Born in Beaumont, Texas on February 23, 1944 John Dawson Winter III grew up surrounded by the blues, country and Cajun music. His brother Edgar was born three years later and the two showed an inclination toward music at an early age. As Johnny told Down Beat Magazine, "We sang regularly, because Daddy loved to sing harmony. He sang in a barbershop quartet and in a church choir, so Edgar and I started singing as soon as we were born, almost." Johnny began playing clarinet at age five and switched to ukulele a few years later. Johnny and Edgar began performing as a duet in an Everly Brothers vein, winning talent contests and appearing on local television shows. when Johnny was Ii the Winter Brothers traveled to New York to audition for Ted Mack's "Original Amateur hour". Soon after, their first exposure to rock'n'roll came through the music of Little Richard, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins and early Elvis Presley. They began soaking up the sound of rhythm & blues from DJ Clarence Garlow's Bon Ton Roulette Show on KJET radio in Beaumont. At age 14, Johnny organized his first band, Johnny and the Jammers. with brother Edgar on piano. A year later, they cut two songs at Bill Hall's Gulf Coast Recording Studios in Beaumont. The singles School Day Blues and You Know I Love You came out a month later on Houston-based Dart Records, gaining the Winter brothers some local notoriety. Around this time, Johnny began sitting in with DJ Clarence Garlow who performed around town and had a regional hit with Bon Ton Roulette. Johnny also frequented the Beaumont's all black Raven Club, where the aspiring blues guitarist got to see such heroes as Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Bobby Bland for the first time. In the early 6O's, Johnny cut singles for regional labels like KRCO, Frolic, Diamond, Goldband, Jim, and Todd. In 1963, he moved to Chicago to check out the burgeoning blues scene. Upon returning to Beaumont, Johnny cut Eternally a pop- flavored number with horn arrangements by Edgar, which Atlantic Records licensed. That tune became a big hit around the Texas-Louisiana area and suddenly Johnny was opening up area coliseum shows for the Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis. His regular band around this time was alternately known as the Crystaliers. It and them and Black' Plague featured Edgar on keyboards and sax, Ikey Sweat on bass and Norman Samaha on drums. After two-and-a-half years of barnstorming the Deep South, they settled in Houston where they spent 1967 as the house band at the Act III Club. In 1968, Johnny began playing in a trio with bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner. Their gigs at places like Austin's Vulcan Gas Company and Houston's Love Street Light Circus attracted the attention of a Rolling Stone writer who had been working on a piece about the Texas hippie scene. The author devoted three paragraphs to Johnny, whom he referred to as "the hottest item outside of Janis Joplin". The article also created a flood of sudden interest in the album THE PROGRESSIVE BLUES EXPERIMENT, a collection of straight blues tunes that Johnny's trio had initially recorded at the Vulcan Gas Company and which was quickly picked up for national release by Imperial. Johnny had been investigating the blues scene in England just before the Rolling Stone issue came out. Upon returning to Texas, he became the focus of a furious bidding war between major labels, eventually signing to Columbia with a much ballyhooed recording contract. His excellent debut LP, Johnny Winter, was released late in 1968. A series of classic hard rock'n'roll blues albums for Columbia followed: Second Winter (l969), Still Alive and Well' (1973), and Saints and Sinners(1974). Later in '74 Johnny joined the CBS affiliate label Blue Sky, commencing with the rootsy John Dawson Winter III and Captured Live (1976). In 1977, Johnny fulfilled a dream by producing Muddy Water's comeback album, Hard Again, which won a Grammy Award for Blue Sky. They made a formidable team, following up that success with the 1978's Grammy winner, I'm Ready, the 1979 Grammy winner Muddy Mississippi Waters Live and 1980 King Bee. As Johnny recalls of that period, "Working with Muddy made me feel people were finally realizing that I'm not faking, and can really play blues. I felt like those albums helped me establish myself.". In1977, Johnny also used Muddy's hand for one of his most acclaimed albums, the aptly named Nothin' But The Blues. Johnny's final projects for Blue Sky were 1978's White Hot & Blue and 1980's Raisin' Cain. Following a four year hiatus from recording, he returned with a blues-fueled vengeance with his fine Alligator Records debut, the Grammy nominated Guitar Slinger. Two equally strong, rootsy projects for the label followed: l985's Serious Business, also nominated for a Grammy and 1986's Third Degree recently listed in a book by the author and Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame Archivist Robert Santelli as one of the '101 essential blues albums'. Johnny also produced and played on an album by blues harmonica great Sonny Terry called I Think I Got The Blues, which was released on Alligator. His venture for the MCA-distributed Voyager label, The Winter of '88 was an attempt at crossing over with a more contemporary flavored product. Johnny Winter was definitely back on track as a no-frills hard rocking bluesman with his Grammy-nominated Charisma/Point Blank debut Let Me In. Co-produced by Dick Shurman, the respected bluesologist who previously had a hand in Winter's three fine Alligator albums, Let Me In highlights the Texas guitar slinger at what be does best - burning shuffles, screaming slow blues, rocking raw abandon and vocals charged with passion. The opening track, Illustrated Man, was written especially with Johnny in mind by Nashville tunesmith, Fred James and his wife Mary Ann Brandon. Basically a catalog of all the many tattoos emblazoned on Winter's skin, the song also featured Johnny's scorching signature licks on his headless Lazer guitar (designed by Austin luither, Mark Erlewine). The follow-up was 1992's Hey Where's Your Brother? (Named after perhaps the most frequently asked question Johnny has heard). It too displayed Johnny Winter at the top of his form, melding the best of the blues and rock 'n' roll with unsurpassed power and passion, helping to insure his place as one of the most dependable and enduring blues/rock stars of all time. Like Let Me In, it was produced by Johnny and Dick Shurman and recorded in Chicago. After a hiatus from recording except for a thrilling Highway 61 Revisited which highlighted Bob Dylan's 1992 30th anniversary tribute (released on a Columbia CD and on a video), Johnny and his band of longtime drummer Torn Compton and stalwart bassist Mark Epstein took the stage at his home base, New York City's Bottom Line, in April 1997, and recorded the hard-hitting representative Johnny Winter Live In New York City '97 for Pointblank, again with Shurman producing. Continuing the focus of his two Pointblank studio albums, Johnny has chosen the firm timeless ground of the blues. The recording follows the standard format for Johnny's set: warm up on a smoking instrumental medley; rock the blues on some vocals featuring his patented Lazer guitar sound; switch over to showcase his incredible slide chops and sound on what one audience member loudly calls "the magic guitar", his trusty sunburst Gibson Firebird, for two screamers; then deliver a crunching encore that goes from Johnny's rocking blues anthem Johnny Guitar to a white hot dose of New Orleans funk, Drop the Bomb! The crowd can even be heard reacting near the end of Johnny's solo part of the encore jam to another trademark: his twirl. Throughout, the album conveys the spontaneity, creativity, rawness and exuberant energy that are part of a peak bandstand experience As Johnny Winter Live In New York City 1997 makes joyously clear, Johnny Winter remains a deep, powerfull and driving blues artist, a commodity even more to be valued after the recent untimely losses of so many of the music greats. Johnny is more than just a survivor or nostalgia act; he's a vital treasure who should be appreciated while we still have him to savor, for what he has been and what be still is. Surely the man who did so much to bring Muddy Waters such a glorious final stage of his career deserves similar accolades while he can enjoy them; they mean as much to him as he's meant to his legion of loyal fans over the years. But this isn't just a matter of sentiment or history, it's a matter of yet another pile-driving serving of Johnny Winter's tradition-rooted, but unique and legendarily masterful, take on the blues. There's plenty to celebrate as long as Johnny is singing 'they call me Johnny Guitar. I'm comin' to play in your town"