Bob Margolin will always be grateful to Muddy Waters, who had him play on six of the blues legend’s latter-day records in the ‘70s. “It changed the course of the rest of my life,” Margolin says, “because of the great music I learned from him, and the musicians I met through him.”

Before that, the Massachusetts-born guitarist had spent the late ‘60s merging blues with psych rock, before leaning fully into the blues. “It was moving, fun, and honest music,” he says. “I fell in love with that music and wanted to play it; and then I got into Muddy’s band, which was amazing.”

Another amazing moment came after Margolin had spent three years with Waters – he took part in The Last Waltz. “I realized it was a very special gig when I saw the people in the room,” he says.

He stuck with Waters until 1980 and they remained friends until his death in 1983. Since then he’s built a solo career, winning two Blues Music Awards. But that’s not his biggest takeaway.

“Some of the greatest blues players,like Hubert Sumlin, or B.B. King, were just the nicest people,” he recalls.

“They’d be really sweet to you. They were great and distinctive – you’d know who they were the second they played a note. But they were also the nicest human beings. I think that’s a good lesson.”

What led you to pick up guitar?

I really fell in love with Chuck Berry’s playing in about 1964. I followed that path of inspiration back to Muddy Waters and the blues, and really haven’t crawled out yet! I heard songs on the radio that were bluesy; and later I heard real blues songs, and I sought them out.

In the late ‘60s you were in a psychedelic Boston band called The Freeborne. What was the blue-meets-psyche scene like?

It was a very vibrant scene. There was a really great blues scene there with young people who loved the music. There were good players in town and creative rock music at a time when people were putting lots of styles together. It was a very exciting time for music. – it was a wide-open scene.

What gear were you using then?

I got a Fender Twin Reverb and put some JBL speakers in it. Around 1967 I got a mid ‘50s Gibson Les Paul fairly cheaply. I had it until about 1972, when it got stolen. Once I started playing in blues bands more, I got rid of the Twin Reverb and went to Fender Bassmans. The Twin Reverb seemed too bright and clean, rather than the dirty sound the smaller amps had.

How did you first meet Muddy Waters?

I loved his music more than anybody else’s – he was the main reason for me. I was in bands that opened up for him in the Massachusetts area. He saw our band in 1973, probably in March, and he could see what I was trying to play on guitar.

We were smart enough not to do Muddy Waters songs on a gig opening for Muddy Waters! But I was trying to play Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmy Reid and Elmore James. He was very encouraging to me, which was a thrill; it really meant a lot to me.

What led to your joining Muddy Waters’ band in 1973?

In August 1973 he came to Boston to start 55 days in a club there. I was the first one in the place, and on the first night – I think it was a Tuesday – I came in and the harmonica player asked me the fateful question: “Do you have any reefer?”

Did you?

I did! That’s what local musicians did for bands that on the road back then. But he also said, “Muddy just fired somebody last night.” Before I could even think about it, he went into the dressing room and got Muddy, who came out and said, “Come to my hotel room tomorrow and bring a guitar.”

I had things scoped out pretty good. I also knew it would be the best opportunity to learn about Chicago blues, and play them with the person who was at the top. Muddy knew I’d be interested – he presumed I’d do it if he wanted me. And it worked out that way: he gave me a chance to be in the band, and that lasted for almost seven years.

What was he like to be in a band with?

He could be a little moody sometimes, when he couldn’t hear anything on the bandstand. But a lot of times he was good-humored – and he was a very fair bandleader with the way that he ran the band.

He wanted you to know the music pretty well; not from rehearsing it, but from knowing what the song sounded like, and how to play it in the moment by following the cues that he’d give during songs like Baby, Please Don’t Go, Hoochie Coohie Man, and Got My Mojo Workin’.

It was an opportunity to watch and listen. But it was also about finding a part among seven musicians that wasn’t getting in anybody else’s way, and to add something meaningful . When you get a guitar solo, take it really, really strong – make a nice little statement. Then on the second verse of your solo, drive it home and send it over to the next person.

The band never talked about these things, but that’s what happened onstage from the first night that I played with them.

You participated in The Last Waltz with Muddy.

The band was on the road and he said, “Me, you, and the piano player are gonna fly out to San Francisco in a couple of days.” I had a Gibson archtop ES-150 from about the mid ‘50s with me. I used a Fender Stratocaster most of the time, but I happened to have that archtop guitar, so I used that for The Last Waltz.

When we were rehearsing the day before, I guess that guitar impressed people, because everybody was very nice to me. And they saw that I was playing with Muddy. It was exciting to meet and play with Paul Butterfield and Pinetop Perkins. But they didn’t actually stay past our set, which was around the middle of the night.

After the show, we went back to the hotel where the rehearsals had been. It was kind of a jam room and party. People were playing all night, including a lot of rock stars. Muddy and Pinetop were the oldest people there – they were in their 60s, which sounds young to me now! It was a fun night after the show.

Did you get to chat with Robbie Robertson?

I’ve been thinking about Robbie a lot because there’s a book that he published just before his death a couple of years ago. It’s about the time of The Last Waltz and right after it. But I didn’t really talk with Robbie at The Last Waltz or at the rehearsal – he was kind of busy, and there was nothing I had to say to him.

I did see him in November 2019, where he was a guest at The Last Waltz tribute that he also endorsed. I talked with him then, but we just talked about the music itself.

At the after-hours jam you mentioned, you sat in with Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, right?

What’s interesting is I didn’t see Robbie at the end of the night; I’m sure he was somewhere. But we ended up having a jam at around seven in the morning that Bob Dylan put together. He had me on guitar, Eric Clapton on guitar, Dr. John on piano, Ronnie Wood on bass, Levon Helm on drums and Paul Butterfield on harmonica.

It wasn’t the greatest music I ever played, but it was interesting to sit in a room and see those people playing the blues, with Bob leading the jam and mostly doing Robert Johnson and Freddie King songs. It was fun to trade verses on Hideaway with Eric Clapton.

Did you get to chat with Eric?

We talked a little bit. I was telling him about the new album Muddy had just cut with Johnny Winter in October of 1976, Hard Again. I asked Eric if he knew Johnny because I figured they must have crossed paths since they were both into Robert Johnson and were very well-known blues-rock guitar players.

Eric said they hadn’t met yet. One time he’d called, but Johnny didn’t believe it was Eric! The next time I saw Johnny I asked him about that. He said, “Yeah, some guy said he was Eric Clapton. I hung up on him!”

Speaking of Johnny, you played on his 1977 album, Nothin’ but the Blues. What was that like?

That was recoded after the Hard Again album and tour, which was two months of playing mostly theaters. Johnny said, “I wanna get everybody in the studio right away, while we’re used to playing with each other.” In just a few days we knocked out an album of songs Johnny wanted to cover, and some things he wrote. It had the same spirit of what we were doing with Muddy, but with Johnny singing.

Why did you leave Muddy’s band in 1980?

Unfortunately there was a business problem with Muddy’s manager. The band hadn’t really changed since 1974, and in the middle of 1980, we were all negotiating with Muddy’s manager, trying to protect ourselves. The band ended up leaving – but all of us stayed friends with Muddy.

In November of 1980 I opened a show for him in Washington. I got to have a long talk with him at the end of the night, and said everything I ever would have wanted to say to him. That turned out to be the last time I saw him alive.

“But I’d call him on the phone every few weeks, just to be in touch with him. It meant a lot to me to be able to do that. I talked to him three weeks before he passed. I asked, “Do you ever pick up your guitar at home, just to play it?” He said, “No – I’ve been playing for 50 years. It’s there!”

In the years since, you’ve led a decorated solo career. Are you working on anything now?

I’m working on being at home; enjoying my home, my wife and my pets. I’ve been off the road for about a year. I’m sure I’m not done playing, but I’ve got nothing in the immediate future. I might be the first person you interview who isn’t promoting something new!

Keep up to date via Bob Margolin’s website.

Following career-defining stints with guitar legends Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan, bassist Tommy Shannon is practically synonymous with the blues.

“Tommy is the quintessential modern blues bassist,” said Roscoe Beck in a 1997 Special Issue of Bass Player. “Stylistically, he ranks among innovators like Jack Bruce – but he's also rooted in the tradition of of the great Chicago and Texas blues bands, right back to the early bass pioneers like Willie Dixon.”

In 1968, Shannon landed a gig with the then-unknown Johnny Winter. With drummer John Turner, the trio produced three highly influential albums – and made an appearance at Woodstock – before splintering in 1970.

Shannon drifted into drugs and jails throughout the '70s before teaming up with Vaughan and drummer Chris Layton in 1980. “I got strung out on drugs, and I got in trouble with the law,” Shannon told Bass Player. “I lost everything and every friend I had; the only thing I held onto was my Fender Jazz Bass.

“I worked in construction until I was finally able to get back into music. That led to a gig with Rocky Hill, the brother of ZZ Top's Dusty Hill.

“I was living in Houston, and I heard Stevie was going to be playing at a club in town. I walked in and saw him onstage, and this beam of light went through me telling me that was where I was meant to be.”

“I went over to him on a break, and not caring who was in earshot, I said, ‘I belong in this band. I want to play with you.’ I ended up sitting in and having a great time, and about a month later he called and asked me to join.”

The ability to cook up catchy hooks within a bluesy framework is one of Shannon's greatest assets. Perhaps his best known line is the classic riff from Crossfire by Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble.

Crossfire features a vintage blues flavor evident both in the repetition and note content of the unforgettable ostinato. Pinpointing its origin, Shannon stated simply, “I was sitting around playing one night, and the part just came to me.”

Crossfire begins with a drum fill and a 12-bar intro that rides on Shannon's two-bar sub-hook. For the bridge at 01:43, Shannon maintains an almost identical eighth-note rhythmic pattern, this time sticking to roots and octaves.

With the tune building and the guitar solo coming up, Shannon throws in a tasty eighth-note fill at 01:57. “That happened on the spur of the moment, and I liked it so much I repeated it later going into the ride-out guitar solo (at 03:35) – but down an octave for variety.”

As the track picks up intensity via Vaughan's raucous chordal solo, Chris Layton's drum fills, and the addition of the #9 to the Eb7 chord by both Vaughan and keyboardist Reese Wynans, Shannon holds firm.

With his bass part now the only thing keeping it all together, the effectiveness of the static-line concept really becomes apparent. “The track even starts to speed up, which we pointed out to Stevie – but he told us to leave it as is.”

Though Shannon has played various basses throughout his career, his mainstay axe is a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass that he's had since his time with Johnny Winter.

“A lot of different companies send me basses, and some of them are really good, and I'll play them for a while, but I always go back to my old Fender Jazz. I've never heard a bass that sounds better.”

To match Vaughan's Eb tuning, Shannon tuned down a half-step. The resulting lower string tension led to some string-rattle problems on the E and A strings, for which Shannon compensated by using heavier-gauge Rotosound strings and plucking over the bridge pickup instead of his usual spot over the neck pickup.

Today’s featured axe is a 1964 Firebird V. For those unfamiliar, Gibson made four different versions of the Firebird in the mid-’60s. 

A Firebird I, played famously by Eric Clapton for a spell during his days in Cream, has dot inlays and only one pickup; a Firebird III has dot inlays and two pickups; a Firebird V, like this one, has trapezoid inlays and two pickups; and a Firebird VII has block inlays, an ebony fretboard and three pickups, with all gold hardware. 

Back then, the decision as to which guitar was best for you came down to what you wanted to spend; the Firebird I was the least expensive and the Firebird VII was the top of the line. 

I like Firebird Vs the best, simply because this is the model that Johnny Winter played. My youth encapsulated in a guitar is a Firebird V, because Johnny was such a huge hero and inspiration to me, from when I first heard him when I was 11 years old. 

My very first Firebird was a “medallion” Firebird, which was a reissue of a 1964 Firebird V, first made available in 1972. In those days, all I wanted to do was to play like Johnny!

He would use the neck pickup only, and was just ripping blues-rock riffs all day long! To me, that was the epitome of blues-rock guitar – a Firebird V into a cranked Fender amp. Johnny was always on fire back then, singing and playing brilliantly on some of the greatest blues-rock songs ever. 

Because of the construction of the guitars – a mahogany neck-thru-body design with mahogany “wings” on the sides, plus the mini humbuckers – Firebirds have a very distinct sound and are a bit brighter than other Gibson solidbody guitars. 

Figure 1 is a six-bar phrase based on the G minor pentatonic scale (G, Bb, C, D, F) and the G blues scale (G, Bb, C, Db, D, F). These phrases are intended as nods to Johnny’s phrasing style – with an emphasis on fast 16th-note triplet pull-offs and fast, aggressive vibratos.

Firebird Vs produce a throaty sound that is absolutely unique and immediately recognizable. 

Figure 2 offers another “Johnny approved” phrase, as G minor pentatonic is played up high in 15th position; you gotta get the vibrato right!

As I mentioned, Johnny never touched his toggle switch and always stayed on the neck pickup, but every toggle switch position on this instrument can yield fantastic results. 

Figure 3 offers a phrase played with both pickups engaged. Bar 1 features a G minor pentatonic lick, after which I switch to phrases based on D minor pentatonic (D, F, G, A, C).

In Figure 4, I’ve switched to the bridge pickup only, which is full treble and as bright as it gets. These lines are based on the G blues scale.

Utilizing the bridge pickup, the sound is very aggressive and just might rip your ears and your eyelids off! Rolling back the tone control a bit tempers the bite.

Jimi at 80: Born in Seattle on November 27 1942, Jimi Hendrix would have celebrated his 80th birthday this week. Throughout this week on Guitar World, we'll celebrate his genius and game-changing impact on the world of guitar playing.

It goes without saying that Jimi Hendrix is one of the best electric guitar players of all time. One of the godfathers of the instrument who explored and popularized new sounds, Hendrix’s music seeped into just about every musical genre, forever changing the course of blues, rock, psychedelic, jazz and soul.

Indeed, Hendrix and his Fender Stratocaster are seen as one of the most iconic guitar/player combos of all time, and while the totemic titan dabbled with acoustic every now and then, it’s his use of the electric that has gone down in the annals of six-string history.

Yet there’s a side to Hendrix’s playing that often flies under the radar, and that’s commonly underrated by many. Though it’s perhaps unsurprising owing to the seismic impact Hendrix had with his electric guitar, many don’t realize he was also a master of the bass guitar.

His relationship with the four-string, though sometimes sporadic, remained strong throughout his entire career, and had its roots in Hendrix’s early records. However, it was around the time when both Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland arrived in ‘67 and ‘68, respectively, that Hendrix was arguably at the peak of his bass-playing powers. 

Indeed, some of his most notable bass-playing credits occurred between the years of ‘67 and ‘70. In 1970 – just seven months before his death – Hendrix featured on Timothy Leary’s live LP, You Can’t Be Anyone This Time Around. Specifically, he can be heard playing bass on Live and Let Live.

His Leary guest spot was just one of a number of high-profile but underappreciated experiences he had with the four-string in this four-year period. According to John McDermott, Eddie Kramer and Billy Cox – authors of Ultimate Hendrix: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Live Concerts and Sessions – Hendrix also “cut a staggering number of basic tracks” while recording his cover of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower.

It was a similar case for much of Electric Ladyland: with Experience bassist Noel Redding busy with his new band, Fat Mattress, Hendrix took it upon himself to record many of the album's bass parts. Songs such as Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) and Long Hot Summer Night all showcase Hendrix’s fluid bass technique.

From a live perspective, though, there is one example of Hendrix’s bass playing that stands above all else: his spontaneous live jam with Johnny Winter, which took place at New York’s The Scene nightclub some time in the late ‘60s.

Though there’s little official information surrounding the elusive performance, Winter’s brother, Edgar, recently sat down with Let’s Rock Chats to shed some light on the event, saying Hendrix turned down the opportunity to play guitar and instead elected to pick up a bass.

“There was this club in New York called The Scene that everybody went to,” he recalled. “You’d see the Stones, you’d see the Beatles, you’d see Elton John before anybody knew who he was… all these people.

“Johnny was sitting in and Jimi Hendrix was in the audience,” Winter went on. “And there was like 10 guitars up there [on stage] – Jimi played the bass. He got up there and played the bass. I think that speaks volumes.

“You wouldn’t want to get in a showdown with a guitar slinger like Johnny. I’m not saying that Jimi was afraid to do that, but he did elect to play bass instead of picking up the guitar.”

Some rare audio pertaining to be from the evening in question – with Hendrix on bass and Winter on slide – is available on the internet, though without official confirmation, the authenticity of such clips can’t be taken at face value.

Furthermore, theories that Winter lent his six-string services to Hendrix’s infamous bootleg album Bleeding Heart – supposedly recorded over various dates at The Scene, from which some of these clips are taken – were shot down when Winters emphatically denied having any involvement in it back in 1991.

Despite this, it remains a fact that Winter and Hendrix did indeed share the stage on at least one occasion where the latter wielded what looked to be an upside-down Fender Jazz Bass, quite possibly belonging to Johnny Winter’s own bass player, Tommy Shannon.

Winter wasn’t the only one to be supported by Hendrix on the four-string. In 1969, Hendrix played bass for Mountain’s Leslie West, who once told Guitar World of the experience.

Hendrix's legacy is often viewed from the guise of the electric guitar, and for good reason. His enthusiasm for the bass guitar and the proficiency he had for the instrument in both a studio and onstage capacity, though, should not be overlooked.

• An unreleased live album, Jimi Hendrix Experience Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969, is out now on 2LP vinyl, CD and all digital platforms via Legacy Recordings. A new book, JIMI by Janie Hendrix and John McDermott, is out November 24.

This interview was conducted by Guitar World in 2011.

Johnny Winter has been playing electric blues since the Sixties, and his enthusiasm for it only grows with time.

"There's never been a point in my life where I was even close to getting tired of playing blues," he says, relaxing in his dressing room at B.B. King's Blues Club in New York City, where he's performing a record-release show for his 2011 album, Roots. "The truth is, I love playing the blues, now more than I ever have before."

On Roots, the legendary Texas blues and rock guitarist revisits some of his all-time-favorite blues classics. The project, including its theme and title, originated with Paul Nelson, who is both Winter's co-guitarist and Roots' producer.

"As soon as he mentioned the idea, I said, 'I'd love to do that!"' Winter says. "These are all songs that I have loved for so long. I grew up listening to them and learned to play guitar by playing along to all of them. And to be honest, it only took me about 15 minutes to pick which of my favorite blues artists I wanted to cover and which songs I wanted to do first."

In many ways, Roots harkens back to Winter's seminal 1977 Blue Sky release, Nothin' but the Blues, as a dedicated tribute to the blues music that inspired him as a youth. Winter cut that disc with members of Muddy Waters' band as well as with Waters himself. On Roots, he's supported by his own stellar band, consisting of Nelson, bassist Scott Spray and drummer Vito Liuzzi, plus guest keyboardist Mike DiMeo.

But Roots also serves as a modern-day slide guitar summit, featuring three of today's greatest electric slide players: Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks and Sonny Landreth, who appears on the album opener, a reworking of T-Bone Walker's essential blues classic, T-Bone Shuffle.

"T-Bone was a huge influence for me," Winter says. "He really was the father of electric blues guitar, because he was one of the very first people to play blues on the electric guitar. And it was great having Sonny on the track. He's a fantastic slide player, someone who has his own very distinct style and plays completely different from the way that I play. I've never heard anyone like him, and I really like what he does."

Track two, the essential Bobby "Blue" Bland classic Further On Up the Road, features Jimmy Vivino, guitarist and music director for the Conan show. The song is delivered with the original's slow-burning swing, but Winter updates it with his inimitable guitar intensity and vocal growl.

"I was around 12 or 13 when I first heard the original, in about 1957," he says, "and I remember sitting there trying to copy everything [Bland's guitar player] Pat Hare was doing." A Memphis singer and guitarist, Hare recorded sessions with Bland as well as with Junior Parker, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.

"Pat's always been one of my favorite players. Another is Clarence Hollimon, who was on most of Bobby Bland's early hits, like I Smell Trouble," Winter adds, referring to a track he cut for his 1984 release, Guitar Slinger.

The list of guest musicians on Roots includes country star Vince Gill, who supplies a burning Telecaster solo on Chuck Berry's Maybellene, and harmonica virtuosos John Popper and Frank Latorre, who perform on Winter's versions of Little Walter's Last Night and the Muddy Waters classic Got My Mojo Workin', respectively.

"I loved Muddy so much," says Winter, who produced four albums for Waters in the late Seventies, three of which were Grammy winners: Hard Again, I'm Ready and Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live. "Working with him was one of the true highlights of my life."

Roots also features vocalist/guitarist Susan Tedeschi, who harmonizes beautifully with Winter on Jimmy Reed's Bright Lights, Big City and, fittingly, his brother Edgar Winter, who blows a funky sax on the album's lone instrumental, Bill Doggett's early R&B smash Honky Tonk.

"This is a song that Edgar and I used to play in clubs all the time, because it was a hit that people knew," Winter says. "Billy Butler was the guitar player on the original. It's always nice to have Edgar with me for a track or two.”

The inclusion of Honky Tonk also serves as a reminder that Winter's background goes beyond the blues. Though he's devoted more than 40 years of his life to the genre, Winter played more popular styles of music such as R&B and rock and roll in his early years, including when he performed with Edgar and when he led his high school group, Johnny and the Jammers.

"We didn't get to play too much blues then, because we were mostly playing for white people and they didn't want to hear blues," he says. "In that band, we were playing mostly R&B and rock and roll. I had learned about the blues strictly for myself, because that's what I wanted to play the most."

To record Roots, Winter relied on his stage staples, including a black Erlewine Lazer, which he played on most of the tracks, and his 1964 Gibson Firebird, which he used for slide.

"And I used my Music Man 4x12 amp, like always," he adds. Fans will recall that at a 2009 concert in Vienna, the Music Man caught fire during a performance of Highway 61. "That thing has been through hell," Winter says, "but it still sounds great."

Winter has endured setbacks of his own in recent years, due to various medical issues, but he has emerged from them very healthy and very happy. On Roots, he shows that adversity has only made him more dedicated than ever to the blues, and that his music provides the strength that keeps him going.

"To me, the blues has more emotion in it than any other music I've ever heard," he says. "You can tell that the people that sing and play the blues mean what they are saying – it's not just something they do to make money or treat like it's just another gig. Playing blues makes me feel really good; it just makes me happy every time I play the blues."

Earlier this year, Edgar Winter announced he was assembling an A-list cohort of electric guitar heroes for Brother Johnny – a mammoth tribute album for his late brother Johnny Winter.

Now, after unveiling a cover of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode as the effort’s lead single, Winter has dropped Mean Town Blues – a rendition of Johnny’s 1968 hit, for which he’s recruited blues guitar icon Joe Bonamassa.

Described by Winter as “one of the most important tracks on the album” and “probably the most difficult to replicate” owing to its ties with Johnny, the track sees JoBo exclusively take on slide duties, with bassist Sean Hurley and drummer Gregg Bissonette completing the lineup.

“When I think about Johnny,” reflected Winter, “his authenticity as a blues man and particularly his style of slide guitar – if there’s one song that best epitomizes and brings all those elements together to represent the many aspects of who Johnny was in the early days, that song would have to be Mean Town Blues. 

“Every time I hear it, I think, ‘Now that’s Real Johnny Winter,’” he continued. “It just captures the essence of everything he was. Although my intention was never to make a 'Johnny-sound-alike' or 'copy' album, I wanted this one song to be as authentic as possible.”

Winter also added he charged Bonamassa with emulating Mean Town Blues’ original slide parts after the bluesman impressed with his ability to harness Johnny’s regular guitar style. In fact, Edgar even described him as “our last and best hope” of successfully covering the track.

“I wanted only guitar, bass, and drums, exactly like Johnny’s original blues trio,” he continued. “But I didn’t know of anyone out there who naturally played slide anything like the way Johnny did. I thought Joe Bonamassa did such a great job with Johnny’s regular guitar style, I wonder if he could do the same thing with the slide?

“I called Joe saying I didn’t know where else to turn, and that he was our last and best hope. Joe said it would be a real challenge, but one he was up for. I think he viewed it as an adventure that would add a new dimension to his playing.”

Winter’s praise continued, “As soon as he started playing, I knew we were home free. Joe rose to the challenge and beyond. I swear I’ve never heard anyone (other than myself) able to get inside Johnny’s playing the way Joe does. He nailed it.”

Bonamassa is just one name from a mountain of guest stars set to star on Brother Johnny. Others who have been drafted in for the job include Doyle Bramhall II, Ringo Starr, Robben Ford, Derek Trucks, David Grissom, Warren Haynes and Steve Lukather.

That’s not all, though: the above will also be joined by Phil X, Taylor Hawkins, Michael McDonald, Keb’ Mo’, John McFee, Bobby Rush, Waddy Wachtel, Doug Rappoport and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

Of the album’s origins, Winter noted, “Many people immediately started trying to convince me to do a Johnny Winter tribute album. But I was totally devastated, and the timing just didn't feel right to me. 

“It wasn’t until after I completed the Rock ‘N’ Blues Fest, a tour we were meant to do together with our respective bands,” he added, “that the idea of a tribute record started to take form.”

For more info on the album, head on over to Edgar Winter's website. 

My favourite guitar players all have one unifying attribute: attitude! Whether that be the high-energy tapping of Van Halen, the ferocious picking and vibrato of Yngwie, or the wild blues-rock phrasing of Pat Travers, all these players do what they do with passion, guts and fire. And Johnny Winter is definitely no exception. 

Johnny displays a wonderfully fluid rock technique alongside a sophisticated blues vocabulary. What makes his playing stand out is his sustain, fiery vibrato and rapid pentatonic phrasing.

Johnny was influenced by many of the usual suspects, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, T-Bone Walker and BB King, but was also inspired by non guitarists. Little Walter was a sensational mouth organ or ‘blues harp’ player and Johnny, captivated by his sound, transferred many of his licks and phrases onto the guitar.

Electric blues was his passion, and it was seeing artists like Muddy Waters and BB King playing live that helped him fall in love with the style. By 1967 at just age 23, he had a single and album out with Sonobeat records. However, December 1968 would be the moment that would change Johnny’s career forever. 

Fellow bluesman Mike Bloomfield invited him to play a show with him at the now legendary Fillmore East in New York City. Columbia records executives were present, and within a few days of hearing Johnny play, they signed him with a whopping $600,000 advance; apparently the largest in the history of the business up to that point.

As well as being a successful solo artist, Johnny also found himself working with his heroes in the producer’s chair, on Muddy Waters’ albums I’m Ready, King Bee and Muddy ‘Mississippi’ Waters – Live.

Winter went on to record many more albums, earning Grammy nominations and releasing material right up until 2014. His ferocious sound still grabs the attention of many of today’s younger players.

Our two studies explore Johnny’s sound within two up-tempo solos, the first with a straight 4/4 feel and the second a fast paced shuffle with plenty of swing. Both solos showcase Johnny’s blues-rock approach but with plenty of traditional blues vocabulary and a ton of swing to boot. 

Get the tone

Amp settings: Gain 7, Bass 5, Middle 4, Treble 6, Reverb 3

Johnny was most commonly seen playing Gibson Firebirds featuring mini-humbuckers, which he favoured over PAFs as they are brighter and sound closer to a single-coil. 

Low output humbuckers or single-coils will work just as well, as Johnny played with plenty of gain. Much of the tone is found in the attitude of the performance, so dig in to this one.

Example 1. Double-stops and bends with vibrato

This study utilises Johnny’s use of double-stops, quick-fire pentatonic phrases and large tone-and-a half-bends. For the bends in particular, make sure that you don’t add the vibrato too early, but hit the note and sustain the pitch. This will make the note sound more solid and give authority to your delivery.

Example 2. Swinging 12-bar with rhythmically displaced notes

There’s a lot of continuous triplet figures in this study that can make it relentless. From bar 9, the phrase over the IV chord is essentially the same thing but rhythmically displaced. Get the phrase into your muscle memory before attempting the whole line. This will make it easier to hear and feel the timing.

Johnny Winter, one of the all-time giants of blues guitar, passed away back in 2014.

Now, his brother, Edgar Winter, has assembled a jaw-dropping all-star cast to pay tribute to his brother's musical legacy in the form of a tribute album, Brother Johnny.

Featuring 17 tracks hand-picked by Edgar and producer Ross Hogarth – including two new Edgar Winter originals – the album is set for an April 15 release via Quarto Valley Records. 

About that all-star cast, though. For Brother Johnny, Edgar Winter recruited a simply astonishing guest list that includes Joe Bonamassa, Doyle Bramhall II, Ringo Starr, Derek Trucks, Robben Ford, Billy Gibbons, David Grissom, Joe Walsh, Phil X, Taylor Hawkins, Warren Haynes, Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, Keb' Mo', John McFee, Doug Rappoport, Bobby Rush, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Waddy Wachtel.

The album's first single – a cover of Chuck Berry's rock 'n' roll standard, Johnny B. Goode, featuring some red-hot electric guitar work from David Grissom and vocals from Winter and Joe Walsh – can be heard below. 

Edgar chose Johnny B. Goode due to its significance in his and Johnny's story. As children (Johnny was 14 or 15, according to Edgar) the Winters won their first talent contest in Beaumont, Texas with a cover of the Berry classic. The prize? A chance to make their own record, an opportunity that led to the recording of the duo's first single, the Johnny-penned School Day Blues.

Edgar was first approached about making a tribute album for his brother almost immediately following Johnny's passing on July 16, 2014 in Zurich, Switzerland.

“Many people immediately started trying to convince me to do a Johnny Winter tribute album," he said. "But I was totally devastated, and the timing just didn't feel right to me. It wasn’t until after I completed the Rock ‘N’ Blues Fest, a tour we were meant to do together with our respective bands, that the idea of a tribute record started to take form.”

“I had naturally expected the whole thing to be cancelled," Edgar continued. "But much to my surprise, the promoters begged me to go on with the tour as planned, asking me to headline. The first night, after playing Frankenstein, I closed the show with Johnny B. Goode, Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo, and Jumpin' Jack Flash, dedicating the end of the set to Johnny.

“I had anticipated the tour to be very emotional, perhaps sad, and possibly difficult, but playing those songs turned out to be a great source of strength and comfort to me. Everyone on the tour was so kind and supportive, getting up to jam, and it became a kind of tradition. 

"There was such an overwhelming outpouring of love and respect for Johnny, I began to realize it was not just business people sensing an opportunity here; it was Johnny's true, loyal, and devoted fans and our fellow musicians, many of whom are on this record, who wanted to see this happen as well.

“After the tour, and over the following years as talk of a tribute album continued, my wife Monique, whose intuition I trust more than my own, said, 'I think you have to make this album, both for Johnny, for yourself, and for the world. You owe that acknowledgement to your older brother. If it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t be where you are today. There’s no need to worry about it. If it’s meant to happen, it will.'" 

For more info on the album, head on over to Edgar Winter's website.

Though less of a household name than Clapton, Page and Hendrix, Johnny Winter is one of the great blues guitar heroes of all time (not to mention the very first artist to ever appear on the cover of Guitar World).

As a tribute to Winter, Gibson has created a meticulous Custom Shop, Murphy Lab-aged replica of the guitarist's beloved Polaris White 1964 Firebird V, the details of which the company revealed today.   

Every last idiosyncrasy of Winter's axe – the faded Firebird logo on the pickguard, the missing reflector on the rhythm tone knob, plugged holes and missing Maestro Vibrola – has been faithfully replicated on the new model, which boasts a fairly well-aged Polaris White finish.

Elsewhere, the guitar is built with a nine-ply mahogany/walnut neck-through-body with mahogany wings, and a bound Indian rosewood fretboard with trapezoid inlays.

A pair of Firebird Alnico 5 pickups – controlled by a pair of volume and tone knobs (one of which, as mentioned before, is missing its reflector) with CTS potentiometers, and a three-way pickup switch – give the guitar its sonic attack.

Classic 'banjo' tuners, meanwhile, round out the guitar's straight-from-a-time-machine looks.

Being a Gibson Custom Shop/Murphy Lab guitar, the Johnny Winter 1964 Firebird V certainly doesn't come cheap, ringing up at $8,999. 

In addition to a Custom Shop hardshell case, a Jim Dunlop Johnny Winter slide and four Jim Dunlop Johnny Winter/Gibson Custom guitar picks though, each guitar comes with an 8 x 10 photo print of Winter autographed by legendary rock photographer Mick Rock, who passed away last month at the age of 72.

For more info on the guitar, stop by Gibson.

Not content with the status quo, industrious young guitar players have endeavored over the decades to make things more difficult for themselves.

Some have tried playing the guitar behind their back, over their head, with their teeth, with their friends' teeth, etc. And then there was the inventive guitarist who, many decades ago, decided to slip a bottle over his finger and slide it along his guitar's strings to produce a magical sound (He probably emptied the bottle himself, if you know what I mean).

While playing the guitar with your teeth is, was and always shall be a novelty, slide guitar - and slide guitarists - is and are here to stay. They actually started digging in their heels long before Robert Johnson made his haunting Delta blues recordings in Texas in the 1930s. 

Since Johnson's time, players - including guys like George Thorogood, Derek Trucks, Ry Cooder, Jerry Douglas and Roy Rogers - have built entire careers around slide guitar and its many stylistic varieties.

Below, we present 10 tracks that represent essential listening in the world of slide guitar. Please note that we're sticking with regular ol' six-string guitar - no lap steel, sacred steel, pedal steel, etc. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) These songs are presented in no particular order. I repeat: These songs are presented in no particular order.

• For more slide goodness, check out the latest issue of Guitar World, where Slide Rules!

1. The Allman Brothers Band - Statesboro Blues

Guitarist: Duane Allman

A generation of blues-influenced rockers toyed with slide guitar for several years, slowly bringing it into mainstream music (Check out Jeff Beck's performance on Evil Hearted You by the Yardbirds), but no one dragged it into the modern era quite like Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. 

He used the slide to imitate the sound of a blues harp - not to mention mesmerize countless concert goers who were knocked out by his dexterity and intensity. Perhaps his quintessential slide performance is the Allmans' At Fillmore East version of Blind Willie McTell's Statesboro Blues. 

As Rolling Stone put it, it features the sort of playing that gives people chills. Of course, be sure to seek out other live versions of the song, including the one on the band's recently released SUNY at Stonybrook album.

2. Sonny Landreth - Überesso

Guitarist: Sonny Landreth

Respected Louisiana-based slide player Sonny Landreth started appearing on music fans' radar in earnest after the release of the 2007 Crossroads Blues Festival DVD. It features a few tracks by Landreth (jamming with Eric Clapton and such), including the uber-exciting instrumental, Überesso.

Landreth's unique slide technique lets him fret notes and play chords and chord fragments behind the slide. He plays with the slide on his little finger, so his other fingers have more room to fret. Check out his performance of Überesso from the 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival below. Yes, he's awesome.

3. Steve Miller Band - The Joker

Guitarist: Steve Miller

Although not primarily known as a slide player, Steve Miller put the slide to fun and creative use on his 1973 hit single, The Joker, playing a hummable, tasteful slide solo for the masses (and imitating a whistle a few times in the process). 

Although it's no Überesso (See above), it shows that slide guitar has been invited to the chart-success party, especially in the early '70s, much like our next selection ...

4. George Harrison - Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)

Guitarist: George Harrison

You'll read it in other roundups of great slide guitar songs - comments like, "Although he wasn't a virtuoso like these other players..." Yeah, whatever. OK, he wasn't Jeff Beck, Steve Howe or Ritchie Blackmore, but George Harrison, who, as a member of the Beatles, influenced millions of humans to play guitar, suddenly started playing slide guitar in 1969, inventing an entirely new guitar persona for himself. 

What he came up with was a distinctive, non-blues-based style that incorporated hints of Indian music, some pointers he picked up while learning sitar and other Beatles-esque odds and ends. 

While My Sweet Lord and Badfinger's Day After Day (featuring Harrison on slide) are better known, 1973's Give Me Love perfectly displays his new-found style. For some quality later work, check out Cheer Down from 1989 and "Any Road" from 2002.

5. Foghat - Slow Ride

Guitarist: Rod Price

Staying in the '70s for a moment, let us consider Foghat's Slow Ride, another slide-based song that topped the charts. Perhaps the polar slide opposite of George Harrison, the heavily blues-influenced Rod "The Bottle" Price (Yes, they called him "The Bottle") let it all hang out in his solo near the fadeout of Foghat's signature track. Be sure to also check out Foghat's Drivin' Wheel and Stone Blue. Price, a product of the UK, died in 2005.

6. Led Zeppelin - In My Time of Dying

Guitarist: Jimmy Page

Although the "big three" guitarists who emerged from the '60s rock scene in England - Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page - flirted with slide guitar at different points in their careers, none took it as far, or used it with as much success, as Page. 

For proof, just listen to In My Time of Dying from Physical Graffiti. The recording (the most popular version of a song Josh White recorded in the mid-'40s), features Page sliding away in open A (E-A-E-A-C#-E). 

Although Page also played slide on When the Levee Breaks, Traveling Riverside Blues and What Is and What Should Never Be, his distinctive slide style simply defines the powerful and dark In My Time of Dying.

7. Elmore James - Dust My Broom

Guitarist: Elmore James

We've mentioned a few "blues-influenced" players, which is basically another way of saying "players who were influenced by Elmore James." James - who was actually dubbed the "King of the Slide Guitar" - is best known for his 1951 version of Dust My Broom (I Believe My Time Ain't Long). 

The song's opening riff is one of the best-known and most influential slide guitar parts ever. Yes, it sounds a lot like what Robert Johnson played on his I Believe I'll Dust My Broom several years earlier, but James played his riff on an electric guitar, pretty much claiming it for himself in the process and sending chills down the spine of a new generation.

8. Johnny Winter - Highway 61 Revisited

Guitarist: Johnny Winter

The lanky Texan (and former Brit) simply burns it up in his legendary cover of Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited from Second Winter, his second album. Be sure to investigate the acoustic Dallas from Winter's self-titled 1969 album. If you can convincingly play these two songs, it's time to hang up your T-square and/or apron and look for session work!

9. Derek Trucks Band - Sahib Teri Bandi/Maki Madni

Guitarist: Derek Trucks

The list takes an exotic turn with this middle-eastern-flavored track by Derek Trucks. With his deep Allman Brothers Band lineage, we know Trucks (and Warren Haynes, of course) can tackle roots rock, extended blues jams and more, but this 10-minute instrumental track from his 2006 album, Songlines, steps way out of those boundaries and truly shows what Trucks is capable of. 

He makes the guitar sound like an exotic instrument from a distant land and time. Check out this live performance from 2008, below.

10. Rory Gallagher - Want Ad Blues/Wanted Blues

Guitarist: Rory Gallagher

For our official acoustic guitar entry, let's not forget the late, great Rory Gallagher, shown here playing a version of John Lee Hooker's Wanted Blues. It's hard to believe this Irish master of the Stratocaster was also a ridiculously accomplished traditional blues slide player.

We all know a great lick when we hear one—Jimmy Page’s solo breaks in “Whole Lotta Love” and Mark Knopfler’s blistering triads in “Sultans of Swing,” for example.

Moments like these grab your attention and aurally brand your ears forever. Or, sometimes it acts more subliminally: You suddenly find yourself playing a certain lick over and over again, wondering, Where have I heard this before?

Through the years, these licks have evolved into a vocabulary for the guitar. And like great writers who are always able to find the right word to make a point, great guitarists always have that essential lick at their disposal to express, in the moment, what they’re feeling.

And whereas the best writers are able to string those words together to form remarkable prose, the best guitarists link their licks to form living, breathing, musical statements.

Regardless of what style music you play, it will do your ears and your chops good to go through each of these licks. Learn them, master them, and keep them on file for the next time you’re looking for just the right way to say what’s in your soul.

Today we bring you a handy lick in the style of the late Johnny Winter.

Origin: A blues guitarist who never seemed to get his due, Johnny Winter could absolutely shred—often with a sense of reckless abandon. In this moderately paced line, Winter borrows a harp lick from James Cotton.

Theory: The b7th (G) segues via a hip b5th and a passing #9th (B# [C]) to the root (A) on the downbeat of measure 2.

Playing Tip: The 1-1/2–step bend at the start of the lick requires a little extra oomph, but try to keep relaxed.

We all know a great lick when we hear one—Jimmy Page’s solo breaks in “Whole Lotta Love” and Mark Knopfler’s blistering triads in “Sultans of Swing,” for example.

Moments like these grab your attention and aurally brand your ears forever.

Or, sometimes it acts more subliminally: You suddenly find yourself playing a certain lick over and over again, wondering, Where have I heard this before?

Through the years, these licks have evolved into a vocabulary for the guitar. And like great writers who are always able to find the right word to make a point, great guitarists always have that essential lick at their disposal to express, in the moment, what they’re feeling.

And whereas the best writers are able to string those words together to form remarkable prose, the best guitarists link their licks to form living, breathing, musical statements.

Regardless of what style music you play, it will do your ears and your chops good to go through each of these licks. Learn them, master them, and keep them on file for the next time you’re looking for just the right way to say what’s in your soul.

Today we bring you five handy blues licks in the styles of T-Bone Walker, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elmore James and Jimi Hendrix. Each lick contains playing tips and a touch of theory—and we also provide the tab for each example.

We already have a few more of these in the can, so let us know if you want to see more!

1. T-Bone Walker

• Origin: This Chicago blues lick takes its roots from Texas-born T-Bone Walker.

• Theory: Culled from the A blues scale (A–C–D–Eb–E–G), this lick illustrates a chromatic approach to the 5th (E) that starts measure 2 and a jazzy, double-chromatic approach (playing the note chromatically on either side of a target note) to the major 3rd (C#).

• Playing Tip: The lick is in 12/8 but because it’s a steady stream of eighth notes, think of the groupings as eighth-note triplets in 4/4 time for a smooth, fluid line.

2. Stevie Ray Vaughan

• Origin: Elmore James may have birthed “The Sky Is Crying,” but Stevie Ray Vaughan gave it eternal life on his posthumously released 1991 album by the same title. On this Texas blues lick, SRV pays tribute to James.

• Theory: SRV plies this C minor pentatonic (C–Eb–F–G–Bb) lick in the blues box named for his hero, Albert King.

• Playing Tip: Bend the first-string F note up to G with your fret-hand thumb wrapped over low E string for extra leverage—especially if you prefer heavy-gauge strings like SRV did.

3. Johnny Winter

• Origin: A blues guitarist who never seemed to get his due, Johnny Winter could absolutely shred—often with a sense of reckless abandon. In this moderately paced line, Winter borrows a harp lick from James Cotton.

• Theory: The b7th (G) segues via a hip b5th and a passing #9th (B# [C]) to the root (A) on the downbeat of measure 2.

• Playing Tip: The 1-1/2–step bend at the start of the lick requires a little extra oomph, but try to keep relaxed.

4. Elmore James

• Origin: Most of Elmore James’ licks originated from Delta players like Robert Johnson or Son House. This electric Delta blues lick is in the style of “Take Me Where You Go” from James’ Dust My Broom album.

• Theory: Notice the grace-note move on the 3rd (C to C#). This is a pianistic way of playing a blues note, as opposed to bending the C up to C#.

• Playing Tip: Play this lick with a pick, and be sure to relax your picking wrist.

5. Jimi Hendrix

• Origin: Originally conceived by Robert Johnson and played with a slide in “Come on in My Kitchen,” Jimi Hendrix borrowed the lick and made it famous as a lead-in at the start of “Red House.”

• Theory: Pretty much taken from the B blues scale (B–D¬–E–F–F#–A), Hendrix adds a bluesy major 7th (A#[Bb]) for extra chromaticism in measure 2.

• Playing Tip: Apply heavy vibrato to the bends in measure 1, and to make the line sing, keep solid time throughout.

First opening its doors in August 1926, The Capitol Theatre has been a rock and roll haven for decades, drawing fans and bands from all over to its hallowed halls in Port Chester, N.Y. Below, we celebrate this iconic venue with ten legendary concerts, spanning from the Seventies all the way up to today. Here's to many more years of rocking at The Cap!

To find out more, visit thecapitoltheatre.com.

Pink Floyd – April 22, 1970

Years before breaking through in the U.S. with Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd were a struggling young act. Their April 22, 1970 Capitol Theatre performance has since become a treasured bootleg for dedicated followers of the band. Only a few weeks after the show, their gear was stolen during a stop in New Orleans, abruptly ending their U.S. tour. Listen to audio from this standout performance below. 

Frank Zappa – November 10, 1974

Zappa blessed The Capitol Theatre with performances throughout the Seventies, and this memorable show took place just a few months after the release of Apostrophe, his highest charting album in the U.S. Check out the setlist here.

Derek and the Dominos – December 4 & 5, 1970

Derek and the Dominos finished their U.S. tour at The Capitol Theatre in December of 1970 with a mighty set that included "Tell the Truth," "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," "Blues Power" and more. While the marquee only displayed Clapton's name, it was indeed a Derek and the Dominoes performance. 

Johnny Winter – April 10, 1970

Beloved blues guitarist and singer Johnny Winter performed at The Capitol Theatre six times between 1970 and 1971, and his acclaimed live album, Live Johnny Winter And, was partially recorded the venue. Since his passing in 2014, it remains a cherished piece of Winter's discography. Check out the full album below. 

Grateful Dead – February 19, 1971

Having played The Capitol Theatre 18 times between 1970 and 1971, the Grateful Dead are woven into the venue's history. This particular show spawned in the fan-favorite bootleg, Three From The Vault, which was released officially in 2007. The concert also marked Mickey Hart's temporary departure from the band until his formal return almost five years later. For serious followers of the Dead, the setlist included the first-ever live performances of "Deal" and "Bird Song."

Hot Tuna – June 18, 2014

Capitol Theatre veterans with 13 shows under their belt between 1970-2017, Hot Tuna's Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady returned with a vengeance for their June 2014 concert, sharing the bill with legendary songwriter Leon Russell. The band delivered classic tracks, plus selections from Steady As She Goes, their recent LP recorded at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock, N.Y.

Jeff Beck & Buddy Guy – July 19, 2016

Showgoers were treated to two massive guitar legends during the course of one night; six-string innovator Jeff Beck and blues godfather Buddy Guy. A highlight included Guy leaving the stage during "Slippin' Out, Slippin In" to completely surprise the audience by joining them in the crowd.

Dixie Dregs – March 12, 2018

Performing with their classic lineup for the first time in 40 years, the Dixie Dregs took to The Capitol Theatre stage in March of 2018 for this electric performance. “All the signs were ‘this is not the way to do it,’” guitarist Steve Morse later commented. “However, when we played, people smiled, got energetic and came back [with more] people—so on that front, everything [looked] good.”

Trey Anastasio Band – April 14 & 15, 2017

The Trey Anastasio Band blew away The Capitol Theatre crowd with two sold-out shows on April 14 and 15, 2017. Anastasio, thrilled to regroup the band, was visibly giddy throughout Friday's opening show. The band even took requests from the audience throughout the show, making it an unforgettably fun night. Below, check out audio from the second night's performance. 

Tedeschi Trucks Band – February 20 & 21, 2018

As usual, Tedeschi Trucks Band delivered an impressive set just shy of twenty songs, putting their spin on originals and covers alike. Led by Susan Tedeschi's powerhouse vocals and Derek Trucks' brilliant guitar playing, Tedeschi Trucks Band had the audience on their feet for two nights of phenomenal music at The Cap.

From the Archive: This column was originally published in Issue 53 of Guitar World Acoustic. The audio examples in this lesson were performed by Guitar World's Jimmy Brown.

I’d like to acquaint you with some great slide licks I like to play in open A tuning.

These riffs and runs are super-versatile. You can use them to hop up your own blues pieces, employ them as solos in a classic blues song or even just entertain yourself with them on a back porch in the middle of a scorching heat wave.

Before taking on the licks, let’s take the time to briefly discuss the proper slide-playing technique. The slide should sit with even pressure across the strings, parallel to and directly above the indicated frets.

If you wear the slide on your pinky (like I do), lightly rest your index, middle and ring fingers across the strings behind the slide (toward the headstock). Muting the strings behind the slide with your fingers like this will help eliminate unwanted string noises and overtones.

Now let's look at open A (low to high: E A E A C# E). In this tuning, the low E, high E and A strings remain at standard pitch, while the D, G and B strings are each raised one whole step, to E, A, and C#, respectively (FIGURE 1).

FIGURE 2 shows the single notes that are most often used in open A tuning licks and solos played within the first five frets. These notes are all derived from the A minor pentatonic scale (A C D E G), and in this example the scale is spread across two octaves.

You’ll notice some of the notes are indicated twice, on two adjacent strings. This is because they are commonly played in more than one position. Practice playing these notes, first without the slide, then with it, ascending and descending until you’ve memorize their locations on the fretboard.

Now let’s play some licks using these notes in this position. FIGURES 3a-e illustrate a handful of open A slide licks that I use all the time; many of them are staples of the “country” blues style.

You can hear me play licks along these lines on my recordings of songs like “Come On in My Kitchen” (Best of Johnny Winter), “Feel Like Going Home” (Muddy Waters: Blues Sky) and “Sittin’ in the Jailhouse” (Johnny Winter: A Rock N’ Roll Collection).

On July 16, 2014, the world lost one of the greatest and most influential guitarists ever: Johnny Winter.

Born in Beaumont, Texas, on February 23, 1944, Winter, who was born with albinism, stood out not only for this unusual fact but, more importantly, because of his virtuoso, high-octane, one-of-a-kind guitar playing and his wild, banshee-like vocal prowess.

Johnny’s screams of “Rock and Roll!!!” are now regarded as essential to the fabric of blues and rock as Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” double-stops and Albert King’s stinging, emotive string bending.

In this edition of In Deep, we’ll examine just one of the many facets of Johnny’s blues guitar mastery: fingerpicked country-style blues applied to the electric guitar.

Though Johnny’s ascent to stardom was fueled by the blues-rock hit songs “Rock ‘n’ Roll, Hoochie Koo” and “Still Alive and Well,” his true love was the blues, and following his 1977 release, Nothing But the Blues, he devoted himself to that genre for the rest of his career. One of his crowning achievements was his late-Seventies association with one of his personal heroes, Muddy Waters, for whom Johnny produced four Grammy-winning LPs, Hard Again, I’m Ready, Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live and King Bee.

The latter album features a fantastic slow blues, “Forever Lonely,” and on this track, Johnny demonstrates his mastery of fingerpicked Delta-style blues. The examples in this column are intended to demonstrate this style.

Johnny always played with a thumb pick, which is very uncommon for the great majority of blues and blues-rock players. The best way to emulate his sound when not using a thumb pick is to employ hybrid picking, using a both a flatpick and the bare fingers to pick the strings, either together or in opposition. The lower strings are generally attacked with the flatpick, and the higher strings are picked with the middle and ring fingers, with the pinkie occasionally used too.

The examples here are played in the key of A, and FIGURE 1 represents a typical opening four-bar phrase that starts on the five chord, E7, then moves to the four chord, D7 before resolving to the one chord, or tonic, A7. The figure begins with ascending double-stops, sixths apart, that are sounded on the G and high E strings.

Flatpick the notes on the G string and fingerpick the high E-string notes with either the middle or ring finger, allowing all of the notes to ring together as long as possible. In bar 2, a Delta-style voicing of D7/F# is approached by “walking up” chromatically from the open low E note to F# at the second fret. In bar 3, sixths double-stops descend the D and B strings while a high A pedal tone is sustained on top (a classic Robert Johnson–style turnaround move). FIGURE 2 is a 12-bar passage inspired by the verse section from the aforementioned “Forever Lonely.”

Notice the unusual chord voicings for A9 and A6 in bars 2 and 3. In bar 4, the A7 shape on the top three strings moves down one fret, to Adim7, before returning to A7 (another classic blues move). The reminder of this rhythm part is built around shapes and phrases similar to those introduced in FIGURE 1. Next month, we will continue our tribute to Johnny’s incredible, multifaceted playing style.

A new Jimi Hendrix studio album—titled Both Sides of the Sky—will be released March 9, Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings announced today.

The album—which features 10 previously unreleased tracks—completes a trilogy of posthumous studio releases that began with 2010's Valleys of Neptune and continued with 2013's People, Hell and Angels.

The tracks on Both Sides of the Sky were recorded between January 1968 and February 1970, with both the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Band of Gypsys. The album also features guest appearances from Stephen Stills—in a remarkable, pres-CSNY version of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" and an original called "$20 Fine"—and Johnny Winter, on a version of Guitar Slim's "Things I Used To Do."

A previously unreleased April 1969 recording of Hendrix concert staple “Hear My Train A Comin’” features drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding from the original Jimi Hendrix Experience, while "Cherokee Mist" features Hendrix on sitar.

Significantly, the album's opening cut—a version of the Muddy Waters classic "Mannish Boy" —was recorded on April 22, 1969, with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums. This trio, of course, came to be known as the Band of Gypsys, and "Mannish Boy" is a relic from the trio's first ever recording session.

Both Sides of the Sky was produced by Janie Hendrix, John McDermott and Eddie Kramer, who served as the recording engineer on every album Hendrix made during the his lifetime.

You can check out the tracklist of Both Sides of the Sky below, and preorder the album here.

Both Sides of the Sky tracklist:

1) Mannish Boy*

2) Lover Man*

3) Hear My Train A Comin’*

4) Stepping Stone*

5) $20 Fine*+

6) Power Of Soul^

7) Jungle*

8) Things I Used to Do#

9) Georgia Blues++

10) Sweet Angel*

11) Woodstock*+

12) Send My Love To Linda*

13) Cherokee Mist*

*Previously unreleased

^ Previously unavailable extended version

+Featuring Stephen Stills

#Featuring Johnny Winter

++Featuring Lonnie Youngblood

Guernsey's auction house will offer up a remarkable group of historic guitars on December 2 at the Boehmian National Hall in New York City.

The group includes two guitars owned by Jimi Hendrix—a sticker-covered Guild that he played at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival and a 1963 Stratocaster that was one of the first Strats Hendrix owned—a gold 1953 Gibson Les Paul once owned by Paul McCartney, a custom gold "Love Symbol" guitar used by Prince and a 1989 Gibson L4 Custom that David Bowie played while on tour and in recording sessions from the late Eighties to the early Nineties. And that's just the start.

The group also includes an acoustic Takamine EF-360 S once owned by Tom Petty—this particular guitar even includes a letter from Petty himself certifying that the guitar has "a lovely sound"—a Fender Stratocaster signed by Petty and all of the Heartbreakers, a 12-string Gibson Firebird once owned by Johnny Winter and a 1963 Fender Precision bass that Bruce Springsteen played on his first album.

We've included a healthy sampling of the gear on offer in the gallery below, but you can examine the lot in its entirety at guernseys.com.

Update: The auction now also includes a 1962 gold sparkling Fender Stratocaster once owned by Bob Dylan. The guitar—only the third known Dylan guitar to ever go to auction—is expected to fetch over $1 million, according to Guernsey's. You can find an image of it in the gallery below.

Several Johnny Winter guitars will be among the more than 400 rarities from the guitarist’s collection that head to Guernsey’s auction block September 30 and October 1.

• Gibson Firebirds, Erlewine Lazers and even Winter’s very first and last guitars—a ukulele and a Dean B. Zelinsky prototype, respectively—will be included in the auction. Other personal items include notebooks of handwritten music, a pair of purple velvet bell-bottom pants with a matching button-down jacket, a rattlesnake hat, a pink dragon kimono and, oddly, beard clippings.
• The auction is a significant trove of Winter’s personal effects, offering a rare opportunity for fans to see and purchase relics from the career of the celebrated electric blues guitarist. But it is, of course, the guitars that will, in all likelihood, be the stars of the event.

Winter came to the forefront of the electric blues scene in 1969 with the release of his major-label debut, Johnny Winter. He performed the album’s stunning guitar work using a 1966 Fender Mustang, but the following year he adopted what would become his main guitar for many years: a 1963 Gibson Firebird V that he purchased in St. Louis.

“I was initially attracted to the Firebird because I liked the way it looked,” Winter told Guitar Aficionado in early 2014. “When I played it, I discovered I liked the way it sounded too. The Firebird is the best of all worlds. It feels like a Gibson, but it sounds closer to a Fender than most other Gibsons. I was never a big fan of humbucking pickups, but the mini humbuckers on the Firebird have more bite and treble.”

In the mid Eighties, Winter began playing Lazer guitars designed by Mark Erlewine after the luthier presented him with a black model, fitted with a single humbucking pickup, during a 1984 show in Texas. Winter would eventually own six of the unusual-looking small-bodied, headless guitars.

“When I first bought one, I thought I was just going to use it as a travel guitar,” Winter told Guitar Aficionado. “But the first day I plugged it in, it sounded so good that I wanted to use it for a gig that night.”

Winter’s career was marked by ups and downs attributed to drug use and, later, health issues and methadone addiction. He was enjoying a career resurgence when he died in a hotel room near Zurich, Switzerland on July 16, 2014, two days after completing a European tour.

Below we’ve featured several of Winter’s personal guitars included the auction, along with their catalog notes.

The auction opens 6 p.m. September 30 at Gibson Brands New York Showroom, 421 W. 54th St., New York City. It continues noon til complettion October 1. Public previews take place 2 to 6 p.m. September 28, noon to 7 pm. September 29, noon to 6 p.m. September 30 and 10 a.m. to noon October 1.

For more information about the Johnny Winter auction, visit Guernseys.com.

Black Lazer Guitar
One of Johnny Winter’s famous Lazer guitars. Johnny can be seen playing this black model in a recorded performance from the 1984 Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, documented in the video below. Some oxidation on metal. Bears LAZER logo on body. Slight paint chipping on left side of back and right edge of back. Total length 31 inches.

Circa 1965 Gibson Firebird V in Inverness Green
Johnny Winter’s name is virtually synonymous with Gibson Firebirds. His rare “Inverness Green” Firebird, with custom pearl inlay, is simply breathtaking. Winter played it live for many years at some of his largest shows. This guitar is prominently featured in Winter’s worldwide Sony film release, Down n’ Dirty, The Johnny Winter Story, out March 5, 2016.

Serial No. 255115. Vibrato tailpiece (which was standard with Firebird V) has been removed by Johnny, as he preferred the sound of the guitar without them. Features iridescent inlay of an eagle and cloud with an emerging lightning bolt on front of body. Feature iridescent notches along fretboard. Faded “Firebird” logo on front of body. Ombre [blending] effect along backside from top of headstock to bottom of strap button, fades from turquoise to a bright green. Back of headstock has a 1-inch crack and entirety of back shows some slight paint chipping.

Terraplane “Johnny” Guitar
This truly one-of-a-kind guitar was made by luthier Mark Simon (founder of Terraplane Resonator Guitars) for Johnny Winter; presented to Johnny at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City in 2008. Steel guitar, Johnny cutout with red velvet inlay on body of guitar. Terraplane Resonator guitars. Pearloid headstock overlay.

Johnny Winter’s First Guitar
A Harmony ukulele believed to be Johnny Winter’s first guitar, given to him by his great-grandfather, whom he affectionately called Ole Pa, and for whom he named his music corporation. In a photo being presented in this auction, Johnny is pictured holding this instrument as a child with his brother Edgar. He appears to have scratched “Johnny Winter” on the bottom of the body, though it is now faded and barely legible. The ukulele features two finishes of wood and a tassel looped around the neck of the guitar. Total length 30 inches.

Johnny Winter Prototype Guitar
Beaumont Special. By Dean B. Zelinsky. No. 1 Prototype. According to bandmate Paul Nelson, this beautiful, heavily engraved instrument is the last guitar Johnny played before he died, and he can be seen playing it in a video recording of his 70th Birthday Bash concert at B.B. King Club in NYC, documented on in the video below, which shows Winter performing with Popa Chubby on February 23, 2014.

1963 Gibson Firebird V
Johnny Winter’s 1963 Sunburst Firebird is one of the most recognizable guitars in the blues and rock and roll. It was played by Johnny on the Muddy Waters Grammy award-winning albums, which he also produced: Hard Again (1977), Ready (1978), and Mississippi Waters Live, (1979). It was used for most of Johnny Winter’s own recordings and many of his slide-guitar tunes, right up until his death. Winter played it on the David Letterman show in 2012.

Sunburst finish. Shows many signs of wear and use, including: slightly faded Firebird logo on pick guard, metal shows signs of oxidization, missing tailpiece and paint chipping along both sides of body. 3/4-inch crack at the bottom of front of body.

1964 Gibson Firebird V
There are some instruments that become as iconic as the artists that play them, and such is the case for Johnny Winter’s Polaris White Firebird, considered to be the “Holy Grail” of all rock guitars. Features iridescent (mother of pearl) notches along fretboard. This guitar is pictured on the cover of Winter’s historic Captured Live! album and countless other photographs. This is truly a wonderful instrument, a one-of-a-kind piece of rock and roll history. Tailpiece was removed deliberately by Johnny Winter per his preference.

Serial No. 242133. Tailpiece removed by Johnny, as he preferred the sound of the guitar without it. Many signs of frequent use, including: Faded, worn “Firebird” logo on pick guard. Gibson logo on headstock has worn off. Some signs discoloration, and chipping paint. Winter can be seen playing this Firebird in a video recording of a 1987 performance in Sweden, shown below, as well as countless other performances.

White Erlewine Lazer
Johnny once described his main ax, the Lazer, as follows: “It’s really the closest thing I’ve found to sounding like a Strat and feeling like a Gibson. I like the sound of a Strat, but just can’t play one. It just doesn’t feel right to me. If I pull the strings, I don’t get as much out of it as I put into it. I can put the same effort into a Gibson and get back twice as much. With the Lazer I get both.”

Weighing in under six pounds and only 31 inches long, the Lazer features a full-sized, 25.5-inch scale, 24-fret neck, a humbucker and a single-coil pickup, master volume and master tone controls and three-position pickup selector switch. The secret to the Lazer’s compact size is an ingenious string-clamp at the end of the neck and the multi-purpose Wineomatic bridge and tuning system, both adorned with heavy-duty, industrial-strength chrome plating. Unlike other headless beasts that require double ball-end strings, the clamp lets you use ordinary guitar strings. The Wineomatic bridge features six large knurled knobs fanned out at the rear of the guitar that make it easy to tune the Lazer precisely.

Dean Zelinsky Guitars’ president, Dean Zelinsky, has announced the release of the Johnny Winter Signature Guitar.

This is the same guitar made by Zelinsky that Winter had been playing and touring with in his most recent years, until his death in July 2014.

Guitars will he sold exclusively through the company’s website. The First 25 Signature Guitars will be hand signed and numbered by Zelinsky and come with a certificate of authenticity signed by Zelinsky and Winter’s wife, Susan Winter, for the Johnny Winter Estate.“I am excited to be building Johnny’s signature guitars,” Zelinsky said. “Johnny had been my guitar-playing idol since I was a kid and was clearly one of the greatest players of all time.

• “While I had met Johnny briefly many years ago, I first started building guitars for him after a chance meeting in a club parking lot in 2011. I had been designing thin guitars for a few years, and knew this ultra-thin single cut was going to be perfect for Johnny. I put everything I knew he would like into this guitar, and then engraved the hell out of it, including Johnny’s name prominently embossed. He told me it was the most beautiful guitar he had ever seen and started playing the guitar almost exclusively. Johnny and I later spoke about the signature line and entered into a formal agreement shortly before his passing.”
• This exclusive collectors guitar features a highly engraved flame maple top specially designed for Johnny with his name prominently embossed. Other features include an ultra-thin mahogany body, a 25 ½” scale 24-fret maple neck, brushed satin nickel hardware, locking tuners and Dean Zelinsky Custom Humbuckers designed hot and bright achieving that Johnny Winter signature tone. Guitars will be $2,899 and come complete with Tweed Tolex Hard Case.

"I am extremely pleased that Johnny's dream of having this signature guitar come out has finally become a reality," said Paul Nelson, Winter’s Grammy winning guitarist/producer. "Johnny switched to this model three years before he left us and just loved its playability, tone and style. It was truly his main guitar."

For more information, visit deanzelinsky.com.

Slide guitar is one of the most nuanced and expressive techniques available to guitarists for the performance of melodic lines and solos.

Using a slide affords one the ability to blur the lines between half steps and whole steps upon which western music is built. Because the frets of the guitar become irrelevant—the slide travels freely along the length of the string to create the pitches—guitarists can discover a much greater range of intervallic subtlety available at their fingertips. In this month’s column, I’d like to focus on the basic elements of slide guitar playing in open E tuning.

Open E tuning is achieved by raising the pitches of your A, D and G strings while leaving the low E, B and high E strings tuned normally. The A string is tuned up a whole step to B; the D string is tuned up a whole step to E; and the G string goes up a half step to G#.

The resultant tuning is, low to high, E B E G# B E, which is the same set of ascending pitches you get when playing a first-position E “cowboy” chord in standard tuning.

In open E tuning, major chords may be sounded by strumming across all of the strings at any given fret: when all of the open strings are strummed, an E major chord sounds. If you were to barre your index finger across all of the strings at the third fret, a G major chord sounds; barring at the fifth fret yields an A major chord, and barring at the 10th fret yields a D major chord. In this tuning, the root note of the chord is located on the sixth, fourth and first strings (they are all tuned to the same note name but are octaves apart in pitch). When using open E tuning, most slide guitarists rely on two positions for soloing: “open” position (utilizing open strings and covering the expanse of the first few frets) and 10th–12th position.

Johnny Winter once told me that, when tuned to open E, one can play solo lines by playing each open string along with the notes located at the third and fifth frets. FIGURE 1 illustrates this approach, which yields the notes of E minor pentatonic (E G A B D) along with the major third, G#, and the sixth, C#. If we omit the use of the third string, only notes from E minor pentatonic are sounded; this approach is illustrated in FIGURE 2. In a few spots, an effective device is to lay the slide across two strings at the same fret, such as sounding the G and B strings at the third fret.

FIGURE 3 offers an example of how to use this technique. Another by-product of the tuning is that, in a variety of positions, the same notes are sounded with both open strings and fretted notes. FIGURE 4 demonstrates licks that emphasize this occurrence. FIGURES 5 and 6 illustrate the patterns used for soloing higher on the fretboard, and FIGURE 7 offers a full 12-bar slide solo that moves freely between these positions.

In Deep June 2016 FIGURE 1

In Deep June 2016 FIGURE 2

In Deep June 2016 FIGURE 3

In Deep June 2016 FIGURE 4

In Deep June 2016 FIGURE 5

In Deep June 2016 FIGURE 6

In Deep June 2016 FIGURE 7

From the March 2014 Guitar World: He’s an albino blues guitarist who’s jammed with Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman. But what Guitar World readers really want to know is …

How old were you when you started playing blues? — Gene E. Levi

I was probably around 12 years old. I started out playing ukulele, but when I was around 10, my father encouraged me to move to guitar.

He thought I’d have a better chance for success with the guitar, and he was right! I found a great teacher who was into Chet Atkins and country music who got me into playing with a thumb pick, which I still use today.

But my life really changed when I heard Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. They wiped me out! I never heard nothing like that before. After that, I started buying every blues record I could find and learning licks every chance I had. I couldn’t get enough of the blues.

Before you signed your first major record deal, you spent quite a few years playing clubs. What was the roughest or worst club you ever played? — Billy Houston

We played a lot of bad places, but I remember this club in Galveston, Texas, back in ’65 that was particularly nasty. This huge drunk guy kept staggering over to me and demanding that I play “Midnight Hour.” I told him, “Man, we already played it twice.”

He said, “Well, I didn’t hear it, and if you don’t play it I’m gonna rush the bandstand and tear up everything!” True to his word, he started charging me, so I took off my guitar, grabbed it by the neck and swung it like a baseball bat and hit him in the head and knocked him completely out! It was a good thing, too, because he was big.

I spent a lot of time playing the Louisiana club circuit, and in many ways it was rougher than Texas. My band had to play behind chicken wire, because people used to throw things at us. Even if they liked what you were playing, they’d still throw bottles at you just for the fun of it. There’s a scene in the Blues Brothers movie that shows what that was like. Most people think John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made that up, but bands played behind chicken wire all the time.

Freddie King, Albert Collins, T-Bone Walker and so many other great blues players have come from Texas. Was it something in the water? — Charles Whitehouse

When you come from a place where there are a lot of great players, it forces you to get good real fast. There’s a gunfighter tradition in Texas—you gotta be better than the other guy, or else you’re finished.

You’re one of the great innovators of slide guitar. What kind of slide do you use, and what finger do you use it on? Also, do you have a favorite slide song? — Alex Williams

I was practicing in New York City at S.I.R. Studios and a guy made me a slide by hacking up some drum hardware. He made me just one, and I really like it, so I’ve never lost it. I wear my slide on my little finger, and through the years I’ve played primarily in open A or open E. These days, I tend to favor open E, especially live, I think partly because I’m too lazy to carry another guitar around.

One of the greatest slide guitar performances I’ve ever heard is Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground).” The way his slide mimics his vocals and vice versa always gives me the chills. It’s maybe the deepest blues performance I’ve ever heard.

You’ve played some left-of-center guitars through the years—a Gibson Firebird, a Fender Mustang and a Lazer made by Mike Erlewine. Can you tell me what you liked about each of those guitars? — “The Mack”

They were all just really good guitars. I was initially attracted to the Firebird because I liked the way it looked, and when I played it I discovered I liked the way it sounded, too. The Firebird is the best of all worlds. It feels like a Gibson, but it sounds closer to a Fender than most other Gibsons. I was never a big fan of humbucking pickups, but the mini-humbuckers on the Firebird have a little more bite and treble.

People always ask me about the Lazer. When I first bought one, I thought I was just going to use it as a travel guitar. But the first day I plugged it in, it sounded so good I wanted to use it for a gig that night. It had .010s on it, and I’m used to .009s, so I tuned it down one whole step to make it easier to play. I kept thinking that I would switch back—but I just never did. I like how it sounds, and the bonus is I break fewer strings.

You produced and played on several albums with the legendary Muddy Waters. What did you get from that experience? — Warren Waterman

Muddy just had such extraordinary presence and naked emotion in his voice and slide guitar playing, especially on a slow blues. When I worked with him, I was amazed at how fast he worked. You had to stay on your toes and know what you were doing, ’cause he never wanted to do more than one or two takes of a song. Luckily for me, Muddy always nailed it in one or two takes.

That attitude sort of rubbed off on me. In many ways, I’m pretty similar. I’ve discovered if you have to do more than a few takes, all the life goes out of the performance.

You just released a really great box set of your work, True to the Blues. In the liner notes Eddie Van Halen calls “Be Careful with a Fool” one of his favorite songs. I can understand that—it’s pretty damn fast! What are some of your favorite moments? — Ray Lauerman, Jr.

I liked my version of B.B King’s “Be Careful with a Fool” too. It’s a great song, and I think I did a pretty good job of it. I played a lot of fast licks on that one, but I wasn’t trying to show off. Speed is just something that always felt right to me. I was playing what I heard in my head.

Can we expect a new album anytime soon? It’s been a while. — Mark Jenkins

We’re in the process of mixing a new one, and it should come out in April. I think it’s gonna surprise a lot of people. I’m calling it Step Back, and I invited some of my favorite guitarists to play with me on a bunch of tracks, including Billy Gibbons, Eric Clapton, Joe Perry, Mark Knopfler and Joe Bonamassa. I don’t want to give too much away, but for example, Eric joins me on the Bobby “Blue” Bland classic “I Don’t Want No Woman.”

One of your signature songs is your cover of Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61.” What inspired you to play that one? — Dale Showler

I’ve always been a big Bob Dylan fan. You can’t be my age without loving Bob Dylan. We’d been doing the song in clubs for quite a while, but I didn’t play it with a slide until I recorded it in the studio. It worked out real well.

Johnny Winter fans have been waiting patiently for the release of the much-anticipated Winter documentary, Down & Dirty. Today they got some good news. The film is coming out on home video this March 4, and you can watch the trailer from it below.

Johnny Winter: Down & Dirty is billed as the definitive, feature-length documentary about the acclaimed blues guitarist, who died July 16 2014.

Created by Lemmy co-director and producer, Greg Olliver, the documentary will be available worldwide on March 4 on DVD and iTunes. The package will feature never-before-seen photos and bonus footage, including extended interviews and his final studio performance, a solo resonator version of the Son House classic “Death Letter.”

Olliver filmed Winter during the final two years of Johnny’s life, where he captured the making of the guitarist’s Grammy-winning album Step Back and its subsequent tour. The result is an intimate portrait of the guitarist, his childhood (“I got in a lot of fights...Just ‘cause you’re a different color…”), his friendships with Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, his love of the blues and his connection to the guitar (“Guitar is the only thing I was ever really great at,” he says).

Olliver also talked with many of Winters’ peers and friends, who appear in the film, including his brother Edgar, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon (who performed on Winter’s early albums), Derek Trucks, Joe Perry, Warren Haynes, and many others.

“When Johnny picks up a guitar, you never know quite what’s gonna come at you,” says Billy Gibbons. “But whatever it is, it’s gonna be good.”

The film will include extensive bonus footage. Pre-order should be available on Amazon soon.

From the GW Archive: This feature originally appeared in the May 2002 issue of Guitar World. The story has a "time capsule" theme: We asked several veteran guitarists to choose the one song they'd most want to be remembered by after many years. Here we are, 13 years later (Does that qualify as "many"?), opening the time capsule to examine its contents! Enjoy!

A few decades ago, NASA sent a probe called Voyager straight out of the solar system. Its mission: to make contact with alien intelligence.

The capsule was crammed with artifacts—including greetings in more than 50 languages—intended to convey information about Earth's cultures. But just in case those items failed to communicate across language barriers, NASA also included a recording of Chuck Berry performing his rock and roll masterpiece "Johnny B. Goode."

For a while after Voyager's launch, the joke around the agency was that a reply had been received from an alien civilization: "Forget the scientific shit," went the message. "Send more rock and roll!" But what songs should be sent? We at Guitar World decided the logical place to start would be the musicians themselves.

In a project that started almost five years ago (hence the inclusion of George Harrison in Part 1), we began asking many of the most influential guitarists in rock, blues and metal one deceptively simple question: "If you had to put one of your songs in a time capsule to be opened sometime in the future, which would you choose, and why?"

Check out Part 2 of the story below.
Part 1, featuring Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck, George Harrison, Dimebag Darrell, Joe Satriani, Kirk Hammett, John Paul Jones and more, is available here.

Dave Mustaine (Megadeth),
"Holy Wars...The Punishment Due"
Rust in Peace (1990)

“Because we will never cease trying to dominate one another.”

Steve Vai,
"Love Secrets"
Passion and Warfare (1990)

"If it's going to be aliens that will discover this piece of music thousands of years from now, I'd pick 'Love Secrets.' The song is an unbridled ride though my imagination. It was void of any contemporary parameters when I wrote it, because the approach I took to composing it was rather unorthodox.

"The harmonic structure is very rich; it's a thought-out piece of music, and it's not just a bunch of noise. Somehow, it's very arranged but it's still completely chaotic.

"I had a profound dream experience when I was 15 or 16, and the song is the audio reality of that very bizarre and lucid dream stat. After researching this phenomenon, I realized that I was not alone in experiencing incredibly dynamic, rich music in a dream. It was like witnessing a thousand-piece orchestra.

"The experience was very intense-it wasn't like I was listening to it with my ears; I was hearing the music with 'inner ears.' The music was raging, and I can't even express what I was experiencing visually.

"I tried to reproduce this music, and even though my attempt was a complete failure at best, I still think it's one of the best pieces of music I've ever written. I really think it represents the pinnacle of my ability to combine my spiritual quest in life with my absurd technical inclinations."

Slash (Guns N' Roses),
"Paradise City"
Appetite for Destruction (1987)

"This is the song that's most indicative of what I'm really into as a musician. One of the things I enjoy about being a guitar player is striving to reach some kind of a goal, even when I'm not sure what that is.

And 'Paradise City' was the closest I got to doing what I would consider great, loud, fuckin' riff rock that clocks in at just three minutes. That's where I was headed, and that was the closest I got to realizing my goal in terms of expressing myself on the guitar in GN'R."

Buddy Guy,
"Damn Right, I've Got the Blues"
Damn Right, I've Got the Blues (1991)

I am especially proud of the lyrics and I really feel them every time I sing this song. If you don’t understand what it’s about, just keep living and you’re going to find out. People think money will make them happy, but if you’re rich you got to worry about keeping it and if you’re poor you got to worry about getting it. That’s why ‘Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues’ is a story that speaks to everyone.

“It’s like my pal Bo Diddley said: ‘Even Donald Trump’s got the blues,’ because he has to keep all those women away from his money. Or take Bill Gates: the guy invents ways to make money and every month they try to take him to court for something else.

"Someone’s always after him, and that is what they call the blues. It comes to you in all forms and fashions. When I was a kid plowing with a mule, I thought that if I just had $5,000 I’d never have to plow again. I didn’t know you can’t ever get away from it. Damn right.”

Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne),
"No More Tears"
No More Tears (1991)

"People seem to like this little ditty. Why? It's a cool tune; I guess the solo's alright, and the guitar tone sounds pretty cool. People ask how I got that low, growling sound at the end of the verses.

"It was just a 50-watt amp and a Les Paul with EMG pickups. And I went straight in, didn't run it through anything. When they mixed it, I think they put some SPX90 effect on it. It was in drop-D tuning, and we were at the A=440 pitch. It wasn't like I dropped down to some really low tuning."

John Petrucci (Dream Theater),
"Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence"
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002)

"I'm very lucky because i can get away with choosing an entire CD—this 42-minute composition is the title song of our new album.

"It's an easy choice because it is the best possible representation of both my playing and the band's sound, running the gamut of every facet of our music. And because I co-wrote and co-produced it, I am, of course, particularly attached to it."

Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains),
"Rain When I Die"
Dirt (1992)

"This is a song that makes me feel kind of 'purged' when I play it. I think a lot of our material is like a trip trough a dark place and out the other side.

"This is a song about a relationship between a man and a woman.You have that rolling, really dark, heavy snaky riff, and the lyrical content is dark. Yet it's very uplifting in the chorus. For me, the chorus is the resolution, coming out of the darkness."

Gary Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd),
"Simple Man"
Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd (1973)

“ ‘Simple Man’ says a lot, philosophically. I really think I am a simple man, and that’s the best way to be. Just be yourself and believe in God and find a good woman and don’t worry about getting rich and all that.

"That’ll come along with the simple things. I went through the drugs and alcohol and that crap, and I quit it all. I wish it hadn’t taken so long, because it ruins a lot of stuff. It’s a dead-end road, and once you get to the end, you gotta turn around and go all the way back.

"But when it’s all over, it’s great and you really do get grounded and realize it’s about making music—so enjoy the process.”

Kerry King (Slayer),
"Payback"
God Hates Us All (2001)

“On this record I tried to write more directly about feelings that people have every day, so they don’t have to wonder what I’m talking about and how it relates to them. I think fans are going to hear a song like ‘Payback’ and say, ‘Man, that was me the other day!’

"‘Payback’ was written because everybody at some point in their lives has been wronged, pissed off or cut down by somebody—it’s a feeling everybody knows.

"I wanted to pick some dark subjects that would be appropriate on a Slayer record and make them more personal and see if this stuff means more to the fans than some of the stuff on our earlier records.”

Dickey Betts (The Allman Brothers Band),
"In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"
Idlewild South (1970)

“It’s an awfully strong piece of music in that it allows all of the other players to have something they can really participate in.

"It offers a lot of room for players to express themselves, and all of the musicians that have played in the Allman Brothers over the years have loved to play that song. It’s true for me too; we all really enjoy the improvisation that the song allows.”

Andy Summers (The Police),
"Message In A Bottle"
Regggatta De Blanc (1979)

“I think, as a pop song, ‘Message’ has perfect form, with just enough alternation between tension and release to maintain the listener’s interest. Plus, the strong forward motion of the guitar riff maintains excitement all the way through the song.

"The lyrics are among Sting’s best—the graphic image of a man alone on an island, the message in a bottle as a metaphor for loneliness, and the surreal image of a hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore to indicate how much loneliness is out there. It also has what I consider Stewart [Copeland]’s finest drum track.

"When we recorded it, we learned how to keep the energy of the music up by doing a take and keeping the tape going while we rolled right into another take. For a while we opened our shows with ‘Message,’ and it always made us feel great and totally blew the audience away. To me, the sound of this song is the Police.”

Peter Frampton,
"Do You Feel Like We Do"
Frampton Comes Alive (1976)

“It started as a song about a hangover. I woke up with a wineglass by the bed and then went to rehearsal with a hangover.

"I started playing these chords I’d come up with on the acoustic the night before—D-F-C-G-D—which became the chorus. I added this riff we’d been jamming on in rehearsal, and it all came together. The guys in the band said, ‘C’mon, Pete, write some words—it’s almost there.’

"I said I couldn’t, that I had this really bad hangover. They said, ‘Well, sing about that.’ So I started with, ‘Woke up this morning with a wineglass in my hand.’ Nowadays that’s as far as I get before the audience takes over and sings the whole thing.

"When I emphasize the second ‘you’ in the chorus, ‘Do you—you…’ everybody’s arm is in the air, pointing. I didn’t know it when I wrote it, but when I start involving the audience, then the personal suddenly becomes universal. And then it’s not my song anymore—it’s everybody’s.”

Scott Ian (Anthrax),
"Only"
Sound of White Noise (1983)

“Because [Metallica’s] James Hetfield told me it was a perfect song.”

Kenny Wayne Shepherd,
"While We Cry"
Ledbetter Heights (1995)

“I was going to say ‘Blue on Black,’ but I went with this one instead, partly because it’s an instrumental. Years from now words, language, may be totally different, but people will still be able to understand the emotion in an instrumental like ‘Why We Cry.’

"I mean, we still feel what Mozart and Bach’s music was about 300 years later.

"When the guitar is the only voice in an instrumental or a solo, I can get into a state where the music just flows out of me. And when it’s time to wind down, it almost takes me down with it.”

Jimmie Vaughan,
"Planet Bongo"
Do You Get The Blues? (2001)

“ ‘Planet Bongo’ sums up everything that’s influenced me in music in a single song.

"It’s me looking at exactly where I’m from through a pair of blues-tinted sunglasses. It’s all American; you could pick the song apart and find blues, jazz and gospel elements but nothing that’s not uniquely of this country. It’s not going to change the world, but it will help make it a little bit of a more fun place to be.”

Johnny Winter,
"Be Careful With a Fool"
Johnny Winter (1969)

“I don’t really know why I’d pick this song, but I think it has a lot of soul and a lot of that good blues feeling. I also think it represents my sound and my style of guitar playing well. I learned it from B.B. King’s original version, which I love.”

Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam),
"Nothingman"
Vitalogy (1994)

"The way this song came together, the way it sounds, the simplicity of it and the intention behind how it came about are all connected. It was a period of time when everybody in the band was a little frustrated.

"All of us had been writing, and I knew Jeff [Ament, Bass] was in the studio with this song he had been working on.

"So I dropped by to see if I could add some stuff—and within 20 minutes we had that song worked out. With that song, everybody in the band really took some steps toward each other, and something beautiful came out of it."

These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the January 2015 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.

Over the last two issues, I’ve devoted this column to the incredible playing of John Dawson Winter III, known to most of us as Johnny Winter.

Johnny was a blues-rock guitar legend of the highest order and is regarded worldwide as one of the genre’s greatest and most influential players ever. He was also a wonderfully warm person, and I feel very privileged to have had the chance to get to know him.

Johnny’s initial burst onto the worldwide stage occurred in 1969 with the release of his Columbia debut, Johnny Winter, and, following the release of his critically acclaimed 1971 live album, Live Johnny Winter And, the guitarist briefly retreated from the public eye to deal with heroin addiction.

He returned in 1973 with the stunning Still Alive and Well album, which opens with a positively burning rendition of the B.B. King classic, “Rock Me Baby.” Just as Jimi Hendrix had done at the Monterey Pop Festival with the same song, Johnny took “Rock Me Baby” and completely reworked it into a tour de force of ferocious blues-rock virtuosity.

These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the Holiday 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.

Last month I devoted this space to the guitar-playing wizardry of the late Johnny Winter, who passed away this past July 16, 2014, at the age of 70.

Previously, we examined Winter’s brilliant fingerstyle country-blues work, along the lines of his playing on the track, “Forever Lonely,” from Muddy Waters’ King Bee album. This month, I’d like to show you how Johnny directed these ideas into a more aggressive and inventive style of blues-rock rhythm guitar.

Winter’s 1977 release, Nothin’ But the Blues, served as a turning point in his career, as he dedicated himself from this point forward to blues music. His follow-up album, White, Hot and Blue, released in 1978, was equally powerful, featuring such standout blues covers as “Walking by Myself,” “Messin’ With the Kid,” “Diving Duck” and “EZ Rider,” as well as the original composition, “One Step at a Time,” a rocking shuffle in the key of A.

The examples in this month’s column reflect the style and approaches Johnny used on this particular track.

A touching new music video for "Death Letter," a track off Johnny Winter's final album, Step Back, has made its way to the interwebs, and you can check it out below.

The song turned out to be Winter's final studio recording.

The clip, which was directed by Greg Olliver, opens at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut, where Winter can be seen shuffling up to a mic, settling onto a stool, slipping on a slide and laying into the classic Son House tune.

As the video unfolds, we get a glimpse into Winter's life on the road as he greets fans, signs autographs and performs around the world.

Winter died July 16 at age 70. Step Back was released September 2.

Check out the clip below. As always, tell us what you think in the comments or on Facebook!

The late Johnny Winter's star-studded new album, Step Back, was released today, September 2, through Megaforce Records.

Below, you can hear a song from the new disc, "Mojo Hand," which features a guest appearance by Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. Check it out below (top video) and be sure to tell us what you think of it in the comments or on Facebook!

Step Back features collaborations with an impressive collection of guitarists, including Stray Cats' Brian Setzer, Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, Leslie West, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons and more.

Which reminds us: You also might want to check out two other songs from the album. There's a searing cover of Elmore James' "I Can't Hold Out (Talk To Me Baby)" that features Ben Harper (LISTEN HERE) and "Where Can You Be," a straight-ahead blues-rocker featuring vocals and guitar by ZZ Top axman Billy Gibbons (LISTEN HERE).

But wait, there's more! We've also thrown in a just-posted-to-YouTube song, "Don't Want No Woman," which features Clapton (middle video). Enjoy both clips, plus a preview video for a film called Johnny Winter: Down and Dirty (bottom video)!

Winter died July 16 at age 70.

Earlier today, wsj.com premiered a new Johnny Winter song, "Where Can You Be," which also happens to feature ZZ Top axman (and fellow Texan) Billy Gibbons.

The song is from the late Winter's new album, Step Back, which will be released September 2 through Megaforce Records.

The album features collaborations with an impressive list of legendary guitarists, including Brian Setzer, Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Perry, Gibbons and more.

You also might want to check out another song off the album, a searing cover of Elmore James' "I Can't Hold Out" that features Ben Harper. You can hear it here.

Winter died July 16 at age 70.

Last month, we lost Johnny Winter, one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time. Winter channeled the classic blues he grew up with and introduced it to generations of new listeners, young and old, with his unmistakable guitar playing.

His new album, Step Back, will be released as planned on September 2 through Megaforce Records. It features collaborations with a virtual laundry list of legendary axmen, including Brian Setzer, Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Perry and more.

Another collaborator on the album was Ben Harper, with whom Winter recorded this searing cover of Elmore James' "I Can't Hold Out." Check it out below, and let us know what you think in the comments section or on Facebook!

Texas blues legend Johnny Winter died Wednesday, July 16. He was 70. The cause of death is unknown at this time.

This morning, the guitarist's Facebook page offered the following news item, which also was released by his publicist overnight:

"Texas blues icon Johnny Winter has passed away on July 16, 2014, in his hotel room in Zurich, Switzerland. His wife, family and bandmates are all saddened by the loss of their loved one and one of the world's finest guitarists. An official statement with more details shall be issued at the appropriate time."

"As the great blues historian Robert Palmer once bluntly stated, 'Texas's blues pedigree is unsurpassed," wrote Guitar World editor-in-chief Brad Tolinski in the liner notes for Winter's 2013 career-retrospective box set Johnny Winter: True To The Blues. "But of all of these bright lights, perhaps the most electrifying, exotic and resilient Texas export is a snowy white guitarist from Beaumont, whose truth-is-stranger-than-fiction given name is Winter.

"For well over five decades, John Dawson 'Johnny' Winter III has produced and played on some of the most exciting blues and rock recordings in the history of both genres. His absolute command of traditional music has earned him the respect of serious musicologists, while his tremendous agility, wicked speed and full-tilt aggression on the electric guitar and acoustic bottleneck has won over several generations of younger rock players looking to cop some the fastest and hottest licks ever committed to tape."

The Blues magazine editor Ed Mitchell added, "It's no secret Johnny has battled with ill health for many years — but he seemed to transcend that struggle when he played live. No one's slide tone was as sweet, searing, stinging or fiery. Johnny Winter blazing away on a Gibson Firebird is an iconic blues image. He was the greatest slide blues guitarist that ever lived. We'll always have him to thank for pulling Muddy Waters out of his funk in the Seventies and helping him record some of his greatest work: 'Hard Again', 'I'm Ready' and 'King Bee'. All essential."

Johnny Winter had been playing electric blues since the Sixties, and his enthusiasm for it only grew with time.

"There's never been a point in my life where I was even close to getting tired of playing blues," Winter told Guitar World in 2012 while relaxing in his dressing room at B.B. King's Blues Club in New York City, on tour as usual. "The truth is, I love playing the blues, now more than I ever have before."

Johnny, the older brother of Edgar Winter, has always been one of the most respected blues guitarists and championed and aided the careers of older idols, including Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.

Winter was born February 23, 1944, in Beaumont, Texas. His recording career began when he was 15; his band, Johnny and the Jammers released "School Day Blues" on a Houston record label. During this same period, he was able to savor performances by blues greats Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland. In 1967, Winter recorded a single with the Traits, "Tramp" backed with "Parchman Farm." In 1968, he released his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, on Austin's Sonobeat Records.

His breakthrough came later that year when Rolling Stone featured him in a piece on the Texas music scene, which prompted a bidding war among labels that Columbia eventually won.

Winter's first Columbia album, Johnny Winter, was recorded and released in 1969. The album (which featured future Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon) featured several of what would become Winter's signature songs, including "Dallas," John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson's "Good Morning Little School Girl" and B.B. King's "Be Careful With a Fool."

Winter was set to release a new studio album, Step Back, September 2 via Megaforce Records. The album, the follow-up to 2011's Roots, will feature a host of special guests, including Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, Dr. John, Leslie West, Brian Setzer and Joe Bonnamassa.

Blues legend Johnny Winter will release a new studio album, Step Back, September 2 via Megaforce Records. The album, the followup to 2011’s Roots, will find Winter exploring a more aggressive vintage-blues style.

The album also will feature a host of special guests, including Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, Dr. John, Leslie West, Brian Setzer and Joe Bonnamassa.

“If there's good people, other good musicians, people enjoy it. I just love it," Winter says. "[Step Back] is just to bring it to the people of today who haven't listened to the old music. It's better than anything they hear today."

Produced by Winter's guitarist, Paul Nelson, Step Back opens with “Unchain My Heart,” which features Winter and his band joined by the Blues Brothers horns. ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons is featured on “Where Can You Be.”

“I never had the opportunity to jam with him [in the Sixties and Seventies],” Gibbons says. “I was content to remain in awe and admiration.”

“If it weren't for Johnny Winter, I would have never picked up the guitar,” adds Aerosmith's Joe Perry, who joins Winter on Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Mojo Hand.”

Other highlights include Winter's guitar and vocal trade-offs with Harper on Willie Dixon’s “Can’t Hold Out (Talk to Me Baby),” Winter and Clapton’s rendition of Bobby Bland’s “Don’t Want No Woman” and Winter and Dr. John honoring Fats Domino with “Blue Monday.”

“When you hear that sound come out of that Firebird guitar, you know it can be the one and only Johnny Winter,” says Setzer, who is featured on Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s “Okie Dokie Stomp.”

Stay tuned for more information!

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the premiere of a vintage clip of blues great Johnny Winter in action.

In the video, which you can check out below, the slide guitar master performs a truly rocking version of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" on October 16, 1992.

That's the day a slew of respected artists — from George Harrison to Johnny Cash to Neil Young — got together at New York City's Madison Square Garden to celebrate Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary as a recording artist.

The concert was released as an album and video in 1993. On March 4, however, Columbia Records and Legacy Recording will release Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration — Deluxe Edition in three configurations: 2CD, 2DVD and Blu-ray.

The 2DVD/Blu-ray versions of the show, which were struck from a new high-def video master with remastered audio, include 40 minutes of previously unreleased material, including behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage, interviews and more (The new material includes Eric Clapton's soundcheck performance of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.") It also marks the show's first appearance on DVD.

The DVD includes performances by Winter, Harrison (making his first U.S. concert appearance in 18 years), Clapton (whose performance earned a spot in Guitar World's guide to Clapton's 50 best guitar moments in the March 2014 issue), Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, the Band, Lou Reed, Richie Havens, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Ron Wood, Chrissie Hynde, Eddie Vedder and more.

To pre-order the DVD, visit amazon.com.

Earlier this week, Legacy Recordings released a career-spanning box set by Winter — True to the Blues: The Johnny Winter Story. You can check out our exclusive premiere of a track from the box set — "Eyesight to the Blind," as performed at the 1970 Atlanta International Pop Festival — right here. The box set is available here.

For more about Winter, visit his Facebook page. For more about Sony Legacy, visit legacyrecordings.com.

[[ Guitar World’s Blues Greats Subscription Offer: Get one year of Guitar World plus a new digital EP, 'Legacy Recordings Presents: Blues Greats! Past & Present,' featuring “Dallas" by Johnny Winter! ]]

Kid Ink - No Miracles (Ft. Elle Varner & MGK)

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents an exclusive Johnny Winter song premiere courtesy of Sony Legacy.

The track, which you can hear below, captures the blues-rock guitar legend in all his early Seventies glory as he performs "Eyesight to the Blind" at the second Atlanta International Pop Festival on July 5, 1970.

Although the recording was originally released on 1971's The First Great Rock Festivals of The Seventies: Isle Of Wight/Atlanta Pop, it has been unavailable on CD for quite a while. That will change February 25, when Sony Legacy releases True to the Blues: The Johnny Winter Story, a new career-spanning box set.

The set captures Winters' most electrifying performances — and celebrates the guitarist's 70th birthday, which happens to fall on February 23.

As for the song, you might know it best from its appearance on the Who's Tommy album and film. The 12-bar blues staple, which was written and recorded by Sonny Boy Williamson II in 1951, also has been covered by Aerosmith, the Smithereens, Gary Moore, Eric Clapton and many others.

Be sure to check out the track below. And while you're at it, enter for a chance to win a signed copy of True to the Blues: The Johnny Winter Story right here!

For more about Winter, visit his Facebook page. To pre-order the box set, visit Amazon.com. For more about Sony Legacy, visit legacyrecordings.com.

Photo: Sony Music Archives

[[ Guitar World’s Blues Greats Subscription Offer: Get one year of Guitar World plus a new digital EP, 'Legacy Recordings Presents: Blues Greats! Past & Present,' featuring “Dallas" by Johnny Winter! ]]

Got a question for your favorite guitarist? Let us be your go-between. The concept is easy — you submit your queries and we pass them on to some of the world's greatest guitarists. Only the sharpest and funniest questions will be used.

This month, we're giving you the chance to ask legendary blues-rock guitarist Johnny Winter anything you want!

Just email your questions to dearguitarhero@guitarworld.com and put "Johnny Winter" in the subject line. Remember to include your name in the email body, so you can get credited in the magazine, and impress and annoy your jealous friends!

Watch Johnny Winter perform a ripping version of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61" live in 1984:

Following the old adage that, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," legendary Texas bluesman Johnny Winter recent told Billboard that he plans to record a sequel to last year's Roots, an album that saw him team up with an all-star cast of guest musicians — including Vince Gill, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes and more.

Now, the 70-year-old Winter has his eye on a whole new supporting cast for the follow-up to Roots.

"I haven't picked the songs yet, but I'd like to have Billy Gibbons play," he said. "I'd like the have Dr. John play. I'd like to have Mark Knopfler play on something. I'd like to have Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy."

While the guest list for the album is far from confirmed, Winter remains hopeful his friends will find some time in their schedules to come over and jam. "I don't know if I can get 'em all," he said, "but those are the people I'd like to have."

For the full story behind 2011's Roots, read our complete interview with Johnny Winter here.

Tommy Shannon, best known as the bassist for Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, Johnny Winter and Arc Angels, has signed an endorsement deal with Italy-based amp manufacturer Markbass.

His Markbass rig of choice is a CMD 102P combo with a Traveler 102P extension cabinet.

“Markbass gives me that big, full sound that I’m used to, with the portability that I need,” said Shannon in a news release from the company.

For more about Markbass, visit markbass.it.

Shannon performed with Winter at the Woodstock festival in August 1969. Several years later, he connected with Vaughan to form Double Trouble's rhythm section with drummer Chris Layton. After Vaughan's death in 1990, Shannon performed with Arc Angels and Storyville.

Shannon also has performed with Dr. John, Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Johnson, Susan Tedeschi, Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin and Jeff Beck.

For more about Shannon and his Markbass rig, visit his profile page at Markbass.it.

Lance Lopez is one very few guitarists who can say they started their career at age 14, when he began performing professionally with older, more seasoned musicians in New Orleans -- and understanding the elements of rock, blues, funk and R&B.

By the time he was 18, the Shreveport, Louisiana-born Lopez had toured with soul singer Johnnie Taylor and blues legend Lucky Peterson.

Since then, Lopez, who is based in Dallas, has released three studio albums, perhaps causing the biggest buzz with 2010's Salvation From Sundown, which was produced by Jim Gaines (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Santana).

[[ Check out a stream of the new Lance Lopez album, Handmade Music, on GuitarWorld.com. ]]

His new album, Handmade Music, is an exploration into the roots of blues that pushes the genre into new territories. Lopez tips his hat to everyone from Mississippi Fred McDowell to Jimi Hendrix on Handmade Music, which Lopez calls a blues record with a major rock twist.

Guitar World sat down with Lopez to talk about the early days of his career, his gear and where he’s at today.

GUITAR WORLD: You’ve been a musician basically all your life. What were your original influences?

I started playing when I was 8, and I was in the country with my family when one of my uncles had guitars and amps and stuff in his home. And we would have big family get-togethers out in the country and they would play guitars. When someone put down a guitar, I would pick it up. I was just immediately attracted to it. There was just a connection. I don’t know where it came from, but I was just always attracted to guitars. I remember always passing by music stores when I was even younger and I was just so enthralled with guitars and drums in the windows of music shops.

Growing up, we had a lot of videos of Elvis Presley. My father was actually in the Army with Elvis, and they were really close in the Army and remained close. We had pictures in our home of my dad and Elvis together, and then I would see the guy on TV, so it was really cool. I was born about a month after he passed away. So it was a really big influence. My father really encouraged me to play once I had the interest to play. He really encouraged me. So by the time I was 12, I was serious about playing guitar.

When I was 10, I heard Jimi Hendrix for the first time. That totally changed my life. So that pretty much set the standard for me. I really looked for other guitars players from that era or who sounded like that. When I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan, I found that sound. I first saw Stevie Ray Vaughan when I was 12. And that was another big life-changing experience. That’s when I was like, “There it is, that’s the sound.” And then he was gone. But they really influenced me to not only study their styles, but also study the styles of the people who influenced them.

You’ve been a professional musician since you were about 14. How did you get to play in bars at such a young age?

When I was 14, we moved back in forth with my father between Texas and Louisiana. When I moved to New Orleans with my father, he began to really encourage me. It was like non-stop music in New Orleans in those days. I started going out with my dad to bars and stuff, and different bands would be playing. Next thing you know they would hire me; then people would hear about me playing and they would hire me. I was pretty grateful. I would play round the clock even. I’d go out and work from 5 in the afternoon to 5 in the morning because none of the bars closed. So what I would do is a happy hour gig from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. with one band, then I’d do a regular gig until 12 with another band, then do another gig from like 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. Then I’d go home and take a nap and then get up and go to school.

We moved around a lot. We moved to Florida, and I did the same thing. I would go to blues jams or open-mike jams and just join bands and start working. So that’s pretty much the better part of what my later junior high and high schools years were.

You had a pretty lucky start. When you were young, did you appreciate how much you had going for you?

Absolutely. I was very grateful to have my dad. For one, he would take me into a club, that way I could get in. I guess a lot of the people who saw me, saw I took playing very seriously. I always knew this was what I wanted to do.

You toured with Lucky Peterson. How did that influence your career?

Lucky was one of the greatest musicians I ever worked with. He plays drums, keyboards and guitars, and he’s a phenomenal singer. I learned so much from him; he was a big inspiration and just such an amazing talent. I actually took a gig when I was 17 working for Johnnie Taylor for a couple of months. Then I met Lucky right after that and then next you know we were in Europe. So it all came really quick.

Playing in Lucky’s band taught me to be such a great rhythm player and ensemble player and how to orchestrate and put different pieces of a band together. By the time I left that band, I was the musical director. Which was kind of funny because I was much younger then most of the people in the band so they just kind of ignored me anyway. So I learned a lot form Lucky and just was able to go around the world and see so many different places for the first time in my life.

You have three studio albums and one live album under your belt. What instruments to you play in the studio versus live?

Early in my career, I played Stratocasters for a very long time. I just always had Stratocasters and always, always loved the sound. They were great for ensemble playing. Lucky Peterson, he played an ES-335 and that’s when I started really getting into Gibsons. I had a couple of Les Pauls back then. But by the time I started recording my early records, I went back to a Stratocaster. I was really using a lot of that Stratocaster and Marshall amp combo because I was heavily influenced by Hendrix and was really going for some of those tones and sounds. So I started recording with them and I use them live all the time. But I will always switch back and forth between the Stratocaster and the Les Paul.

Later on I started using more Gibson guitars. But I always found switching guitars was really hard to do live. I would record one song with a Stratocaster and then one with a Les Paul, but when it came to doing it live, it was hard to pull off. Really, one of the things that helped me was working with Music Man. I can get all the sounds with just one guitar. I’ve been working with Music Man lately, and they’re awesome. It’s a great relationship.

Tell me about the new album, Handmade Music, and what it was like to work with producer Jim Gaines.

Working with Jim Gaines was kind of the key to Salvation From Sundown. I’ve heard nothing but high praise on Jim Gaines, and I knew he worked with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Santana. People I knew just talked about how great he was.

I recorded the follow-up to Salvation From Sundown just this past summer, and we were touring pretty heavily all 2011. And then we stopped and recorded an album in June and July. We finished the album in Gaines' studios, called Bessie Blues Studios. So it was really neat to do that. We did the entire record in Tennessee. It’s got a lot more rock then Salvation From Sundown. Salvation was very bluesy; this album has got a lot more rock vibe to it. Now we’re ready to get out on the road behind it. We’re having rehearsals and we’re always playing down here in Texas.

Handmade Music was released today, March 6, via MIG Music. Keep up with Lopez on his official Facebook page.

[[ Check out a stream of the new Lance Lopez album, Handmade Music, on GuitarWorld.com. ]]

Guitar World rings in the holidays with ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons, who graces the cover of the January 2012 issue, which is available now.

The new issue also features a handy holiday gift guide, representing the best in new gear, albums, box sets, toys and more. Plus, Slash, Zakk Wylde, Lamb of God and Judas Priest talk about their 2012 albums and projects.

JANUARY 2012 GW: A SAMPLING

•TOP SCORE: With a long-awaited ZZ Top album on the way, plus his new Dunlop accessories and signature hot sauce and tequila, Billy Gibbons has a wealth of things to celebrate this holiday season. By CHRIS GILL. What was it like working with Rick Rubin? A lot of beards. Rick has quite a collection of surfboards, which is convenient as his house is within walking distance of a really cool beach in Malibu. Instead of wasting time comparing beard length or grooming techniques, we had a contest to see who could leave the water with the most leftover seafood for a snack.

•TELE-BRATION: Guitar World celebrates 60 years of the Fender Telecaster, the electric guitar that revolutionized the industry and remains one of music's most vital players. By ALAN Di PERNA. On of the most illustrious names in the guitar universe celebrated its 6oth anniversary this past year. When the Fender Telecaster first appeared in the Fifties, it was something brand new -- a blank canvas, if you will, awaiting a handful of gifted mid-20th-century guitarists to create new modes of expression around the bright, steely tone of this new kind of solid body guitar.

•'WHOLE NOTES' WITH WILCOJeff Tweedy and Nels Cline discuss the guitars and gear behind Wilco's latest album, The Whole Love By RICHARD BIENSTOCK.Jeff, you've said in the past that you primarily write on acoustic guitar. Was that the case as well for The Whole Love? Yes. It's really the only instrument that I have any kind of... I wouldn't say mastery of, but I've certainly been playing it long enough that I'm conversant with it in a way where I'm able to go to what I hear in my head pretty quickly. As a writing tool there's no point in me using anything other than an acoustic unless I'm wanting to shake myself out of some kind of rut and play something where I have no idea what's happening. [laughs]

NEW VIDEOS

Offerings include a Theory of a Deadman "Lowlife" lesson, a Redlight King "Bullet In My Hand" lesson, the latest "Professor Shred" with Guthrie Govan and "Metal For Life," which examines at whammy-bar acrobatics. 

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

•Johnny Winter: Texas blues icon Johnny Winter returns with Roots, a tribute to his favorite blues greats, on which he gets a little help from a team of very special friends.

•Animals as Leaders: With his eight-string guitar and virtuoso shred abilities, Animals as Leaders guitarist Tosin Abasi is at metalcore’s cutting edge.

•"Dear Guitar Hero" with Five Finger Death Punch

•Soundcheck: Mesa/Boogie TransAtlantic TA-30 1x12 combo, G&L ASAT Deluxe Tribute Series electric guitar, Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 18 head, ModTone Mini-Mod pedals and much more!

•Tabs include ZZ TOP, "Got Me Under Pressure"; FALLING IN REVERSE, "I'm Not A Vampire"; OPETH, "Slither"; VAN HALEN, "Women In Love" and ADELE, "Rolling In The Deep."

For more info about the issue, or to order, head to the Guitar World Online Store.

The year 1980 saw the United States hockey team beat the Soviets for Olympic gold, the tragic death of John Lennon, the release of AC/DC's epic Back in Black album and the launch of a relatively small New York publisher's guitar-enthusiast magazine called Guitar World.

Although the magazine -- which, back then, was published every other month -- focused primarily on jazz, country, fusion and blues, it didn't take very long to attract a multitude of followers from all different styles who had few other literary resources to turn to.

Our first cover star? Johnny Winter -- "Rockin' Better Than Ever!"

Legendary guitarist (and first ever Guitar World cover star) Johnny Winter will release a new studio album on September 27 via Megaforce Records. Titled Roots, the album returns Winter to his roots by paying homage to the iconic blues heroes whose pioneering music influenced Winter’s own sound and style.

Roots is the follow-up to his Grammy-nominated 2004 album, I’m a Blues Man.

Special guests confirmed for the album include Sonny Landreth, Vince Gill, Warren Haynes, John Popper, Jimmy Vivino, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, John Medeski and Johnny's brother Edgar Winter. The album features covers of songs by Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, T-Bone Walker and more.

Track listing and special guests for Roots:

• 1) T-Bone Shuffle (featuring Sonny Landreth on slide guitar)
• 2) Further On Up The Road (featuring Jimmy Vivino on guitar)
• 3) Done Somebody Wrong (featuring Warren Haynes on slide guitar)
• 4) Got My Mojo Workin'
• 5) Last Night (featuring John Popper on harp)
• 6) Maybellene (featuring Vince Gill on guitar)
• 7) Bright Lights, Big City (featuring Susan Tedeschi on lead guitar/
• vocals)
• 8) Honky Tonk (featuring Edgar Winter on sax)
• 9) Dust My Broom (featuring Derek Trucks on slide guitar)
• 10) Short Fat Fannie (featuring Paul Nelson on guitar)
• 11) Come Back Baby (featuring John Medeski on organ)

Originally published in Guitar World, July 2010

Johnny Winter nearly killed his career—and himself. Now the blues legend is back in action with a revealing account of his harrowing experience and a new dedication to his craft.

Legendary guitarist Johnny Winter has seen his fair share of trials and tribulations during the course of his 50-year career as a fire-breathing, trailblazing guitarist. But in 1994, he came perilously close to reaching the end of the road, both personally and professionally.

“I was messed up,” he says, hanging out in the comfort of his basement lounge in his expansive Fairfield County, Connecticut, home. “I was not in the best shape for a while there. I was going through some really difficult personal issues, and I started taking prescription drugs to help with the problems on the advice of a doctor. But I ended up taking too many prescription drugs for too long. Combined with drinking, the adverse effects just got worse and worse.”

Winter’s newly released authorized biography, Raisin’ Cane (Backbeat Books), goes into great detail of the events that led up to his prescription drug meltdown and subsequent emergence from dependency and alcohol abuse. Making matters worse during the time of his dependency were the actions of his longtime manager, Teddy Slatus, who, Winter discovered, had made many decisions that Johnny felt were not in his best interest. “No one—not the record companies nor the promoters—wanted to work with Teddy anymore,” Winter says. “He was ruining my career.”

In 1999, Winter met a guitar player that would change his life. Paul Nelson, a top session and touring guitarist who had been instructed by Steve Vai, Steve Khan and Mike Stern, was invited by Johnny to participate as a guitarist and songwriter in the recording of Winter’s Grammy-nominated 2004 album I’m a Bluesman. Slatus was looking to place Nelson in the band as second guitarist and manage him as well. Like many around Winter at the time, Nelson had the feeling Slatus was not doing right by Winter’s career.

In January 2003, Slatus’ own substance abuse problems landed him in one of his many stints in rehab. In his absence, Nelson opened Winter’s shows and doubled as his tour manager. Soon Nelson was able to see the full extent to which Winter’s problems were affecting the guitarist both personally and professionally. With Nelson’s help, Winter began to recover, and his health, as well as his playing, improved.

Performing these days with his band—Nelson, bassist Scott Spray and drummer Vito Luizzi, Winter has a new-found enthusiasm and appreciation for playing. “Everything is so much better,” he says with a smile. “Playing is just a joy now.”

Johnny Winter was born February 23, 1944, in Beaumont, Texas, and displayed great musical proficiency from a very young age. Starting on the clarinet at age four, at 11 he moved over to the ukulele. Along with younger brother Edgar, the two appeared as a duet on children’s television shows and talent contests. At 15, Johnny formed his first band, and by the time he was 18 was making records. From 1962 to 1968, Johnny recorded prodigiously for a variety of record labels and in a great variety of musical styles. “At the time, I was cutting as many records as I could, in pursuit of a radio hit,” says Winter. “I didn’t think there was any money in playing blues, so we cut everything we could think of. ”

Eventually, Winter gave in to his true love and became a full-time blues guitarist. In 1968, Rolling Stone published a story about the young blues upstart, describing Winter as “a cross-eyed albino with long, fleecy hair, who plays some of the gutsiest, fluid blues guitar you’ve ever heard.” And thus Winter’s rapid-fire ascent to super-stardom began. CBS Records gave him a six-figure signing bonus and in early 1969 released his first CBS record, Johnny Winter. At the same time, Imperial Records released The Progressive Blues Experiment, an album of demos he’d recorded earlier in Austin, that was a strong outing as well. Suddenly, Winter had two albums in circulation at the same time. Overnight, a new guitar hero was born. Heroin addiction sidelined his momentum in the early Seventies, but he rebounded in 1973 with Still Alive and Well.

That title is relevant today. At present, things are going very well for Winter. He plays more than 100 dates a year, many of which are as headliner for large blues festivals around the world.

In the following interview, Winter discusses candidly the reasons for his descent into drug and alcohol dependence in the Nineties, his emergence from the depths to his new-found state of good health, his development as a blues musician and his love and dedication to performing live.

GUITAR WORLD Back in 1992, things seemed to be going very well for you, career-wise. You had just released a fantastic studio album, Hey, Where’s Your Brother, and in October of that year you participated in the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden in New York, where you stole the show with your incredible version of Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited.” But in reality, things had started to go wrong, culminating in your hospitalization in 1993.

JOHNNY WINTER I had another girlfriend at the time, and I was trying to make up my mind between Susan [Winter’s wife, whom he married in February 1992] and this other girl. I started taking all of these drugs to deal with anxiety and depression, and it turned out the drugs weren’t good for me at all. They helped at first, but I took them for way too long, and, over time, I was taking much too high a dosage.

GW You’ve mentioned your struggles with anxiety in previous interviews. One example was at the John Lee Hooker Tribute Concert at Madison Square Garden in 1990, where you experienced severe panic attacks.

WINTER Oh, I was feeling horrible for that show. I didn’t think I was going to get through it. I just wanted to die, and I was thinking, Now I have to play? I really wanted to do the show, too, because of my love for John Lee Hooker, but I was feeling really horrible. And I have no idea why. I was just having terrible panic attacks. So that’s when I started taking medication to deal with the anxiety, and it did help, but I took it for way too long.

GW It wasn’t until 2003 that you started to combat the problems, with the help of Paul Nelson.

WINTER Paul helped me unbelievably. I couldn’t have done it without him. He and James Montgomery found me a doctor, who helped me get off the pills. I was taking five Klonopins a day, and it made me feel like a vegetable. And I was drinking, too. I was a mess, but I eventually stopped everything—no pills and no alcohol. Once my mind was clear, I had so much energy.

GW But you had a legitimate reason to take anxiety medications. What happened when you stopped taking them?

WINTER When I got off the pills, I wasn’t anxious anymore. I felt fine, and those feelings of anxiety have never come back.

GW Another issue at the time was the problems you were having with your manager, Teddy Slatus, who had his own problems with substance abuse.

WINTER Teddy was in horrible shape. He didn’t know what he was doing. Paul began to talk to me about what was going on, and that I should think about getting away from Teddy. Paul was trying to help me see the facts for what they were so I could make the decision for myself.

GW It had to be a very difficult decision, because you had worked with Teddy for a very long time, since you first came to New York in 1969.

WINTER Yeah, Teddy had been the floor manager at the Scene Club [infamous New York nightspot owned by Steve Paul, Johnny’s manager, which hosted jams with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and others]. Teddy was pretty good in the very beginning, but I don’t think he was ever completely honest with me. So when I came off of the pills, I could see signs of a lot of mismanagement. He had all kinds of scams, like charging me double for things. If I stayed with him, I would never have come out of it.

GW Once you made the move and changed to working with Paul Nelson, could you see a difference right away?

WINTER It was like night and day. Overnight, things went from horrible to real good. Paul kept me apprised of everything that was going on, so I got straight answers and I knew what was happening with every aspect of my career. Right after I fired Teddy, I’d broken my hip and I was in the hospital, and Paul came byone night to tell me that Teddy had died [Slatus was found dead in his home on November 3, 2005]. By that time I didn’t feel sorry for Teddy at all. I knew about all the bad things he had done to me.

GW Through all of the problems you had during those years, your fans supported you unfailingly.

WINTER Yes, that’s true. I’ve been really lucky. Even when I wasn’t in good shape, they still stuck by me. I think a lot of people would not have been able to come back from being that messed up. It would have killed them. And it was hard for me and it took a little while. But I feel great now.

GW Your revitalization is even evident in your set list. You’ve been bringing some of the more rock and roll tunes back into the set.

WINTER Yeah, we added “Bony Maronie,” “Don’t Take Advantage of Me,” and “Good Morning Little School Girl,” and we’re talking about of bunch of other new songs to play. It’s fun to play new stuff.

GW Your connection to the blues is something that has always been extremely important to you.

WINTER Yes, it is. I love blues. I don’t mind a little rock and roll, too, as long as it’s blues-based rock and roll. Like Chuck Berry, who I love. He’s the one that got me started playing the guitar, pretty much. “Johnny B. Goode” is such a great song, maybe the ultimate rock and roll song.

GW Your friendship with Clarence Garlow when you were a teenager was an important step in your development as a blues player. That was when you started to go from Texas to Louisiana to play in clubs for the first time.

WINTER Clarence was the first real blues guy that I ever met. He played, but he also had a radio show in Beaumont on KJET. It was an hour-long show, and he played a lot of really great stuff. I started listening to him and started calling him up, asking him to play certain songs. When I was about 14 or 15, I had a job working in a music store. He came in to buy some strings, and I recognized his voice, so I started playing one of his songs for him on the guitar. He said, “You know who I am, don’t you?” And I said, “Sure I do!” We got a friendship going there, and I’d go out and sit in with him on his gigs.

GW In past interviews, you’ve mentioned getting your fake ID around that time so you could go play with Clarence in the clubs.

WINTER That’s right. I was 15 and my ID said I was 24. We started doing our first club gigs when I was 15. Boy, my parents hated me doing that! It took me a long time to convince them to let me keep doing it. Edgar was only 12. He was playing nightclubs at 12 years old! Our drummer’s father was supposed to be taking care of us, but all he wanted to do was to go out and drink. He didn’t pay any attention to us at all, but it made my folks feel better that he was going to be there watching us.

GW In 1976, you released Together, a live album recorded with Edgar that revisits songs from your club days, such as the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” “Soul Man” and “Harlem Shuffle.” The inner sleeve shows a picture of you as a teenager standing with B.B. King. Did you play a show with him at the time?

WINTER I was 17 in that picture. I just sat in with him. I wasn’t playing with my band. B.B. was playing at a club called the Raven in Beaumont, and we were the only white people in the place. But nobody bothered us. Everyone was real nice. B.B. didn’t know who I was—I wasn’t anybody! I was just a little kid. He didn’t know if I could play or not.

GW Did you just walk up to him and say, “Hey man, I want to play with you”?

WINTER Yeah! I had a lot of balls when I was a kid. I just wanted him to hear me play. And he kept coming up with reasons why I shouldn’t. He asked me, “Do you have a union card?” and I said, “Yeah, I’ve got a union card.” And he said, “Well, you don’t know my arrangements,” and I said, “I’ve listened to all of your records. I know everything.” Finally, he thought I was from the IRS and I was coming to get him for taxes! [laughs] And then he said that he figured that if he was the only black guy in a white club, they might not want him to play because he was black, and he didn’t want me to think that he didn’t want me to play because I was white. So he let me get up and play with his band, even though he had no idea whether I could play or not! But I got a standing ovation.

GW Do you remember what song you played?

WINTER Yeah, “Going Down Slow.” I’ll never forget that night.

GW One of the unusual things about your playing technique is that you use a thumb pick, even though a large percentage of your playing requires fast alternate picking, for which most players will use a flatpick. How did you settle on the thumb pick?

WINTER My first guitar teacher, Luther Nally, played a lot of Chet Atkins–type of stuff, which is played with a thumb pick. Luther used one, and I liked Chet Atkins a lot, and Merle Travis, too, who also used the thumb pick. With the thumb pick, you can get good definition while picking with your fingers and your thumb, so I just started playing that way. A lot of the blues guys, like Muddy Waters, used thumb picks too. I’ve never even tried using a flatpick.

GW How did you first get started with slide guitar?

WINTER From listening to The Best of Muddy Waters. I also listened to a lot of Robert Johnson, Son House and Elmore James. I learned a lot from Elmore. I could hear that they were switching back and forth between playing with the slide and fretting with his fingers, but I had no idea how they were doing it. Back when I started, I didn’t know anyone else that played slide. I had to learn it all myself from listening to the records—the tunings and everything.

GW Your preference is to wear a metal slide on your pinkie. Did you always use a metal slide?

WINTER No, I tried test tubes, which were too light, and lipstick holders, but nothing worked good till I went to Denver and a friend of mine got me a piece of pipe to use. I like the metal slide because it sounds nastier. It’s sharper and clearer.

GW And now Dunlop makes a replica of your slide, called the Johnny Winter Texas Slider.

WINTER Yeah, it’s great. Looks just like it and plays just like it.

GW You just signed a new record deal with Megaforce. What do you plan to release next?

WINTER We’re thinking of calling the first record Roots, and on it I’m going to revisit a dozen classic blues songs that have always meant a lot to me, each song written by a different artist. The plan is also to have a variety of great guests. I’m really looking forward to making this record.

GW Your new authorized biography, Raisin’ Cain, is very candid about some very difficult times in your life, such as your past problems with drugs and alcohol, and all of your struggles personal and professional. How do you feel about the book?

WINTER I’m very happy with the book. [Author] Mary Lou [Sullivan] did a real good job. What I like is that it’s very realistic and doesn’t try to cover up the truth. Everything is in there, the good stuff and the bad stuff: how hard it was growing up in Texas being an albino, the early days of my career, signing the big record deal with Columbia, my problems with drugs. And it’s told in exactly the way that it happened. I’ve led a very interesting life! [laughs]