Blinded by love johnny winter8/3/2023 I don't know how much Ken made, but he'd always get a little money in front. "Ken Ritter was my manager, and he would lease the records," says Johnny. Ken Ritter, nephew of Western star Tex Ritter, produced several early Winter 45s for his KRCO and Frolic labels, ranging from lowdown swamp blues to catchy instrumentals and pop-accessible pieces. He said, 'Great! We'll record 'em!' We couldn't even believe it,"says Winter, whose debut offering came out on the Dart label in 1960. The band headed to Bill Hall's Gulf Coast Recording Studio in Beaumont to lay down School Day Blues and a flip, Edgar manning the 88s. There wasn't anybody near as good as I was at that point." You couldn't use a group you had to get up there and just sing and play guitar,"says Johnny. The two Winters formed Johnny and The Jammers when Johnny was only 14 and snared their first record contract through a contest built around the 1959 rock and roll film 'Go, Johnny Go!' "As kind of a gimmick that went along with the movie, they had this contest called the Johnny Melody Contest. "He was one of the first blues musicians that I actually got to see and watch close up and learn from. So I'd be staying over at her place, and I could just walk over two doors and see Clarence,"says Johnny. " The radio station then was like two doors down from where my grandmother lived. Johnny listened regularly to Beaumont blues guitarist Clarence Garlow's KJET radio program. By decade's end, the whole world would know Johnny Winter, but when he raucously revived Johnny 'Guitar' Watson's Gangster Of Love for Ken Ritter's Frolic label in 1964, Winter was a regional phenomenon.īorn Februin Beaumont, Texas, Johnny and his younger brother Edgar grew up loving the blues. Albino kid with enough heat in his fingers to melt a guitar neck shook up the Gulf Coast during the early '60s.
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