# Edgar Winter honors ‘Brother Johnny’: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/07/02/edgar-winter-honors-brother-johnny-video-photos/
- Published: 2022-07-02T05:40:45+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**It took Edgar Winter years to come around to the idea of releasing a tribute album
for his older brother, the great blues-rock guitarist Johnny Winter, who died at
age 70 in 2014. “Johnny’s passing was very unexpected,” the 75-year-old multi-instrumentalist
says. “I had been approached by several labels with the idea of a tribute album [
soon after Johnny’s death], but it just didn’t feel right to me. I wasn’t ready 
at that time. More than that, it felt like people sensing an obvious business opportunity—‘
Oh, Johnny Winter—let’s do a tribute.’”**

Edgar eventually agreed to honor his sibling—on his own terms. “I spent years not
making the record and, finally, I was talking to my wife, Monique, and she said,‘
Of course you should do it,”’ he says. “You owe that acknowledgment to your brother.
You owe it to yourself and to the world.’”

The result, _Brother Johnny_, was released in April by Quarto Valley Records. The
compilation features songs written by or associated with Johnny, performed by Edgar
and an all-star cast that includes Joe Walsh, Ringo Starr, Derek Trucks, Billy Gibbons,
Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, Joe Bonamassa and many others. Among the tracks
reworked for the tribute are Johnny Winter blues favorites like “Still Alive and
Well,” “I’m Yours and I’m Hers” and “Lone Star Blues”—the latter featuring only 
Keb’ Mo’ and Edgar—as well as rock classics like “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Jumpin’
Jack Flash” and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” all highlights of any Johnny Winter
concert.

“Stranger,” originally on 1974’s _John Dawson Winter III_, features a one-time-only
collective including Starr, Walsh and McDonald, while “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo,”
the Rick Derringer composition from 1970’s _Johnny Winter_ _And_, boasts a raging
guitar solo by Lukather. Edgar’s keyboards and vocals are dominant throughout the
album, and he even joins the horn section on a stunning cover of “Drown in My Own
Tears,” a blues ballad made famous by Ray Charles and included on Johnny’s self-
titled debut album for Columbia Records in 1969. Edgar, who had played piano on 
the original, also picks up the saxophone this time around.

“Johnny has always been my all-time musical hero and, if it weren’t for him, I certainly
wouldn’t be in the position I am today,” he says. In fact, Edgar readily acknowledges
that it was Johnny who introduced him to the live-music world, inviting the younger
Winter to join him onstage at a time when Johnny was just emerging outside of the
brothers’ native Texas. “Nobody even knew Johnny had a brother,” Edgar recalls, “
and he’d say, ‘Now, I’m going to bring up my little brother Edgar.’ Oh, there’s 
another one?!”

![Edgar Winter Honors 'Brother Johnny', Part 1 - Mixonline](https://i0.wp.com/www.
mixonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2022-04-18-winter-part-1-2-scaled.jpeg?
w=640&ssl=1)

By “another one,” Edgar is not only referring to the fact that there were two Winters
out there making music. “He showed me something that I never would have thought 
of,” Edgar says. “Both being albino, we had a different mindset. We shared a worldview
that nobody else really had. Albinism is pretty rare. I just sort of ignored it 
and withdrew into my world of music, but he turned it around. Because of his unique
look, he made it work for him. He actually showed me that being albino can be cool.”

Looking back, Edgar believes that one particular gig truly brought him into the 
spotlight and changed his life—Woodstock. Johnny asked his brother to share the 
stage with him at the game-changing 1969 festival, and Edgar still remembers every
detail. “We flew in by helicopter, and the first thing that struck me was the vibe,”
Edgar says. “There was a feeling of unity—the feeling that we were part of something
bigger than a festival, that we could make a difference. We could maybe really change
the world. I’d never really experienced anything like that. It was transfiguring,
an epiphany. I found myself looking out over this endless sea of humanity, as far
as the eye could see. I said, ‘How did I get here? What am I doing here? This is
so surreal. This can’t really be happening.’ And from that point on, it made me 
realize that music could be so much more than just my own personal, private escape
world.”

In 1970, Edgar Winter released his own debut album, _Entrance_, and, within a few
years, he had become a star— logging a No. 1 hit single, “Frankenstein,” in 1973,
and reaching the Top 20 with “Free Ride” several months later. At that time, he 
says, “I had no desire to be famous. I just loved music in and of itself. I loved
the beauty of chords, harmony, rhythm. I just wanted to become a better musician.
I thought of myself as an instrumentalist and a serious musician. Thankfully, I’ve
gotten over that.”

![Edgar Winter - Wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/
DSC_0713_Edgar_Winter_%283999736812%29.jpg)

Surprisingly, Edgar and Johnny didn’t record all that much together—there was some
collaboration in the early days and a 1976 duets album, _Together: Edgar Winter 
and Johnny Winter Live_. Mostly, though, they flew in parallel orbits. “Johnny and
I had such totally different approaches to music,” Edgar says. “Johnny reached out
to the world with his music. He had that drive to be somebody, to make something
of himself. And there’s nothing wrong with that. He was the extrovert and I was 
the introvert. I withdrew into my own personal, private world. For me, it was a 
journey of self-discovery, an inward journey.”

Now, with _Brother Johnny_, Edgar—who is returning to the road with Ringo Starr 
and His All-Starr Band this spring and summer after a long hiatus— has finally made
a definitive statement about the greatest influence on his life and work. “I tried
to make the album that I think Johnny would have wanted me to make,” he says, “and
it was a totally joyous, uplifting, inspirational experience.”

![Blues Route: Edgar Winter Honors ‘Brother Johnny’](https://i0.wp.com/relix.com/
wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Credit_Rick_Diamondv2.jpg.webp?resize=640%2C478&ssl=1)

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