Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition)

by Mary Lou Sullivan

  Despite a raging snowstorm that almost shut down the city, Shurman took Johnny to Biddy Mulligan’s to hear Lonnie Brooks, who Johnny had seen in Texas in the early ’60s. “Me and Dick had to push a car out of a snowdrift to get a parking space,” says Johnny, chuckling at the memory. “I jammed with Lonnie that night. There weren’t many people there but I liked it pretty well.”

  During Johnny’s jaunts to Manhattan nightclubs, he also forged a friendship with John Belushi, who asked his advice about his Blues Brothers project with Dan Aykroyd. “I had seen John Belushi at several different clubs and got to be friends with him,” says Johnny. “He called one night and wanted to know what I thought about him doin’ the Blues Brothers thing. I told him nobody would take him seriously; they would just think it was funny. He didn’t say anything back—I don’t know if that’s what he was lookin’ for or not.”

  Luckily, Belushi didn’t take his advice. In April 1978, he and Aykroyd made their Blues Brothers debut on Saturday Night Live, with Belushi as lead vocalist “Joliet” Jake Blues and Aykroyd as harpist/vocalist Elwood Blues, fronting a band of well-respected musicians. Their live album, Briefcase of Blues, released later that year, reached number one on the Billboard charts and went double platinum. The 1980 The Blues Brothers movie is still considered a classic.

  In late spring/early summer 1978, Johnny returned to The Schoolhouse studio to make White, Hot & Blue. Johnny produced that album, which includes three of his originals—“One Step at a Time,” “Slidin’ In,” and “Nickel Blues”—as well as “just good ole blues songs I liked,” he says.

  Unlike Nothin’ But the Blues, Johnny used his own band so it would be viewed as his own album. “I used Pat Rush, Bobby T., and Ikey,” Johnny says. “Edgar played keyboards. I also used Pat Ramsey, a real good harp player.”

  Ramsey landing a spot on that album was a stroke of fate; he had played backstage for Derringer in Colorado, and been encouraged to send Johnny a tape. “Johnny had drawers full of tapes that people gave him in his music room in the penthouse,” said Rush. “When I was living with him, I’d go through them, throw them in, and listen to them. One night, I listened to a tape by Pat Ramsey and played it for Johnny. He went, ‘Wow! That guy is unbelievable. Let’s call him up.”’

  Johnny called and invited him to fly to Chicago to jam the same day, and then gave Ramsey a plane ticket to Connecticut to record White, Hot & Blue that weekend. “We didn’t have any rehearsals—just went into the studio,” says Johnny. “I liked him because he was a real fancy player. Pat Ramsey fit into the band real well, but I had to be careful because he was a pretty busy harp player in those days.”

  Unlike Johnny’s previous recordings in The Schoolhouse, White, Hot & Blue had all the instruments—rhythm guitar, bass, and drums—miked separately on separate tracks. The majority of the vocals were overdubbed as were Ramsey’s harp parts and Rush’s slide guitar. Although Rush had been playing the harmonica parts of “Walkin’ by Myself” on slide guitar during the Nothin’ But the Blues tour, he didn’t expect to play slide on the album. “I figured he would have Pat Ramsey do the harp on it, but was pleasantly surprised,” Rush said. “As far as I know, I’m the only slide player playing on a Johnny Winter album except for Johnny. That’s pretty cool.”

  Torello had a surprise in the studio as well, when Johnny asked him to play while listening to a click track, a recorded synchronization tool similar to a metronome. “That was kind of weird,” said Torello. “Blues varies but Johnny says you got to play good here and I want you to play to a click track, so that’s what I did. White, Hot & Blue came out pretty good.”

  Johnny, however, wasn’t especially pleased with that album, which he felt took too long to finish. “White, Hot & Blue is okay; it’s not real great,” says Johnny. “It took longer than it should have. Ikey was not used to playing bass on blues, and the other guys were new too; that made a difference. But it sold pretty well. Blue Sky had ads in all the major magazines and did a good job promoting my records.”

  Unlike Caldwell, who felt underpaid, Rush and Torello thought Johnny treated them well. “We got session pay in the studio, and got paid by the week for the tour, plus all your expenses and per diem,” said Rush. “For the time in musical history, the pay was quite good. We weren’t on equal terms with Johnny, but we got paid twice as much as most people were making for tours at that time. He took really good care of us.”

  After the White, Hot & Blue sessions, Rush and Ramsey went their separate ways, and Sweat returned to Texas. “Ikey left because he was gettin’ crazy,” says Johnny. “He was going nuts because he had too many fans bothering him. The fans bothered everybody. We’d all stay at one hotel and sometimes he would stay somewhere else so they didn’t know where he was. He had a hard time dealing with it. So he left and started doing country back in Houston.”

  Johnny wanted to tour without a bass player, but Torello convinced him it wasn’t a good idea. “It was just me and Johnny,” said Torello. “We’re getting ready to go on tour and he says, ‘Ah, we sound good with two pieces—all I need is a beat. All they care about is seein’ me play guitar.’ I said, ‘Come on, Johnny, we got to have a bass player.’”

  Johnny checked out his favorite haunts in New York and discovered guitarist Jon Paris. “Johnny calls me up and says I found my bass player,” said Torello. “I said, ‘How does he play?’ He said, ‘I didn’t hear him play bass but he plays great harmonica.’ I was laughing, oh man, what’s this gonna be like? He says, ‘Come in next week and we’ll go see him play.’ So we went in and Jon Paris was a blessing—the guy was great. He was so perfect in the band. He plays harmonica when he plays bass, he plays guitar, he knew all the blues stuff, he knew rock stuff. He was the greatest addition. We went on like that for about the next six years.”

  In 1979, Johnny produced Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live, his third Grammy-winning album with Waters. The shows were recorded at Detroit’s Masonic Temple and at Harry Hope’s in Cary, Illinois, about forty-five miles west of Chicago.

  “It seemed like the right time to do a live album, which can be more exciting,” says Johnny. “You hear the people screamin’ in the background. But we had one guy who was whistling and that was a drag. He whistled all through the record—the real loud kind that pierces your ears.”

  The Masonic Temple gig was part of the Hard Again tour, which featured Johnny and Cotton. They played on “Mannish Boy,” “Howlin’ Wolf,” and “Deep Down in Florida.” Portnoy, who played harp on the 1978 tour, remembered the raucous audience at the Harry Hope gig. “We played the room on the second floor, and the audience stomped a hole right through the floor on ‘Mannish Boy,’” he said.

  When that album was released, Waters was doing a forty-seven-city North America tour as the opening act for Eric Clapton, who followed Johnny’s lead in exposing the elder bluesman to new audiences.

  “I think Muddy liked opening for Eric Clapton, but he probably didn’t know who he was before that time,” says Johnny. “Eric Clapton is a good guitar player. I first heard him on the John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers record.”

  Waters invited Johnny as a surprise guest to his June 12 gig at Chicago Stadium. Johnny joined Waters on “Mannish Boy” during his set and was called back onstage—along with Clapton and Willie Dixon—to play “Got My Mojo Working” during the encore. A headliner coming out to jam with the opening act attested to Clapton’s respect for Waters. “He did it ’cause he loved Muddy,” says Johnny. “And at the end of Eric’s show, me and Muddy joined him on ‘Kansas City’ and ‘Long Distance Call.’ That was a nice jam. I think Muddy liked having the two of us out there together.”

  The Rolling Stones, who took their name from one of Waters’s songs, were also big fans. So when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, whose rehearsal space was adjacent to Johnny’s at S.I.R., saw him at the studio, they asked him about the Blue Sky projects. “I talked to Mick about producing Muddy,” says Johnny with a laugh. “I got real drunk a
nd obnoxious and was slapping him on the back and being a real asshole. I was hittin’ Mick on the back just for fun and almost knocked him over. I was terrible—really obnoxious. He took it pretty good.”

  Susan remembers that evening. “I met Mick and Keith that night,” she said. “Johnny got very drunk and I couldn’t get him out of the bathroom. So I knocked on their [rehearsal space] door and said, ‘Can you help me get Johnny out of the bathroom?’ They carried him out and helped me get him into a cab. They were very sweet.”

  By the time Johnny returned to The Schoolhouse to produce Waters’s fourth album in May 1980, the goodwill that encompassed the earlier sessions was gone. The tension in the studio was palpable and it affected the album.

  “It was only a month before Muddy’s whole band split,” said Margolin. “There had been a lot of tension for almost a year over money. It was mostly a conflict with Muddy’s manager that went too far. During that time, Muddy and his manager and the band were all separate. There was a lot of tension in the studio and the music didn’t come out very good.”

  King Bee took less than a week to record, with a lineup including Waters on slide guitar and vocals, Johnny on guitar and slide guitar, Margolin on guitar, Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson on guitar, Calvin Jones on bass, Pinetop Perkins on piano, and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums. Johnny played on every song except “Champagne and Reefer”; only he and Waters played guitar on “Mean Old Frisco Blues.”

  “I don’t know why we had four; that was too many guitar players,” says Johnny. “It could have been because of the friction in his band, but Muddy never said anything. Luther played on everything. I think Bob played on everything too. If I thought I could fit in some place, I’d play. If there was already enough going on, I wouldn’t play. Playin’ with three guitars was fun. Muddy would give us leads and tell us when to play. Nobody played real rhythm; everybody was playing leads.

  “When we recorded King Bee, I don’t think Muddy was in quite as good spirits. He wasn’t willing to try as much and it wasn’t as good an album as the other three. During the sessions, everything was just a little bit harder. Muddy always wanted to be quick, but this time he did it too quick and it really made a difference. I’d tell him, ‘You need to do it again,’ and he wouldn’t do it again.”

  Cameron remembers Waters feeling a bit rushed going into those sessions. “I don’t think he was as prepared as he would have liked to have been,” he said.

  King Bee was recorded in 1980, but wasn’t released until the following year. “It took that long to get it done,” explains Johnny. “I had to go through it and make it sound as good as I could. Muddy just didn’t take enough time to get the songs right—he expected me to be able to fix everything and I couldn’t in every case. There were some songs I couldn’t make right. When I asked him to do it one more time or play something over, he just said, ‘It’s good enough.’ We had to use outtakes from the Hard Again sessions—‘(My Eyes) Keep Me in Trouble’ and ‘I Feel Like Going Home.’ They weren’t great, but they were decent. It didn’t win a Grammy ’cause it wasn’t as good an album as we had been puttin’ out.”

  Regardless of how King Bee turned out, Johnny’s recordings with Waters, including Breakin’ It Up & Breakin’ It Down, the 2007 Sony release of previously unreleased live performances from the Hard Again tour, had a strong impact on the elder bluesman’s career, as well as his legacy.

  “When I started working with Muddy back in 1971, he was not in much demand for anything, and his engagements were very, very few,” said Cameron. “Prior to the time of his death, he was in great demand. Without Johnny Winter, I don’t think there would have been a Hard Again, which was the rebirth of Muddy’s career. His relationship with Johnny, the release of Hard Again, and all of the marketing and promotional efforts they made to get him in front of a wider rock ‘n’ roll audience made a tremendous difference, both before and after his death. The income for his family, the estate that I oversee, is still quite healthy.”

  10

  ONE STEP FORWARD (TWO STEPS BACK)

  When Johnny wasn’t touring or recording, he enjoyed living in his New York penthouse apartment on East Eighty-Seventh Street, decorated in his own inimitable style. The bedroom decor included black walls, a black ceiling, black curtains, and a black carpet. Purple and silver was the color scheme in his living room, with a purple carpet, purple walls, silver blinds, a silver couch, and silver accessories. A tall wooden cabinet custom built for his extensive record collection dominated his music room.

  “We were on the twenty-second floor with a beautiful view,” says Johnny. “You could see the East River and the Triborough Bridge. You could see the river, the ocean, ships coming in—you couldn’t ask for a better view. The balcony wrapped around two different sides of the apartment. We’d use it for barbequing, and Susan had a garden.”

  Johnny didn’t let his limited vision affect his fun. When mopeds became popular in the mid- to late ’70s, he bought a pair for him and Susan. “I liked it in the nighttime mostly, but I went out in the daytime too,” he says. “It was easier to see at nighttime, and the roads didn’t have too much traffic on them. I’d drive on the regular roads and around Central Park. I was okay as long as I was careful and wasn’t around too many cars at once. I drove it for a couple of years—till they passed a law that you had to have a license. It wasn’t worth it to me to get in trouble, so I sold them.”

  On Raisin’ Cain, his last record on the Blue Sky label, Johnny returned to the trio format and The Schoolhouse studio. “I was tired of two guitar players, so I just used Bobby and Jon Paris,” says Johnny. “Jon was a pretty good harp player. I liked that he could play bass and harmonica at the same time. Bobby wasn’t really a good blues drummer but I liked him a lot. He’s a good guy but he played too much. Double bass drums were just too much. But I had him for a long time; his style and Jon’s went together pretty good.”

  Produced by Johnny and recorded quickly, Raisin’ Cain featured a mixture of musical styles. Although dominated by seven blues tracks, the album also featured early rock ’n’ roll, R&B, a Dylan cover, and a slow ballad. “Raisin’ Cain was alright—it didn’t sell good at all though,” says Johnny. “I think it was my worst-selling record.”

  Despite poor sales, Johnny’s star as a guitarist continued to rise. His wild performances and touring schedule kept him in the spotlight. When Guitar World, a magazine that still covers his career, debuted in July 1980, Johnny’s photograph graced the front cover.

  “After we did Raisin’ Cain, we went out and kept playin’ and playin’,” said Torello. “We played gigs throughout the U.S. and Europe—Paris, Spain, Sweden, Norway, England. We did Lorelei, an outdoor concert in Germany for about 30,000 to 40,000. We played in Cologne for 10,000 people; it was filmed for the Rockpalast show [a German rock music TV show that broadcasts live] and went out to 30 million people. Everybody in Europe saw the show. They put my name on the screen and every time I got out of a car in any country, I heard ‘Bubby!’ and it was usually women. I loved it!”

  Punk rocker Patti Smith, who had been Steve Paul’s driver before she began her musical career, was the opening act for that tour. Uninvited, she made her way onstage during Johnny’s televised performance of “Johnny B. Goode,” dancing around and joining in on vocals, and walked onto stage playing a clarinet during Torello’s extended, energetic solo. Both were livid. Johnny blasted her in the tour bus after the show, causing her to break down in tears.

  The band returned to Germany several times, and played large venues to appreciative audiences. “We did a heavy metal show there in 1981—we headlined over Ted Nugent, Molly Hatchet, Judas Priest,” said Torello. “Ted Nugent was originally the headliner and he came in the dressing room and said, ‘I’m not headlining over you; you’re gonna go on last.’ Johnny says, ‘Bobby, you’re gonna get your dream tonight. We’re gonna play mostly rock ’n’ roll.’ That was a good night—we played for 50,000 people.”

&nb
sp; When Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble was a local blues band, they opened for Johnny whenever he played Texas. Tommy Shannon joined Double Trouble in 1980, so a gig at the Austin Opry House in September 1981 gave Johnny a chance to catch up with his old friend and see the guitarist he had first heard in Shannon’s living room so many years before. “I liked his playing but I didn’t think he was a real blues guy,” says Johnny. “I thought he was a flashy player who played pretty much the same style—you didn’t notice him taking any chances.”

  Torello left the band shortly after that gig to play on Grace Slick’s third solo album, Welcome to the Wrecking Ball, and her 1982 European tour. He enjoyed playing with Johnny but Paul’s attitude and Teddy Slatus’s growing role in Johnny’s management had a chilling effect on his income.

  “When Steve Paul talked to you, he wouldn’t even look you in the eye,” said Torello. “He was like any manager; they only care about the artist because that’s who’s making the money. We were just hired guns. He told us right out, ‘You want more money? We’ll hire younger guys.’ We never bothered Johnny about the money; I was getting a better deal than anyone else so I just kept my mouth shut.

  “Teddy was a fantastic road manager; he took care of everything. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke—all he did was make the money and take care of everybody. He was the babysitter for all us babies. But when Teddy took over [more responsibilities], things progressively got worse. Our pay immediately got cut down. The venues were getting smaller due to playing blues. No more bus, now it’s a Winnebago. Everything got scaled down, and we started working six months out of the year. I couldn’t live in Manhattan on six months work. So when the Grace Slick thing came along, I took it.”