Johnny Winter, the legendary blues guitarist, singer and producer, has died at the age of 70.
John Dawson Winter III produced three Grammy Award winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters. He was ranked the 63rd Greatest Guitarist of All Time by Rolling Stones magazine.
Johnny and his brother Edgar Winter were born Albinos. At age 10 Johnny was performing on children’s television shows.
Johnny Winter released his first record ‘School Day Blues’ when he was 15 years old.
In 1968 Johnny Winter was spotted by Mike Bloomfield who invited him to play with at his show with Al Kooper at the Fillmore East in New York. That lead to Winter signing with Columbia Records for a $600,000 advance, the largest record advance ever at the time. He released his debut album in 1969.
Winter met blues legend Muddy Waters in 1977 after Chess Records went out of business. The meeting was the start of the three albums Winter would produce for Waters.
Earlier this month Johnny Winters revealed details of a new all-star line-up album featuring Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, Brian Setzer, Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa, Leslie West, Joe Perry, Dr. John, Jason Ricci and Paul Nelson.
