Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter’s breakneck blues, dense with gritty guitar heroics, earned him a spot in rock ‘n’ roll history’s hallowed halls. Born John Dawson Winter III in Texas in 1944, he was joined by a brother, Edgar, a couple years later; both were born with albinism. By their teenage years, the two were playing music together professionally. Johnny caught his big break in 1968 with a glowing mention in Rolling Stone; soon after, he received a massive advance and his self-titled Columbia Records debut was released the next year. The album married heavy rock with blues, and the guitarist wailed on tracks like B.B. King’s “Be Careful With a Fool”, which established him as a guitar player of note. After recovering from heroin addiction, he ripped through the ‘70s on albums like Still Alive and Well (1973) and produced records for his hero B.B. King. The ‘80s pushed him in a more commercial, slickly produced direction, while the late 2000s saw the launch of a long-running live bootleg series that survived him. A road dog to the end, Winter died on tour in Switzerland in 2014.