Gas up Johnny Winter’s Guitar Slinger if you’re in the mood for some good old hell-raising Texas blues. Don’t expect a clean garage here but an oil-stained, parts-thrown-everywhere, Playboy-calendar-hanging, hot-rod factory behind some redneck’s trailer.
Winter’s cranked-up, turbo-charged playing will be on the rack, his trademark slide will be in the tool chest, and plenty of those NASCAR speed solos that only he can deliver – and, really, who else can keep up?
Released after a few years away, this 1984 studio effort featured some of Johnny Winter’s best vocals: His singing was leaner, meaner and with a little more soul than usual, but his usual gravel and sawdust remained, too. The cover alone should worry the hell out of you as you stare at a long-haired tattooed albino pointing a guitar at you, pretty much the same way a hillbilly points a sawed-off shotgun at the revenue man.
You can smell the booze and cigarettes and can see the scabs letting you know which tattoos are the new ones.
[SOMETHING ELSE! INTERVIEW: Johnny Winter joined us to discuss his terrific late-period album ‘Roots,’ his biggest successes and biggest regrets – and why he always got in a fight in Dallas.]
The whole album got it done, but look out for the hush-up girl anthem “It’s My Life, Baby,” or the I’m-keeping-my-eye-on-you-sister “Iodine in My Coffee.” Johnny Winter showed his pool hall hustler’s sense of humor on “Trick Bag” and on “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.”
Anybody that loves electric blues should enjoy Guitar Slinger, as the Beaumont native showed that Texas blues guitar didn’t begin and end with Stevie Ray Vaughan. Get a bottle of cheap whiskey, go out on your front porch and swing with this one.
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