So just how many people out there can boast that they’ve actually seen BOTH Edgar Winter and his older brother, Johnny, in concert in less than one year’s time? Well, that’s exactly what happened to your correspondent last summer when Edgar joined Ringo Starr’s “All-Starr Band” in Rome where Edgar also performed his 1972 no. 1 USA hit “Frankenstein”. The scene was repeated on Monday night in Trieste’s wonderful and historic Rossetti Theater, this time with one of the world’s foremost blues/slide guitarists around, the 68 year-old Johnny Winter! This concert came to us thanks to the folks over at Azalea Promotion, and what a great concert it was.
Even though Johnny’s set-list was rather short—only thirteen songs (including two for his encore)—and with the entire concert lasting only some 90 minutes, nevertheless for a man who in the past has had his fair share of problems with drugs, Winter didn’t relent one bit in those 90 minutes and put on a tremendous performance, a real “master class” for ANY young and aspiring guitarist out there! While seated for practically the entire concert (like his younger brother Edgar, Johnny was also born with albinism), the elder Winter came across as being so cool and laid back that he made guitar playing come across as simply a piece of cake!
But John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III isn’t only famous for his guitar skills (he actually began playing the ukele before picking up the guitar at age eleven) as in the past he also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for one of the greatest bluesmen of all time, Muddy Waters (the very same man who had inspired the Rolling Stones and the name of their own band)!
Johnny, who was backed-up by three great musicians, also paid homage to both Chuck Berry (Berry, Little Richard, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis had all influenced him at an early age) with “Johnny B. Goode” and Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisisted” (an excellent rendition of this song by Winter can be seen in Eric Clapton’s 2007 “Crossroads Festival” DVD in Chicago!). Winter also paid his respects to the Stones with a few riffs from their song “Gimme Shelter”.
A true maestro of the slide guitar on Dylan’s old song, Winter concluded his Trieste concert in front of a standing ovation and then, slowly shuffling his feet, he quietly exited the Rossetti Theater, much in the same way as he had entered it for the start of indeed a memorble concert (the rather odd Italian opening band, “The Cyborgs”, involved two guys wearing welders’ masks!!)!
Johnny’s short but intense set-list:
Intro:
HIDEAWAY
BOOGIE REAL LOW
SCHOOL GIRL
MOJO WORKIN
JOHNNY B GOOD
BLACKJACK
TORE DOWN
LONE WOLF
DON’T TAKE ADVANTAGE
BONEY MORONEY
ALL OVER NOW
Encore:
DUST MY BROOM
HIGHWAY 61
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