Johnny Winter: Winter in Winter

Johnny Winter wrapped up his popular Winter-in-Winter series of January performances at B.B. King's last Tuesday evening with a much appreciated and heated set. Winter burst on the national scene in 1969 when he signed a lucrative and highly publicized contract with Columbia. His first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, however, was released the previous year on Austin's Sonobeat Records and featured Texas stomp covers of, among others, B.B. King, Slim Harpo, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Muddy Waters. Winters has been rocking the blues ever since. On Roots, his eighteenth studio album released last year, Winter covers the usual suspects: among others, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Chuck Berry, and Muddy Waters, for whom he produced four albums from 1977-1981.

Despite his own many fine studio albums over the years, Winter is best known for his live work and live albums-since 2007 a series of seven live "bootlegs" have been released. Seeing him at B.B.'s reminded me of just how good Winter can be live. He may not be the lanky figure who once pranced around the stage while blistering through torrid solos, and his voice may have lost a bit of its power -he seems to rest it on certain songs these days-but his fingers have regained any prowess that they may lost during the early part of the 2000s when he had severe health concerns. Approaching 68, frail and with poor eyesight, he is helped to the stage and takes his place in a chair, where he remains seated except for the "official" set's final song, "It's All Over Now."

Dressed in his usual black with his usual black cowboy hat, he stares ahead, expressionless and still, except when he leans into the microphone. He is, however, authoritative, magnetic, even shamanic, commanding attention as he seems to channel his energy into his fingers which race up and down the fretboard enlarging story after story with each ferocious solo. Now an elder statesman of the blues, he has survived heroin and pill addiction, alcoholism, hip surgery, carpal tunnel syndrome, enduring legal entanglements with his former manager, and a body that fewer than ten years ago shrunk to a reported ninety pounds. He has a lot to sing and play about.

At B.B.'s, the set was classic Winter. No surprises. In a sense, he could have played the same songs forty years ago-but not the same way. He has a different kind of power, no less than what it was, but Winter now holds different truths. He opened with Freddie King's "Hideaway" and concluded over 75 minutes later with the second of his two-song encore "Highway 61," still one of the most effective covers of any Dylan song. Throughout the evening, Winter revealed his blues roots, barrelhousing through familiar numbers like "She Likes to Boogie Real Low," "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," and "Got My Mojo Working," which featured the vigorous harmonica of Frank Latorre, who also joined the band for "Last Night" from Winter's 2004 release, I'm a Bluesman, also represented this evening by the rocking "Lone Wolf."

Winter also paid tribute to his rock-and-roll heroes, performing his always rowdy versions of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" and Larry Williams's "Bony Moronie," while acknowledging his contemporaries with a sterling version of "Gimme Shelter" (which morphed out of "Don't Take Advantage of Me") and "It's All Over Now," which, for me, was a weak rather than climatic finish. But all potency was restored with the first song of his encore, his raucous version of "Dust My Broom," featuring his stinging slide. It was an evening of hard-rocking Texas blues and rock and roll, aggressive and searing solos, and mystery and revelation, and left me perplexed as to Winter's absence from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Pushing Winter was the powerful and pulsating rhythm section of Scott Spray on bass and Vito Liuzzi on drums, and outstanding second guitarist Paul Nelson, who not only produced Roots but perhaps more than anyone else helped to resurrect Johnny's career and abilities after the guitarist's difficulties in recent years.

The opening act featured Englishman Oli Brown, days shy of his 22nd birthday, in a well- received five-song, thirty-minute set. Brown, whose blues prowess belies his years, plays less like Winter and more like Clapton, Hendrix, and Page of early Zeppelin. While most of his set featured powerful blues rock riffs and energetic solos, he mixed slow blues and funk in his highly effective cover of "No Diggity" by Blackstreet (with Dr. Dre and Queen Pen), and showcased his vocal skills on the blues ballad "Speechless"-both songs from Heads I Win Tails You Lose, his highly celebrated second CD. Brown bears watching (and listening), and with continued support will ensure that the blues remains dynamic well into the future.