of people and you could hardly walk through the crowd. People went wild. When Erin and Carolyn started in the early summer, they were told they’d be lucky to get $5,000 from the benefit. It turned out that from tickets, donations, and the silent auction, we received over $40,000 just from Antone’s.
“It was all because of Johnny’s performance. The media had been all over Unc’s death—even to a crawl during the ABC news—and it had been in every paper and on the front page of the
Austin American Statesman.
Everyone knew Johnny was coming down to honor his old friend. It was such an emotional thing that it became the event of the summer.”
Pinetop Perkins was at Antone’s that night, as was harp legend James Cotton, who sat in on “Hoochie Coochie Man.” Shannon joined Johnny onstage for “Johnny Guitar,” and the two men shared a heartfelt embrace on the way back to the dressing room. It was an evening Shannon called “magical.” No matter how painful their breakup had been, there was no doubting the love the former band mates still shared.
 
Now that he’s in his sixties, Johnny can look back on all the twists and turns and reflect on his life’s journey. Although many artists would shy away from exposing the underbelly of their life story, Johnny is an honest man who believes it’s time for his story to be told.
“I’ve made enough mistakes, where I think it’s important for people to know my mistakes, why they happened, and how I got out of it,” he says. “Who knows better than I do? I’m the only one that really knows what happened. All they know is that I had a problem. It’s important that they know the truth.”
From the time he was a child, Johnny always believed he’d be a successful musician; there was never a doubt in his mind. When asked if it was fate or free will that brought him success, he ponders the question before answering. “I think you have a lot to do with your fate,” he says. “You can’t say its fate and leave it up to that; you’ve got to work out your own fate. Everything I wanted, I always got. I feel like it was something I had to keep working at, but I knew I was going to be successful. I was determined to get what I wanted and knew I would eventually. It didn’t surprise me when it happened; I just was surprised it took so long.”
Looking back over a career that has spanned five decades, Johnny feels his biggest mistake was losing his faith in a higher power. “The toughest lesson I ever had to learn was that there was something else up there in control,” says Johnny. “That I couldn’t make things happen on my own completely—it was very important that I believed in God. I think God is involved in everybody’s life; that He is an important part of everybody’s life. I don’t know exactly why or how, but when I quit believing in God, I got miserable, very unhappy. I stopped believing in God when I thought for a while that I was so cool that I could make anything happen on my own. And it made me realize that you can’t do it on your own; you definitely need some help from God. When I asked God for help, I always got it. When I was on heroin, I promised Him that if He could help me get off drugs, I would never disbelieve in Him again. And I never did because He did help me get off drugs and I couldn’t do it on my own.”
If he had his life to live over again, Johnny wouldn’t change a thing. “When I look back on it, I’ve learned from everything that’s happened to me,” he says. “I think everything has a reason to happen. Sometimes you don’t know what the reason is, but I believe there is always a reason. Setbacks happen to everybody. They make it harder for you, but they’re an important part of life and living. And I think they make you stronger.
“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t signed with Steve Paul. I thought he was just using me for what he wanted and not really helping. I guess that’s just about my only regret. I wish I hadn’t taken drugs, but at the same time, I always wanted to know what they were like, so I can’t say that I’m sorry I did it. It was something I always wanted to try, so I can’t say that’s something I would have changed. I’ve done just about everything I wanted to do and I’ve been lucky enough to travel just about every place I wanted to travel.”
One of the things he has finally learned is to appreciate Susan, and the impact she has had on the quality of his life. “Having Susan in my life—she’s made it better in so many ways that I can’t even imagine what it would be like without her,” he says. “She’s done things for me I could never do for myself. She’s made me feel useful and is an important part of my life.”
Being recognized as a musician all over the world is a heady feeling, and Johnny plans to continue playing the blues as long as he can. “If I hadn’t been a musician, I can’t imagine being anything else,” he says. “It was something I’ve loved to do all my life. I can’t imagine taking it away; being a musician is part of me.”
Like most baby boomers, Johnny isn’t looking forward to aging, even though longevity runs in his family. When he was fifty-nine, Johnny didn’t like approaching the big six-o. “It’s scary,” he says. “I’m scared of old age. I don’t want to be older. To me, I figure sixty is entering old age. I didn’t know if I’d make it this far, but I sure hoped I would. I used to say I wanted to be playing the blues when I’m eighty. Now I’d like to go a lot further than eighty. Eighty’s nothing now; I’d like to go to one hundred.”
When asked how he would like to be remembered, he doesn’t think twice.
“As a good blues player,” he says with a smile.
DISCOGRAPHY
 
AUTHORIZED RELEASES: ALBUMS
 
Johnny Winter,
Columbia, 1969
Progressive Blues Experiment,
Imperial/United Artists, 1969
Second Winter
, Columbia, 1969
Johnny Winter And
, Columbia, 1970
Johnny Winter and Live
, Columbia, 1971
Still Alive and Well,
Columbia, 1973
Saints and Sinners
, Columbia, 1974
John Dawson Winter III,
Blue Sky, 1974
Captured Live!,
Blue Sky, 1976
Edgar and Johnny Winter Together
, Blue Sky, 1976
Nothin’ But the Blues,
Blue Sky, 1977
White, Hot & Blue,
Blue Sky, 1978
Raisin’ Cain,
Blue Sky, 1980
The Johnny Winter Story,
CBS, 1980 (double L.P)
Raised on Rock,
CBS, 1980 (double LP; same recording as above)
Guitar Slinger,
Alligator, 1984
Serious Business,
Alligator, 1985
Third Degree,
Alligator, 1986
The Winter of
’88, MC:A/Voyager, 1988
Let Me In,
Point Blank, 1991
“Hey, Where’s Your Brother?
”, Point Blank, 1992
Scorchin’
Blues, Sony, 1992 (Columbia compilation)
A Rock N’ Roll Collection,
Sony, 1994 (two-CD Columbia compilation)
Anthology
, Sony, 1995
White Hot Blues,
Sony, 1997
Live in NYC
’97, Virgin, 1998
Return of Johnny Guitar
, Empire Music Collection, 2000
Deluxe Edition, Alligator
, 2001
The Best of Johnny Winter
, Sony Legacy, 2002
I’m a Bluesman
, Virgin, 2004
Live Bootleg Series
,
Volume I,
Friday Music, 2007
Live Bootleg Series, Volume 2
, Friday Music, 2008
Live Bootleg Series, Volume 3
, Friday Music, 2008
Live Bootleg Series, Volume 4
, Friday Music, 2009
Live Bootleg Series, Volume 5
, Friday Music, 2009
Johnny Winter: The Woodstock Experience
, Sony Legacy, 2009
 
PRODUCED AND/OR PLAYED ON WITH MUDDY WATERS
 
Hard Again
, Blue Sky, 1977
I’m Ready, Blue Sky
, 1978
Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live
, Blue Sky, 1979
King Bee,
Blue Sky, 1981
Breakin’ It Up & Breakin’ It Down
, Sony Legacy, 2007
 
PRODUCED AND PLAYED ON WITH SONNY TERRY
 
Whoopin’
, Alligator, 1984
AUTHORIZED RELEASES: SINGLES

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