Johnny Winter at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin in the late 60s

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Permalink Reply by Els van der Wiel on October 14, 2010 at 1:23am

1968, man that really was a few years ago! First time I saw Johnny live was only three years ago in the Paradiso/Amsterdam. He also used to play there in the past quite often. Choosing a favorite album is difficult, I think I would pick "Let me in". One of my favorite numbers is "Rain", from "The Winter of 88". Been looking for that album for some time now, can't find it here in Holland, also not online. Saw some of Johnny's old LPs at a record and CD fair here in Utrecht, which is held twice a year, prices were unbelievable! Managed to find something more in my pricerange; "Together", with Edgar, for only 8 Euro's. Amazing how many people still buy vynil, I mean the originals from the past, not new ones. They sell LP's for as much as 800 Euro's, you must be a real collector to spend that much money!

Permalink Reply by Paul Allerding on October 14, 2010 at 9:28am

I see Winter of 88 CDs on Amazon Half and Ebay regularly. In fact, I have an extra copy of Winter of 88 on CD with the bonus tracks, and you really want the bonus tracks as Mother Earth is absolutely fantastic. I have the album Together, pretty cool album, it was like Johnny's farewell to rock and roll as he stepped whole heartedly back into the blues with his next album, Nothing But The Blues.

Love Let Me In and Hey, Where's Your Brother. These two albums could be a double, they are stylistically similar, kind of a jazzier note because of the band members. Great stuff.

My absolute favorites are Progressive Blues Experiment and the Black Album ("Johnny Winter"). I am biased towards the Shannon Turner stuff and that is what Gator Blue got at the Vulcan, the trio in their full glory. Wow, blow me away! I missed those days, but I did see Johnny twice rocking in the 70s, and once in a smaller club about 1980.