Johnny Winter, a Texas-bred guitarist and singer who was a
mainstay of the blues-rock world since the 1960s, died on Wednesday in his hotel
room in Zurich. He was 70 and had been on tour in Europe.
Mr. Winter’s family was awaiting information about the cause, a spokeswoman,
Carla Parisi, said on Thursday.
A virtuosic, high-energy blues guitarist, Mr. Winter was perhaps as well known
for his appearance as he was for his playing. Tall and thin, with pinkish eyes
and chalk-white skin and hair, he — like his brother and occasional
collaborator, Edgar, a keyboardist and saxophonist — had albinism, a fact that
commentators rarely failed to mention. “If you can imagine a 130-pound,
cross-eyed albino with long fleecy hair playing some of the gutsiest, fluid
blues guitar you ever heard, then enter Johnny Winter,” Rolling Stone wrote in a
1968 article that introduced Mr. Winter, then 24, to the wider public and the
music business.
In less than a year he would sign a lucrative contract with Columbia Records,
perform at Woodstock and be widely hailed and hyped as one of the most talented
guitarists of his generation. Performing blues standards like “Good Morning
Little School Girl” with a fiery touch, he became a fixture on the rock touring
circuit and had solid record sales during his 1970s peak.
John Dawson Winter III was born on Feb. 23, 1944, in Beaumont, Tex., and took to
music while still very young, playing clarinet, ukulele and eventually guitar.
When Mr. Winter was 11, he and Edgar, who is two years younger, performed Everly
Brothers songs at local talent shows, and by 15 he had cut his first record: the
Chuck Berry-esque “School Day Blues,” credited to Johnny and the Jammers, one of
his many teenage bands. Around that time Mr. Winter also discovered the music of
blues heroes like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and their sound became his
lifelong muse.
“I loved the blues,” Mr. Winter told Look magazine in 1969. “You can feel that
nobody cares about you, and you sing, and it doesn’t make any difference and you
don’t care. It’s not a happy feeling, it’s not sad. You can cry, and it’s good.”
His first album with Columbia, called simply “Johnny Winter,” arrived in
mid-1969 on a wave of media attention. (An earlier LP, “The Progressive Blues
Experiment,” released by a small Texas label, was hastily reissued to capitalize
on the publicity.)
A second Columbia album, “Second Winter,” came out soon after, followed by
“Johnny Winter And,” on which he introduced a new backing band featuring the
guitarist Rick Derringer. That album included a Derringer song, “Rock and Roll,
Hoochie Koo,” that would become a Top 40 hit when rerecorded by Mr. Derringer as
a solo artist a few years later.
Mr. Winter continued to record and tour prolifically in the ’70s, and he was
also open about the drug problems that he developed along the way. In 1973,
after taking a brief break, he released “Still Alive and Well,” one of his
best-selling albums. In 1976 he released “Together,” a live album with his
brother, Edgar, who survives him, as does Mr. Winter’s wife, Susan Warford
Winter.
In 1977 Mr. Winter began a series of collaborations with Mr. Waters, producing
his album “Hard Again.” That record, and two that followed in the late ’70s, won
acclaim for their raw sound, and each won a Grammy Award. From there Mr.
Winter’s own albums increasingly focused on the blues. His most recent, “Roots”
(2011), features songs by Robert Johnson, Elmore James and Little Walter.
Mr. Winter has been ranked the 63rd greatest guitar player of all time by
Rolling Stone, and throughout his career he and his musicianship have been
particularly admired by other musicians.
“Roots” features guest appearances by the guitarists Warren Haynes and Derek
Trucks of the Allman Brothers, the country star Vince Gill and many others,
including Edgar Winter. His next release, “Step Back,” scheduled for September,
features the guitarists Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Joe Perry of
Aerosmith.
A version of this article appears in print
on July 18, 2014,
on
page A21 of the New York edition with the headline:
Johnny Winter Dies at 70;
Virtuosic Blues Guitarist.
