There are three things that you will notice when watching the newly released DVD Johnny Winter: Down & Dirty. One is that the music is so incredibly passionate, feisty and unfettered with special tricks, that chills run up your spine. Two, that Winter’s Firebird guitar is so damn cool. And three, if you haven’t gone to see your favorite musician perform live, you better go NOW, cause they might not be around tomorrow for you to see. And Johnny Winter is one of those guys. If you hummed and hawed and whined about money or the job or the drive to the city and never got around to it, then the regret is all on you. Sometimes the record is just not enough, no matter how much you fool yourself into believing the artist can never duplicate that record you revere so much. Sorry guys, but nothing compares to the energy, the vibe and the real sweat hitting the floor.
“I’ve had one of the best lives anybody could ever have – to do exactly what I wanted to do, get paid for it and have people love me for it.” That’s how Winter sums up his life near the end of Down & Dirty, which features scenes from his seventy year lifespan. Winter looks frail but plays like a bat out of hell. He seems antsy waiting to go onstage or get to a destination, but that’s the fallout from years of drug abuse. He smiles quickly but it lasts only seconds. He signs autographs, seemingly hundreds of them at a time, but quietly whispers he wishes fans wouldn’t ask him to sign so many things at one time. He loves seventies TV shows but seems visibly shaken when he pulls up in front of the Beaumont, Texas, house he grew up in.
The DVD captures the spirit of Johnny Winter young and Johnny Winter old. And throughout the film the soundtrack of his music feeds his journey, which was not always a happy, healthy one. He realized he was different when he was seven or eight years old when the kids called him an albino. He asked his mother, “Am I an albino?” “Yes,” she replied. He fought back but in the long run appreciated that he was different. He tried heroin almost as an afterthought and became addicted to it and methadone. He drank, partied, threw up on Janis Joplin and watched all the J’s – Janis, Jimi, Jim – depart this life and wondered if he might be the next J.
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Musically, his career spider-veined in different directions. He was content doing the blues but was encouraged to add rock & roll into his playing. He became a comet after Rolling Stone wrote about him in 1968 – “I must have read it a thousand times” – but appears more proud of a Blues Hall Of Fame plaque he received in 1988. He admired Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Son House and Muddy Waters until his last breath … but also mentions Derek Trucks. He sings a mean karaoke version of “Georgia On My Mind” – “Damn I’m good,” he said with a laugh – but didn’t think Cream did a very good version of Johnson’s “Crossroads” – “It wasn’t near as good; wasn’t even close.”
The film, directed by Greg Olliver, follows Winter from Florida to France to Hong Kong and back home to Texas. He shines a realistic view of Winter the man – doing exercises, having fun in New Orleans, his OCD; and Winter the legend – hanging with BB King, producing Muddy, playing with Hendrix, appearing on Letterman. Trucks, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry and Warren Haynes give insight into Winter the guitarist, with Trucks going so far as to call Winter’s infamous Firebird guitar, “the Holy Grail.”
The film itself lasts ninety minutes and then you still have an extra hour-plus of bonus footage. It’s gripping, it’s sad, it’s enjoyable. It’s all the things you want in a documentary without it becoming tedious to watch. Winter passed away in the summer of 2014, a few months after giving a standing-ovation-worthy performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, where I last saw him perform, just a few feet in front of me, eyes open, fingers nimble, that unmistakable Johnny Winter guitar sound echoing through the Blues Tent. I hope your last memory of Johnny Winter wasn’t the sadness you felt reading his obituary after missing him play yet again, that unbought ticket now forever out-of-reach. Perhaps a viewing, or two, of Down & Dirty will help ease your pain.
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One Response
Leslie, that was a great write-up and review. Thanks.