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

by Mary Lou Sullivan

  “It [having an albino child] would be much easier for me and for the child, than if an albino child was born to parents who were totally normal—having a father you could relate to,” said Johnny. “I think I’d like a little girl though. If I had a normal little guy, it would bother me a little bit that I couldn’t go out and play baseball and football with the kid and do the things fathers normally do. That would bother me. But with a girl I wouldn’t feel that pressure I know I would feel with a boy [now his voice takes on an inflection] be a man and do those manly things, play football, baseball, hockey, and everything we just can’t really do. I did them anyway and it was really embarrassing to go through PE—physical education—and play baseball when you really can’t see the ball but about half the time.”

  Susan reluctantly gave up her dreams of starting a family, but gave Johnny an ultimatum about marriage. “I told him, ‘Either we get married or we break up; I believe in God and this isn’t right,” said Susan. “I let him go way past the ultimatum because I had invested my life in him and didn’t want it to end.”

  Johnny never questioned the idea of spending the rest of his life with Susan until a woman from his past showed up at a gig. “I’ve known Diana [Williams] since she was a go-go girl at Love Street Light Circus and Feel Good Machine—she danced there every night we played,” says Johnny. “I had had a thing for her since the old days. We had a real past. She remembered me from the good ole days, and I went to bed with her a couple of times back when I first knew her. I didn’t see her for a while—until she came out to see me when I was playin’ in Houston in the ’80s. I had a hard-on, and asked her if she wanted to go on the road for a while. She went on the road with me for a month. She wasn’t workin‘—she was livin’ with a guy who worked. After that, we started seeing each other every time I went out on the road and I was playin’ pretty regular. I’d call her from practice and tell her when I was goin’ on the road and she’d fly out.”

  Within several years, Johnny put Williams up in a high-rise apartment in Houston, where he stayed with her when he was in town. By then, he had become her sole source of support. “She was livin’ by herself and I was sendin’ her money,” says Johnny. “We were together maybe two or three years steady. A lot of people thought she was my wife.”

  Williams knew Johnny was living with Susan but never pressured him about it. Unlike Susan, she didn’t want children and never talked about marriage. “She didn’t look that forward in the future-she was just glad to be with me at the time,” says Johnny. “She was true to me all those years because she didn’t want anybody else—she was in love with me. She may have been hopin’ I’d leave Susan and come down there and live with her, but she never said that to me.

  “I’d see her when I was on the road and see Susan when I was back at home. I’d been going with both of them for three years or so. Susan hated me seeing her too and finally told me, ‘You have to marry me and have a normal relationship or I’m gonna leave.’ She really put it to me good—‘What do you want to do? Who do you love? You can’t go with both of us anymore.’ That convinced me Susan was the one I loved the most and I had to break up with Diana. I’m sorry it took so long but it was a hard decision to make.”

  Having to finally choose between two women, after spending his life with a woman at home and various girlfriends on the road, was emotionally devastating to Johnny. He had always insisted on free rein when he was on the road; now that door would be closed forever. “It was hard,” he says. “That’s one of the things that made me crazy, made me completely fucked up. I couldn’t figure out which one I wanted. I really loved Diana too and it was hard for me to break it off with her. That’s why it took awhile. I didn’t want to get married ’cause I didn’t want to commit myself to one person. I never thought I could do that. I don’t know why Susan went along with that for so long. I’m glad she did though. Susan knew I loved her and I needed to take some time to work it out. She was real understanding.”

  Susan and Johnny separated in late December 1991, and he spent Christmas in Houston with Williams. When he returned, he agreed to get married. “It just seemed to be the right thing to do,” he says. “I know how much she loved me and how much she’d given up for me and I felt like it was time to pay her back for all she’d had to go through. We’d been livin’ together for twenty years when we got married.”

  In February 1992, they were married in a quiet ceremony in the Carlyle Hotel in New York. Susan’s best friend stood up for her; a longtime friend and roadie stood up for Johnny. “I wanted Teddy to stand up for him, but we hadn’t planned ahead of time,” said Susan. “We had the room for the night, and had a bunch of food there, but everybody left, so we just went home. I was disappointed. I wish his parents and my parents were there. But after this long, I think they were just happy we made it official.”

  “We didn’t have time to invite my parents and Susan’s parents,” adds Johnny. “We just wanted to do it in a hurry. Susan knew it was hard for me and I just wanted to get it over with. I wanted to have as little commotion as possible ’cause I didn’t take it too seriously. She thought I wouldn’t cheat if I was married, but I probably did in the very beginning. I’m true to her now. I’ve been married for sixteen years now and have been true to her.”

  Although Williams was given $12,000 as “severance” so she wouldn’t be left high and dry without any income, she was devastated by the ending of their relationship. “Diana took it pretty bad,” says Johnny. “Sometimes she tried to call me but she knew it was my decision. She knew it wasn’t going to do any good to try to get me back. I saw her when I was down in Houston—when I play there she comes out and sees me. Diana said she still loved me. I told her I couldn’t be married to Susan and see her too. We still talk to each other every once in a while.”

  In May 1992, Johnny returned to the studio to cut “Hey, Where’s Your Brother?”, which like Let Me In was recorded at Streeterville Studios with the same band members, producer, and crew. “There was no conscious distinction between the two CDs musically,” said Shurman. “Johnny had his compass by the time he was pushing fifty. He wasn’t going to tear down what he was and be something different.”

  Before they started that project, Edgar contacted Slatus and suggested using the HEY, WHERE’S YOUR BROTHER? slogan on a tee shirt with one Winter brother’s photo on the front and the other’s on the back. More than likely, Slatus pilfered that name for the album.

  “I don’t know if he got it from that or had been thinking about it on his own,” said Edgar. “It is something that has been around in the collective consciousness of Winter fans ever since I said it on the Roadwork album. I connected it [with that album] because I just asked him about the tee shirt, but it may not have anything to do with it.”

  The musicians included Johnny on vocals and electric and acoustic guitars; Ganz on electric bass, fretless bass, eight-string bass, and upright bass; Compton on drums and percussion; Edgar on vocals, organ, and saxophones; and Billy Branch on harmonica. Johnny enjoyed working with Branch and the feeling was mutual. “I like Billy Branch,” says Johnny. “He played like one of those old guys [Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson] except he was a little bit fancier.”

  “Billy liked to record with Johnny,” said Shurman. “He told Johnny, ‘You play more blues than any Chicago guys because they want to play crossover. You just want to play the blues.”’

  Edgar sang harmony vocals and played alto sax and organ on “Please Come Home for Christmas,” a song they recorded in 1966; he played organ on “You Keep Sayin’ That You’re Leavin’,” and tenor and baritone sax on “Sick and Tired.”

  “Edgar was pretty good on that record, but sometimes he could get too particular,” says Johnny. “He’ll stay in the studio for days trying to get something better and if I don’t get it in the first couple of times, I’ll give up on it.”

  Although Edgar was featured on three songs and in the title, his photo wasn’t included o
n the cover. “Johnny made it clear, this is not a Johnny and Edgar Winter album,” said Shurman. “It’s a Johnny Winter album and Edgar is going to be a guest on some of it. It wasn’t a peer thing; it was a leader and subordinate.”

  The cover photo depicts Johnny with his band; he’s playing a late 1938 Gibson Super 400 natural, which he used on “Blues This Bad.” “I got it from my friend Ed Seelig, who sold me a bunch of guitars in the past and let me borrow it for the session,” says Johnny. “It had a real blues acoustic sound.”

  Johnny wrote three songs for that recording, “White Line Blues,” “You Keep Sayin’ That You’re Leavin’,” and “Treat Me Like You Wanta,” under deadline pressure in his hotel room. “That definitely makes a difference,” he says. “When you have no time to do it in, you go ahead and do it.”

  Both Let Me In and “Hey, Where’s Your Brother?” were nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Johnny attended the 1991 awards ceremony. “I went to the Grammys when Buddy Guy won for Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues because I remember saying hello to him there,” says Johnny. “I never went every time I was nominated—t got tired of losing. I’m glad to get the nominations though.”

  “Both Pointblank albums were a lot of fun,” said Shurman. “Let Me In was just a little bit easier, because Johnny was in a real peak state when he did it. On “Hey, Where’s Your Brother?”, he was still in a good state but I could sense the first slight ripples of what later developed into his big emotional/chemical crisis in the mid-’90s. He was starting to get a little shaky around the edges—in terms of his confidence and happiness.”

  In October 1992, Johnny was invited to perform at Bob Dylan’s sold-out “30th Anniversary Concert Celebration” at Madison Square Garden. A four-hour concert commemorating Dylan’s first album on Columbia Records, the lineup included Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Willie Nelson, Ron Wood, George Harrison, the Band, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Richie Havens, Lou Reed, Stevie Wonder, and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder.

  Even among that impressive lineup, Johnny dazzled the audience with an incendiary performance of “Highway 61 Revisited” with a band that included Steve Cropper and G. E. Smith on guitar, Booker T. Jones on organ, Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, and Anton Fig and Jim Keltner on drums. His long, agile fingers furiously flew up and down the frets of his Firebird to the delight of the crowd. When he drove the music higher and higher until it erupted in a feverish crescendo, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind. Johnny Winter was the king of the slide guitar.

  Although Johnny was thrilled to be on the same show with Johnny Cash, he is characteristically playful when asked which performers impressed him that night. “I just impressed myself—I thought I was great,” he says. “I had a hard time too because when I first started, I couldn’t hear myself at all. That was hard as hell to play without being able to hear myself. They finally got it turned up so I could hear myself and ‘Highway 61’ got a great response from the audience.”

  The music critics agreed. David Wild, who penned the liner notes to the CD released the following August, wrote “A monumental display of blues power came from veteran Texan guitar hero Johnny Winter, who threw down a furious deep blues take on ‘Highway 61 Revisited.’”

  That amazing performance, which continues to generate five-star reviews on YouTube, was his last blaze of glory before anxiety attacks, depression, overmedication, and his manager’s out-of-control alcoholism turned the man and his music into a shadow of his former self.

  PART III

  13

  BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE

  After Johnny played the Dylan tribute, Saturday Night Live bandleader G. E. Smith invited him to play with his band on the show. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  “The band was pretty good except the fuckin’ drummer was an asshole,” Johnny says. “He fucked up. I told G. E. the song was too damn slow and he said, ‘Play the song at the speed you want; the band will play with you.’ I started it off and the drummer didn’t go with me at all. He dragged it back down and it really pissed me off. The drummer can mess up anything.”

  Somewhere along that timeframe, Slatus, who had been a straight arrow, began to show signs of heavy drinking. Johnny was deeply disturbed by Slatus’s behavior and knew the repercussions to his career would be damaging and widespread.

  Between 1993 and 1997, Johnny didn’t make any recordings and his touring schedule was sporadic. “I had a problem with being depressed and I didn’t play as much,” says Johnny. “I don’t know what I was depressed about.”

  Already stressed out by having to give up Diana Williams, Johnny was devastated when, once again, death moved in on his circle of friends. In August 1993, Randy Jo Hobbs died in a motel room in Dayton, Ohio from a drug overdose. “Randy did a lot of drugs—we used to do heroin together,” says Johnny. “I finally had to let him go because he was fucking up too much—he was too messed up. After I fired him, he just stayed around home. We were coming to his town in Indiana and I asked him to play with us. He went to Ohio to jam so he’d be ready to play. He died of an overdose of cocaine. Snortin’ it. He was forty-five. It was bad—it really hurt me.”

  Seven months later, Dan Hartman died of brain cancer after being diagnosed as HIV positive. “Dan Hartman was a sweetheart, a real nice guy,” says Johnny. “He died of AIDS. I didn’t know he was gay.”

  Ganz remembers Johnny’s anxiety attacks starting around 1993, but says they never affected Johnny’s performances. “Musically, he was always very focused; the shows were never a problem,” he said.

  Johnny was hospitalized in 1993 and 1994. His first stay was in Regent Hospital, a psychiatric facility on East Sixty-First Street, where he was given counseling and antidepressants. The 1994 hospitalization was at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center on West 168th Street. He wasn’t playing out the first time he was hospitalized, but cancelled a tour to be admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

  When asked about the diagnosis, Johnny, with his usual self-effacing sense of humor and a laugh, quips, “Just bein’ crazy,” before seriously answering the question.

  “I felt like I was gonna die,” says Johnny. “I really felt bad, like maybe there was no need to stay alive anymore. It was anxiety. The same kind of anxiety I’ve had in my life a few times—it’s really no fun. They couldn’t figure out what was causing it. The first time, I was in because I didn’t know what to do about being with Susan or Diana. I couldn’t figure out what to do because I loved both of them. I was worrying about it for a couple of years. I was in the hospital for a couple months, and saw the doctor every day. The second time, I was in the hospital for about a month. They tried different medications and gave me Klonopin—an antidepressant. It worked real good. Teddy helped me all the way through that.”

  Although the requirements for hospital visitors were stringent, Ganz was cleared and visited Johnny a number of times. “They were giving him some kind of drug therapy, but it didn’t seem to be helping,” said Ganz. “Because he couldn’t get his hands on booze, I would say he was pretty sharp.”

  Johnny didn’t stay sharp long. He was on prescriptions for Klonopin and Risperdal, taking his daily dose of methadone, and drinking Absolut vodka on the rocks. Both psychologically and physically addictive, Klonopin’s side effects include drowsiness, impairment of cognition and judgment, memory loss, psychomotor agitation, lack of motivation, dizziness, and impaired coordination and balance.

  Although often prescribed for anxiety disorders, Risperdal has anxiety as a side effect, as well as tremors, which is why Johnny’s hands were always shaking when he performed. His penchant for vodka led people to assume he had the shakes from drinking.

  Although Johnny was unaware that his medication interacted with his methadone, he was embarking on a deadly path. For more than ten years, he was taking the same combination of drugs that led to the death of Daniel Smith, the twenty-year-old son of Anna
Nicole Smith.

  With Johnny’s health on the decline, Slatus desperately needed new artists to stay afloat financially. In 1993, he began managing Rick Derringer, who moved to Connecticut the following year. Slatus’s association with Derringer would eventually lead both Slatus and Johnny to rural Connecticut.

  After Johnny was hospitalized in 1994, he took a hiatus from gigging, but continued to jam/rehearse at S.I.R. in New York. Ganz left the band in July 1995. “He wasn’t in the best shape, and I had done everything I could do there,” said Ganz. “It was just time to go.”

  Ganz told bassist Mark Epstein about his departure and Epstein immediately contacted Slatus for an audition. “I met Johnny at S.I.R.,” said Epstein. “He would have different guys come and play the whole night with him. I went two or three times, and got the gig. With Johnny, you never really rehearsed, you just played. We got together once a week in S.I.R. and later at his home in Connecticut. The set list was pretty consistent. Once he gets into a groove, he doesn’t like to change anything. We played a mixed bag of big clubs, some festivals, and halls. We did Europe two or three times—Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Luxembourg.”

  Johnny loved the sound of Epstein’s Sadowsky five-string bass, and gave him free rein. “He just said play,” added Epstein. “He told me, ‘If there’s something you need to know, I’ll tell you.’ He allowed me complete freedom.”

  In March 1996, Johnny and Edgar filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against D.C. Comics for defamation and misappropriation of likeness for commercial gain. The lawsuit was in response to three issues of a five-part comic book miniseries, Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such, where Hex battled Johnny and Edgar Autumn, half-worm and half-human villains with albino features and long white hair. The spawn of a subterranean worm that raped their mother, the Autumn brothers ripped heads off of livestock, and devoured the brains of pigs after fornicating with them. Johnny Autumn wore a stovepipe hat like Johnny did when he played with Muddy Waters. According to an article in Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter, the D. C. Comics advertising campaign suggested people buy the comics to find out “exactly how rockers Johnny and Edgar Winter sort of turn up.”