Yesterday guitar great Johnny Winter passed away yesterday in his hotel room in Zurich, Switzerland. In his memory we share this feature story that ran in our December-January 2010 issue.

Photo by Paul Natkin

The faithful have lined up in the warm sun on this Saturday afternoon in September, chatting excitedly as they lounge against the outside wall of The Birchmere, a legendary music club in Alexandria, Va., just over the Washington, D.C. border.

It’s hours before blues legend Johnny Winter, 65, is scheduled to take the stage, but the fans—ranging in age from children to flower children—have arrived early hoping to catch a glimpse of the only white man that many claim epitomizes the blues.

Inside a tour bus parked at the side of the club, Winter sits on a canvas-covered bench clad in a dark T-shirt and jeans, chain-smoking cigarettes as he kills the hours before the show. Band members scoot in and out of the bus, chatting with guests and remaining alert to any of guitarist’s needs. These days Winter is dealing with complications from his albinism and, more noticeably, various addiction-related ailments which no one around him will discuss in any detail out of politeness versus protection. If there’s one thing that Winter’s entourage conveys, it’s a deep respect for the man.

The band sleeps in hotels while on tour but rents buses to travel around towns, store their gear and give Johnny a haven where he can sit back, watch reruns of classic comedies such as The Andy Griffith show and relax.

It’s also where Johnny meets his fans after gigs.

“Johnny always has time for his fans,” says manager Paul Nelson, who also plays guitar in Winter’s band. “Everyone wants to touch him, to tell him how when they first saw him, when they first heard his music. We have men come in, Vietnam Vets, who just kneel down by Johnny and cry. We just had one guy who told him, ‘Johnny you saved my life.’”

Winter, who often seems content to let Nelson do the talking, exhales another long drag of a cigarette that swirls around his trademark white hair and wipes his ever-watering right eye with a tissue.

***

Growing up in Beaumont, Texas, Winter was around five year old when he first began to play the clarinet that his father—a saxophone player who was also a member of the church choir and a barbershop quartet—bought him. He and his brother Edgar were hooked on Artie Shaw and other swing bands, so when an overbite forced him to stop playing saxophone, Winter was crushed. His father bought him a ukulele—which was the right size for the small boy’s hands—and taught him to play classic standards including “Bye, Bye Blackbird.”

When he was about 12, his dad gave him a guitar that had belonged to his grandfather. A career U.S. Army officer who later worked in the cotton business, his father said that there wasn’t much of a call for ukulele players. However, those that learn guitar just might make it in the business.

At the same time, the family’s housekeeper, Lily, was constantly listening to a local blues station on the radio while she worked. That was enough for the 15-year-old Winter, who also had absorbed large doses of rock and roll from listening to disc jockey J.P Richardson—The Big Bopper of “Chantilly Lace”—to team with his 12-year-old keyboard playing brother and start a band.

Winter spent all of his time buying blues albums—any he could find—and teaching himself to play. While he took a few lessons, he generally developed his style and technique by ear listening to the records over and over and over again. “I never really thought of myself as a musician,” says Winter amidst a swirl of smoke. “I just always really loved the blues and the guitar. I loved the feel of it.”

Alongside Muddy Waters and B.B. King – photo by Susan Winter

He loved the blues so much that in Texas and Louisiana he ventured into Black clubs even in the racially charged environment of the South. “It was never a problem,” he says. “I just liked the music like everyone else there—I thought going there was a good idea.”

Perhaps that’s because Winter had made friends in the blues community. Clarence Garlow, a DJ at the Black radio station KJET, introduced Winter to rural blues and Cajun music. There’s also a famous story about a time in 1962 when Winter and his brother went to see B.B. King at a Beaumont, Texas club called The Raven. Johnny wanted to play with B.B. and kept sending people over to plead his case. After B.B. inspected Johnny’s union card, he handed the young man his guitar. “I got a standing ovation and he took his guitar back!” says Winter with a laugh.

While Winter boldly lobbied to play with B.B. King, he was already developing his style—a combination of old country, zydeco, gospel, New Orleans’ R&B, Cajun, swamp blues and pop. He won a radio station contest in connection with the movie Johnny Be Good which gave him and his brother Edgar’s group Johnny and The Jammers the opportunity to lay down the tracks “School Day blues” and “You Know I Love You.” The songs were released on Dart Records and rated high on local charts.

Louisiana slide guitar legend Sonny Landreth—who recently sat in with Winter during a Bellingham, Wash. show—speaks wistfully of the early days of Winter’s career. “I missed that era. I wished I could have gotten to hear him play local clubs. Nonetheless, this was an experience,” says Landreth. “As a guitar player, the thing that set him apart from all the rest during that incredibly creative era from the mid to late 1960s to the early 1970s—that’s when Hendrix, Clapton, Mike Bloomfield were coming forth —Johnny was right there with them using that unique finger picking approach that is deeply rooted in the Delta blues. He fuel injected blues and rock in such a way that it was ferocious but fluid.”

Guitar phenom Derek Trucks, now 30, was 10 or 11 when he first remembers hearing Johnny Winter Captured Live. “He played with such urgency and fire—for me his playing is so fearless and wide open—I burnt that record out,” says Trucks whose playing with The Allman Brothers Band and his own group The Derek Trucks Band has prompted critics to knight him one of the best guitarists in the world. “Every time I see Johnny now, it’s always great. He is beyond legitimate. He is that music that he studied. I don’t know many others that can make a jump from admiring certain music to becoming that music.”

Gregg Allman, who leads the Allman Brothers Band, says that Winter’s guest appearance earlier this year at the group’s 40th anniversary celebration at New York’s Beacon Theatre was a high point. “Everything he plays gets to me,” says Allman. “I knew when I met him that albinos don’t [generally] have a long life span and I’m amazed he is older than me and is still such a good player, such a powerful player.”

Winter smiles warmly remembering the Beacon event. “Yeah, that was fun. I like Gregg,” says Winter who goes on to mention something of a musical encampment at Allman’s Georgia home in the ‘70s. “He invited me over and we spent a couple days playing. He wanted to absorb the whole blues thing.”

He went to the right man. Winter—whose many awards include producing two Grammy Award winning albums for Muddy Waters—has played and collaborated with a who’s who list of great guitarists including John Lee Hooker and Waters, who called Johnny his adopted son. Now he finds himself reaching out to younger players. “Even if they’re still working on technique, there’s a passion, an attitude,” he says of the budding talent. “You can tell,” he says of Trucks in particular, “he has it.”

Still, like every great musician, Winter not only has a devoted following, but also some detractors. A few that worked with him early on in his career note that what seems to be a humble, gentle nature is either newly acquired or a façade. Others still feel used, years after they worked with him.

Photo by Paul Natkin

“I always knew I had it,” says Winter. “I wasn’t ever nervous. I was always sure I’d be successful. I just didn’t know when.”

Winter got his first taste of commercial success in December 1968. That’s the month that Rolling Stone published a cover story on the Texas music scene. In the article, journalists Larry Sepulvado and John Burks included three paragraphs about a little-known, 24-year-old bluesman named Johnny Winter that they had seen playing in a local club. They dubbed him the hottest musician around—after Janis Joplin.

Record companies flocked to hear the bluesman in action and Columbia triumphed in the bidding war. In 1969, Winter’s official debut album Johnny Winter. John Lennon and members of The Rolling Stones praised the work and the Stones opened the band’s famous Hyde Park concert with the Winter song “I’m Yours and I’m Hers.”

Paul Stanley, who co-founded KISS, says Winter’s albums are among the best music that he’s ever heard. “Johnny Winter—boy, that guy is killer,” says Stanley. “I was just telling my son about him and when he first came on the scene. It’s interesting, when somebody now experiences the blues they think of Clapton. Eric Clapton didn’t because Eric Clapton wasn’t listening to Eric Clapton. This is the guy he listened to.”

The same year that Winter released his debut, he played the legendary Fillmore East. “That’s when I knew I really made it,” he says. “I knew I had arrived. But I wasn’t surprised. In my mind, I was the best White blues player around.”

With that mindset, he had no hesitation taking the stage at Woodstock. Although his performance wasn’t included on the Woodstock album or film because of the insistence of his former manager, it is often cited as legendary for his powerful playing and onstage antics, which sealed his reputation as a guitar god.

Wavy Gravy, the political activist and Prankster who was an integral part of Woodstock, working security and entertaining the crowd, remembers Winter’s performance well.

“At Woodstock, we were mostly involved in life support and didn’t hear a lot of music,” recounts Gravy. “I remember his interaction with Janis Joplin was as naughty as it gets without getting arrested. Janis was a good friend of mine and to see her and Johnny Winter tangled up in blues—I close my eyes to this day and see them holding forth together. I’m surprised they were able to be separated.”

***

Fame and notoriety began to have a detrimental effect on Winter and he began isolating himself. Everywhere he traveled, fans would try to touch him, get autographs and speak to him. One night, a fan crawled into his hotel room through an open window. “I told him to get the hell out,” says Winter, raising his voice for the first time in the interview as he recalled the incident. Such constant attention, adulation and idolatry tipped him into depression and addiction for years.

“It’s great to have people admire your work,” says Winter. “But to be worshipped—I don’t want to be worshipped. That’s why I started taking heroin. Then I just didn’t care. You don’t think about anything anymore.”

Musician Rick Derringer—who has played and collaborated with Winter for decades—watched as the man he considered a brother became increasingly enveloped in drug use.

The two met in the early 1970s when Winter’s former manager wanted him to start playing rock more. Winter met and started jamming with Derringer and his band The McCoys—well known for their pop work including the 1965 hit “Hang on Sloopy.” The group, called Johnny Winter And…, had several hits including “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo,” which had a resurgence of popularity after its inclusion on the soundtrack of Cameron Crowe’s 1993 movie Dazed and Confused.

“It became the perfect marriage of bubble gum and blues,” says Derringer. “I was blessed to find him. He was blessed to find us. The music is still alive today.” Surprisingly, so is Winter who spiraled deeper into addiction for decades.

“From a professional point of view, it never affected him,” says Derringer. “We had toured in England and he went into rehab. Everyone thought he had gone in there to get straight, but he went in to get drugs. If you go [to rehab in England] and they determine you’re a drug addict, you get methadone and you don’t have to worry about getting bad drugs.” Of course, physicians work to wean addicts off those drugs but Winter avoided that by perpetually changing doctors.

At the same time, Winter’s popularity—and ego—continued to grow. He systematically replaced managers, producers and others members of his team that challenged him, opting for “yes” men. When a young and somewhat inexperienced Derringer, who was brought in as a producer for Winter’s albums, criticized a song take, the guitarist shot back, “What do you mean? How could it be better than that?” Derringer recalls, imitating a gruff, antagonistic voice. “A good producer has to offer insights, but he didn’t want that.”

Photo by Susan Winter

Back on the bus, talk turns to management, who Winter feels typically treat musicians like human ATMs.

Winter and current manager Paul Nelson discuss about former management that not only encouraged his addictions but added to them, encouraging doctors to give him anti-depressants in addition to methadone. Add vodka and other alcohol to his daily intake, and it’s not surprising that Winter became increasingly unaware of his own business matters. When he’d become lucid and ask questions, former management would bully doctors until they increased Winter’s dosages. At the same time, the one constant in Winter’s life—his performance—began to crumble.

“There was a time when a friend of mine had gone to see Johnny play at Orlando’s House of Blues,” recalls Nelson. “[My friend] said, ‘I had to leave. As much as I love Johnny Winter and as much as he my idol, I really thought he would die somewhere in the middle of that concert. I couldn’t be there and watch Johnny die.’”

Many people including Winter credit Nelson, who began working with him about eight years ago and became his manager about five years ago, with turning his life around.

Nelson became Winter’s champion when he found the guitarist adrift in a financial mess. He also worked to help Winter—whose normally thin 130-pound frame had dropped to just 90 pounds in 2003—recover from hip and hand surgery. Now touring regularly, Winter’s management fields many contract offers but Nelson is in no rush to sign.

“Johnny has literally come back from the dead,” says Derringer. “For the first time in his life he has a guy who is watching out for him. He shows up for all concerts, he plays well, he is getting stronger and stronger. He walks. He swims. Paul has a plan to keep getting him stronger.”

***

Inside the club, fans are seated, munching on pizza, corn bread and other bar foods served at the Birchmere. A few fans still roam the room, looking for tables close to the stage, although the show is apparently sold out.

The opening act ends and receives a warm if not enthusiastic response. It’s clear they are here for Johnny and no one else. “I don’t care what he does,” says one fan impatiently tapping her foot as she watched Winter’s roadies set up the stage. “I just want to see him.”

Nelson and the rest of the band take the stage, but most eyes in the audience stay glued to the stage door. Soon, Winter—led by a member of his entourage who’s shining a small flashlight ahead so Winter can see where he’s walking—enters. The audience screams and applauds as Winter takes a seat in the center of the stage and leads his band through an ambitious set of classics including “Hideaway,” “Sugar Coated Love,” “Black Jack” and “Boney Maroney.” Throughout the set, Winter’s voice is strong and passionate, his playing fluid and fiery. Audience members push chairs aside and dance in the aisles, stopping only long enough to hoot their approval and clap.

When the set ends, Winter’s gait is slow and uneven as he makes his way backstage. He reappears after thunderous applause for encore renditions of “Mojo Boogie” and “Highway 61.”

As soon as Winter exits the stage door, the club’s lights come on. It’s clear no amount of cheers will bring Winter back, so fans power walk through the hallways and out the front doors of the club. The gates at the rear of the club, where Winter’s bus is parked, are opened and fans scurry to form a line that leads to the bus door.

After nearly 15 minutes, Winter’s manager and security come outside and begin to usher fans into the bus to meet with Winter. Camera flashes continually light up the bus as fans pose with Winter, push posters and albums and even guitars toward him to sign, and tell him over and over how much they admire him. Throughout most of the time the bluesman, visibly exhausted, nods, smiles and whispers words of gratitude.

“I told him I have loved him since 1971 and he wiped his eye,” says one 50-something woman, clutching albums that Winter had signed. “I think it really meant a lot to him.”