Winter, Johnny - Second Winter - Used CD

Chronologically coming in like a bridge between Hendrix and ZZ Top, Winter was similar with that fellow Texas outfit, both bands starting off with feet firmly planted in the blues but moving into an offspring of the black music of Texas blues, southern R&B, and Hendrix, the similarities showing when you compare Winter with ZZ Top's 1975 Tejas.  Of course, some differences clearly come through as well, and while ZZ Top would probably end up at least 10 times as big and popular as Winter, this 1969 outing marked the entry into some years where Winter was probably at least 10 times as big and popular as ZZ Top.  While much of the blues rock of this era ain't usually my bag, this set rocks, and it's great to hear this with the knowledge that that masses would embrace a band like this that didn't try to create hits or signature riffs and kept it rolling with a rough and tumble sound.  And while I expected extreme excess when I played this the other day, Winter manages to balance the excess with some restraint, covering  Chuck Berry, Percy Mayfield, two Little Richard numbers, and Dylan, and like with the others, the cover of "Highway 61" shows respect toward the original but doesn't let that intent get in the way of ripping it out and making it his own.  (I'm sure his shows were full of marathon excess--or so I assume--the one time I saw him, he seemed both joyous and pissed off, and perhaps completely wasted, and he avoided the slow blues completely and offered a manic frantic sonic assault, ripping without pause through about 10 songs in about 20 minutes.  While the crowd was pretty ticked off and bitter about the 7 bucks they'd spent for the show, I thought it was cool, watching Winter just rip it out, kicking over the drum kit and chucking his guitar against an amp.  Done.) -- winch

Cub Koda: Johnny's second Columbia album shows an artist in transition. He's still obviously a Texas bluesman, recording in the same trio format that he left Dallas with. But his music is moving toward the more rock & roll sounds he would go on to create. The opener, "Memory Pain," moves him into psychedelic blues-rock territory, while old-time rockers like "Johnny B. Goode," "Miss Ann," and "Slippin' and Slidin'" provide him with familiar landscapes on which to spray his patented licks. His reworking of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" is the high spot of the record, a career-defining track that would remain a major component in his set list to the end of his life.