From the original primal "Rock and Roll!!!" to the meltdown solo to the death stomp coda, this is what we have been waiting for. Winter, that albino Texas freak, gives better justification to the white man's blues than any British Invasion band could have hoped for.Īnd then, just when one thought it was safe to go outside, Winter redefines Chuck Berry and the whole of the big band of rock and roll. His "Let it Bleed" and "Silver Train" are also definitive. "Jumping Jack Flash" on this recording is a searing and corrosive statement well beyond the original. If Jimi Hendrix is the definitive interpreter of Bob Dylan and Joe Cocker the definitive interpreter of the Beatles, then Winter is the same for the Rolling Stones. Johnny Winter And Live contains two pieces as perfect as "Statesboro Blues" and "One Way Out" were for the Allman Brothers Band. One never knew what gods they would run into on the street. The late 1960s and early 1970s at the Fillmore East in NYC was like the Paris Left Bank in the time of the Impressionists. If we neglect the incipient "Rock and Roll Medley" this recording contains definitive treatments of BB King, Chuck Berry, and the The Rolling Stones as well as Winter's own Woodstock tour-de-force "Mean Town Blues." His was a contemporary talent that rivaled that of Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix. This recordings contains the gold standard for live recordings. Archival material has surfaced that proves that a more competently assembled recording was possible, even then. The programming of this disc is his fault as well as that of the label. But that aside, Johnny Winter And Live documents Winter in his high salad days, during a heroin addiction that would both fuel his genius and ruin it. That is one reason this recording is such a mess.Īdd to that the presence of a "Rock and Roll Medley" and one would expect a recording death knell even 45 years ago. In this day of immediate data, admitting that one does not know an exact date is impressive. It documents two shows: one at the Fillmore East in New York City and at Pirate's World in Dania, Florida sometime in the fall of 1970. This particular live recording, Johnny Winter And Live smacks of finishing a contract. Johnny Winter led a power trio in the early 1970s supplemented by guitarist Rick Derringer (who later broke through with the Derringer original "Rock and roll Hoochie-Coo" which Winter had also recorded). There is no other live rock and roll disc that is both so wrong and so perfect at the same time.
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