Johnny Winter, Woodstock 1969: Mean Town Blues

[bluesbassman]

There are numerous players that kick ass on slide, but Johnny is the king IMO. Playing a '66 Fender XII strung as a six string here.

[In_The_Wind]

1. Holy cow! I didn't know anyone else was a Johnny Winter fan!

[Flashmann]

11. Huge Johnny Winter fan here

His "Guitar Slinger" album is one of my all time favorites..

[In_The_Wind]

12. ^^^ !!! ^^^

[panader0]

2. Former DUer TominTib is another greatslide player

I got to play with him last year. He knows his shit.

[DFW]

3. I wish I still had the photo

I met Johnny Winter at a rock festival in southern France in 1970. I had not brought a guitar with me, and had bought a cheap, gaudy (blue glitter) plastic electric guitar in Stockholm, just to have something to keep my fingers in shape. Johnny Winter saw it, and just had to have it. I told him I had paid $40 for it, but if he wanted to give me the $40 back and take a photo of him with it (or else no one would believe me), it was a deal. He said sure. He said he didn't know if he'd ever play it, but he wanted to have it for photo shoots.

At the festival, he also used that Fender XII, playing slide on "Highway 61."

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. nice. what happened to the photo?

[DFW]

5. Hell if I know

Probably got tossed out with other debris from the house I grew up in when it was sold after the last of my parents died.

He was one hell of a nice guy. The others in the band he was playing with, less so. The other lead guitarist was one hell of a nasty character from Indiana called Rick Derringer (or whatever his real name was). The guy could play, though. He said he had been one of the original McCoys ("Hang On Sloopy&quot . The drummer was from Florida, and that's about all I can remember. Most of the groups were French, although a couple were from the UK, including a decent group called Coliseum. The other known acts were Mungo Jerry from the UK and Leonard Cohen from Canada. They stood out because Mungo Jerry didn't use a drummer and Leonard Cohen was more than a little out of place at a rock festival.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. Rick Derringer could play a mean guitar but, yeah ... I can see where he could have an attitude.

thanks for the background.

[panader0]

10. I met Rick Derringer once when he played with Johnny's brother Edgar.

He seemed like a nice guy to me. Very short though, that sometimes causes a chip on the shoulder.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. ah, yeah -

The Napoleon Syndrome, could be that very thing.

[bluesbassman]

7. Great story with the little blue guitar DFW.

Unfortunately I never got to see Johnny in those stadium filling years. I did see him though around '92 at the Warfield in San Francisco. He wasn't getting around as well by then, but he still played standing up. What he did with a guitar was nothing short of astonishing, and he played non stop for almost two hours. Hell, I don't know how he did it 'cause I was exhausted after the set!

[DFW]

8. I finally found out Derringer's real name

Zehringer.

No wonder he changed it to Derringer. I might have done likewise.

[MiddleFingerMom]

9. My favorite Winter album might be one that exists only in my flawed memory...

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... but I think it had a predominantly red cover and was all- or close-to-all acoustic.
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I love his acoustic work and it's so hard to find on YouTube.
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