| dbo:abstract |
Johnny Winter (1944–2014) was an American rock and blues musician. From 1959 to 1967, he recorded several singles for mostly small record companies in his native Texas. In 1968, Winter completed his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, and in 1969, he was signed to Columbia Records. With the label, Winter had his greatest success on the main American record chart; Johnny Winter (1969), Second Winter (1969), Live Johnny Winter And (1971), and Still Alive and Well (1973) all reached the top forty on the Billboard 200 album chart. In 1974, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified Live Johnny Winter And gold, his only record to receive an award from the organization. Beginning in 1973, Winter's music was issued by Blue Sky Records, a Columbia custom label. At Blue Sky, Winter also became a producer and was responsible for releases by Chicago blues pioneer Muddy Waters. He produced Hard Again (1977), which earned Waters a Grammy Award and helped re-establish his popularity. In the years after 1984, Winter changed record companies several times, never remaining with any one for more than three albums. These included Alligator Records, MCA Records' Voyager subsidiary, Point Blank Records, Virgin Records, and Megaforce Records. In 2007, he began producing a number of albums from his personal recordings, designated the "Live Bootleg Series". Winter's last studio album, Step Back, released shortly after his death in 2014, was his most successful in the record charts since his Columbia period. Several live albums and compilations have appeared on Billboard's "Blues Albums" specialty chart. Throughout his career, Winter's recording catalogue was plagued by bootleg albums and unauthorized re-releases of singles from his early pre-Columbia Records days. These records competed with his official releases and some were doctored with later overdubs by other musicians. Royalties were not Winter's primary concern: "I just don't want that bullshit out ... It's just bad music." (en) |
| rdfs:comment |
Johnny Winter (1944–2014) was an American rock and blues musician. From 1959 to 1967, he recorded several singles for mostly small record companies in his native Texas. In 1968, Winter completed his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, and in 1969, he was signed to Columbia Records. With the label, Winter had his greatest success on the main American record chart; Johnny Winter (1969), Second Winter (1969), Live Johnny Winter And (1971), and Still Alive and Well (1973) all reached the top forty on the Billboard 200 album chart. In 1974, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified Live Johnny Winter And gold, his only record to receive an award from the organization. (en) |
