EVERYONE, by now, knows what Johnny Winter looks like, even if they've never heard the man's music (those who haven't will certainly be deemed fortunate by critics of Winter's recent albums).You'd have to be as short sighted as Winter is himself not to recognise his distinctive albinoid features. He's in Britain at the moment, preparing for the only British concert of his current European tour, at the New Victoria Theatre in London. The band he's brought with him for the tour includes regular Winter sidemen, Randy Hobbs and Richard Hughes, on bass and drums respectively. They've been with Winter for some time, and both appeared on his recent albums. A more recent addition to the band is second guitarist Floyd Radford. He joined a matter of weeks ago, and the London concert will mark his first appearance with Winter " We'd been playing as a trio for some time" explains Winter, his eyes half closed and permanently crossed" and I really wanted somebody else to help with my writing. "I was looking for another guitarist all the time I was finishing off my record, and it looked as if we were gonna come over here as a trio.
Then Floyd came up from California I'd known him for four ar five years, and I'd jammed with him before a few times (Radford was a member of Edgar Winter's band) and luckily it worked cut perfectly. We've only had four rehearsals, but it all fell together. We just got up and plaved." Essentially, it will be the same kind of situation that existed between W1nter and Rick Derringer, with the two guitarists working off each other. "Y'know, I go through phases where I don't want to play with anyone else. Sometimes I feel that I want to do everything myself. I just don't want anybodv on that stage with me. "Then, sometimes, if it's the right person, I really enjoy it I like to improvise a lot, so it's gotta be somebody who fits in naturally, the kind who knows my style and where I'm going. "The trio went down really well in America, but I think that it is really something that excites me more than it does an audience. But it can help to have scmebcdy to work off of, especially if you're having an off night. The other person can act as a kind of inspjration." So what about the new album, which you've recently completed, and which includes a new John Lennon song, " Rock 'n' Roll People "?
I was really glad to get that song, because John's been one of my favourite people for a long time. " And I've been hustling for a song from him for three or four albums. When I did the "Still Alive And Well" album, we called him up and asked if he had any extra rock 'n' roll songs. "And he said that if he did have any, he was keeping them for himself because he was just as short of material. " Then he was recording at the same studio as us and my producer talked to him and mentioned that I was recording there, and asked again if he had any songs we could use. "Rock 'n' Roll People" he'd written for hirnself, and had done it. But it hadn't come together right, and he didn't like it for himsef, so he gave me the tape and it was just perfect for me.' So, what ahout the rest of the album?
"It's a fairly strange record actually. It's got about half of what you might call old Johnny Winter. It's got three blues songs I wrote, kinda traditional songs "It's more like the kinda thing I was doing about '69. And then, it's also got some really radically different material. There's some blues, some rock 'n' roll, and then some very heavily produced ballads that I wrote. "And they're really out of character for me, and for what people expect from me. And then there's a country song called "Love Song To Me" which is about how much I love myself." Did the album, to some degree, return to the earlier days of the Winter bands? "Well, I've always wanted to be accepted for whatever I do well. I don't really want to change direction at all, I want to go in any direction I feel like following. "It's strange because when I was playing clubs down in Texas, variety was the main thing that people expected You had to be able to play everything "Then when I really made it I tended to ge: categorised as either this or that. You could do whatever you wanted as long as it was what people wanted and expected to hear from you. "Anything else they didn't wanna know. What I've been doing ever since I made it, is to get myself out of the kind of categories that people were trying to place me in. "It's a very difficult process. Audiences always want to hear something they know. "If you play them a song they've never heard, they don't usually wanna know, however well you play. I usually try to compromise and play half what the audience wanna hear, and half what I wanna play. "If I played just what they wanted and I didn't like it, then people would be able to tell. Because I'm not a very good actor, and it would come across. "And by the same token, if I played just for myself, then I should be doing that in my bedroom or somewhere. You have to remember that people have paid to see you, and they're gonna be pretty disappointed if they don't hear certain songs. "You tend to feel obligated then, even if you.ve played a song a half a million times, and have vowed never to do it again."
Winter's recent enforced absence from music, if nothing else, forced him to reevall1ate the way his career was developing. When he came back he decided that he wouldn't be trapped on any more gruelling coast-to-coast tours that went on for weeks and weeks. "I don't like being on the I road so much anymore. So I just don't do it. Like one of the things that really split me up was that on tour you don't have any roots. It's like you're in a different dimension "It gets to be really weird You get to feel not quite alive after the endless strain. We do at the most six weeks on the road, then take a vacation so I can concentrate on other things like writing and pruducing. "Music isn't what I want to get away from, I like working, but not on the road I'm still as active." I suggest that there has been som shift of emphasis from the essentially guitar led bands that dominated rock when Winter was last here.
"Yeah, I guess that's true I wanted to come over here a few days before we played the gig, so I cou1d find out what people are into. You orientated here. Now I don't know quite what to expect." The concert has been a sell-out, say reports. He looks a touch relieved. "Yeah? That's fantastic ... Y'know I was kinda hoping there'd be a few people around who would still be interested in what I was doing....."