Johnny Winter - The Return Of Johnny Guitar (The Best Of Johnny Winter 1984-1986) (1999) FLAC

Johnny Winter - The Return Of Johnny Guitar (The Best Of Johnny Winter 1984-1986) (1999) FLAC
EAC rip | 12 tracks | FLAC-tracks - Log - Cue | Scans | Release: 1999 | 435 MB
Genre: Blues | Label: Music Club

Strutting Texas blues. This compilation album at least features the man doing what he does best. Many collections concentrate on his dire seventies rock'n'roll glutfest and his even direr mid-sixties early embarrassments. It's the blues that defines him from 1969 onwards, and this CD thankfully concentrates on that definition of him as an artiste. Johnny Winter has many hardcore fans, myself obviously included. His fire, precision and inventiveness combine with his songwriting talents and his ability to quote stock phrases of the Blues Bible in a new and exciting way. This creates instant classics. I'm sometimes surprised to find I'm listening to a Winter original when I'd assumed it was something from the early rustic days of the blues. As for his guitar playing, well, combine the sting and attack of Albert "the Ice Man" Collins and the raw scrape of slide legend Elmore James and the development of musical sentences from Clapton's Cream days and you'll have a fair idea of Johnny's appeal. That voice too is pretty cool - it's like a coyote gargling with sandpaper. Diehard fans will have all these tracks anyway - they've appeared on his three Alligator Records releases from the early to mid eighties. And they're terrific. A healthy helping of Texan blues with extra chili - he yodels, growls, yelps and brags through these songs with an energy and relish that's kinda hard to resist. Each solo is a delight- the slower numbers feature exciting developments of licks and phrases - you can follow the ideas through each solo, and the faster songs combine Chuck Berry chops with sudden high register flurries. Guitar fans will argue until the end of time about the merits of their particular hero. My mind was made up in 1969 with one song from a CBS sampler. Yep, it was I Love Everybody by Johnny Winter from his third album, confusingly called Second Winter. I bought every album for the next 40 years and the tracks on this compilation represent a period I recall with great fondness. At the risk of sounding cliched - Go Johnny Go! (Amazon's Customer)