{"id":15346,"date":"2014-08-18T17:09:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T22:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=15346"},"modified":"2014-09-02T14:57:37","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T19:57:37","slug":"i-dont-mind-dying-johnny-winter-1944-2014-by-rafael-alvarez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/i-dont-mind-dying-johnny-winter-1944-2014-by-rafael-alvarez\/","title":{"rendered":"“I DON\u2019T MIND DYING – Johnny Winter: 1944\u20132014” by Rafael Alvarez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"johnny<\/a>This is how bad news travels.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the evening of Wednesday, July 16, Amberly Stokes<\/strong> received a dire text message while tending bar at Rosa\u2019s Lounge, a blues club in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stokes, a young, unsung hero of the blues, relayed the info to the man on stage, harmonica great Sugar Blue<\/strong>, best known for blowing harp on the Rolling Stones<\/strong>\u2019 1978 smash, \u201cMiss You.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Blue\u2014born James Whiting<\/strong> in Harlem in 1949\u2014announced the as-yet-unconfirmed report from the stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

And club owner and drummer Tony Mangiullo<\/strong>, in his office on the second floor of the juke named for his mother, heard it through the floorboards.<\/span><\/p>\n

The great blues guitarist Johnny Winter<\/strong> was dead. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBoom\u2014gone!\u201d said Mangiullo, standing outside of the West Armitage Avenue club a few days after Winter, 70, died on tour in Switzerland. \u201cWhen I was growing up back in Milan, Johnny was part of my introduction to the blues.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Around the world, a million middle-aged music fans\u2014people like me, a 56-year-old who came of age when blues\/rock bands like Foghat<\/strong> sold out baseball stadiums\u2014were saying the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d heard \u201cI Can\u2019t Quit You Baby\u201d on the first Zeppelin<\/strong> album in high school with no idea who Willie Dixon<\/strong> was and was walloped by Johnny\u2019s sonic take on \u201cRock Me Baby\u201d\u2014without knowing it was one of the most covered blues compositions of all-time\u2014on the Still Alive & Well<\/em> LP.<\/span><\/p>\n

But my true introduction to the blues didn\u2019t happen until Johnny began working in the late 1970s with Muddy Waters<\/strong>, who once told me that \u201cJohnny Winter is the only white man who really understands the blues.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"johnny<\/a>So obsessed did I become with the music of Mississippi filtered through the field hollering voice and long, bony fingers of a man whose paternal grandfather was once the mayor of Leland\u2014\u201cyou know, that\u2019s where I come from \u2026\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 he sang\u2014that I once advocated the Gospel According to Johnny to Pete Townsend<\/strong> of <\/span>The Who<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the summer of 1997 and Johnny was well into a long medical and musical decline\u2014methadone and carpal tunnel, weak of voice and wizened beyond his years by booze and cigarettes\u2014a predicament only somewhat rectified just before his death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Strolling down Portobello Road in London, I spied Townsend walking by himself and ran up to thank him for giving me so much joy over so many years, especially Quadrophenia<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I then asked a question that will forever burn in my heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you think that Johnny Winter is the far superior blues guitarist than Eric Clapton<\/strong>?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Townsend just stared at me and our brief and up-to-then amiable chat soon ended. It was Johnny\u2019s suffering that prompted the sincere though ridiculous question; an American brick through the window of the Rock Aristocracy to which Winter once belonged.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because the truth is\u2014in addition to the drugs and booze and his manifold insecurities\u2014Johnny\u2019s once mighty career deteriorated because of his stubborn commitment to the only music he loved.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fans screamed for rock and roll and he gave them gasoline.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a recent appreciation of Johnny Winter, Washington, D.C. music critic Geoffrey Himes<\/strong> told this story by-way-of Austin writer Michael Corcoran<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not long before Rolling Stone<\/em> magazine \u201cdiscovered\u201d him in 1968, Johnny and his power trio\u2014drummer \u201cUncle John\u201d Turner<\/strong> and bassist Tommy Shannon<\/strong>\u2014opened for Muddy Waters at the fabled Vulcan Gas Company in Austin, Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the elder bluesman\u2019s first encounter with Winter and he was astonished as this skinny kid roared through a set that included \u201cRollin\u2019 and Tumblin\u2019\u201d which the Rolling Fork-born Waters first recorded in 1950. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dropping nickels into a pay phone to call a friend back in Chicago; Muddy held the receiver in the air for a few moments and then got back on the horn.<\/span>
\n\u201cHe\u2019s white!\u2019 Muddy shouted into the phone. \u201cHe\u2019s REALLY white!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

\"JohnnyWinterQuote_sized\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in The Local Voice #209 (published July 31, 2014). To download a PDF of this issue,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

by Rafael Alvarez
\nwww.alvarezfiction.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is how bad news travels. On the evening of Wednesday, July 16, Amberly Stokes received a dire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":15347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1209],"tags":[4066,4076,4071,4077,4069,1554,670,4078,5,4001,4074,3819,4067,4068,4075,4080,4070,4073,4072,4079],"class_list":["post-15346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","tag-amberly-stokes","tag-eric-clapton","tag-foghat","tag-geoffrey-himes","tag-james-whiting","tag-johnny-winter","tag-leland","tag-michael-corcoran","tag-mississippi","tag-muddy-waters","tag-pete-townsend","tag-rafael-alvarez","tag-rolling-stones","tag-sugar-blue","tag-the-who","tag-tommy-shannon","tag-tony-mangiullo","tag-willie-dixon","tag-zeppelin","tag-uncle-john-turner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/JohnnyWinterFeat.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}