Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) (41 page)

Produced by Johnny and recorded quickly,
Raisin’ Cain
featured a mixture of musical styles. Although dominated by seven blues tracks, the album also featured early rock ’n’ roll, R&B, a Dylan cover, and a slow ballad.
“Raisin’ Cain
was alright—it didn’t sell good at all though,” says Johnny. “I think it was my worst-selling record.”

Despite poor sales, Johnny’s star as a guitarist continued to rise. His wild performances and touring schedule kept him in the spotlight. When
Guitar World,
a magazine that still covers his career, debuted in July 1980, Johnny’s photograph graced the front cover.

“After we did
Raisin’ Cain
, we went out and kept playin’ and playin’,” said Torello. “We played gigs throughout the U.S. and Europe—Paris, Spain, Sweden, Norway, England. We did Lorelei, an outdoor concert in Germany for about 30,000 to 40,000. We played in Cologne for 10,000 people; it was filmed for the
Rockpalast
show [a German rock music TV show that broadcasts live] and went out to 30 million people. Everybody in Europe saw the show. They put my name on the screen and every time I got out of a car in any country, I heard ‘Bubby!’ and it was usually women. I loved it!”

Punk rocker Patti Smith, who had been Steve Paul’s driver before she began her musical career, was the opening act for that tour. Uninvited, she made her way onstage during Johnny’s televised performance of “Johnny B. Goode,” dancing around and joining in on vocals, and walked onto stage playing a clarinet during Torello’s extended, energetic solo. Both were livid. Johnny blasted her in the tour bus after the show, causing her to break down in tears.

The band returned to Germany several times, and played large venues to appreciative audiences. “We did a heavy metal show there in 1981—we headlined over Ted Nugent, Molly Hatchet, Judas Priest,” said Torello. “Ted Nugent was originally the headliner and he came in the dressing room and said, ‘I’m not headlining over you; you’re gonna go on last.’ Johnny says, ‘Bobby, you’re gonna get your dream tonight. We’re gonna play mostly rock ’n’ roll.’ That was a good night—we played for 50,000 people.”

When Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble was a local blues band, they opened for Johnny whenever he played Texas. Tommy Shannon joined Double Trouble in 1980, so a gig at the Austin Opry House in September 1981 gave Johnny a chance to catch up with his old friend and see the guitarist he had first heard in Shannon’s living room so many years before. “I liked his playing but I didn’t think he was a real blues guy,” says Johnny. “I thought he was a flashy player who played pretty much the same style—you didn’t notice him taking any chances.”

Torello left the band shortly after that gig to play on Grace Slick’s third solo album,
Welcome to the Wrecking Ball,
and her 1982 European tour. He enjoyed playing with Johnny but Paul’s attitude and Teddy Slatus’s growing role in Johnny’s management had a chilling effect on his income.

“When Steve Paul talked to you, he wouldn’t even look you in the eye,” said Torello. “He was like any manager; they only care about the artist because that’s who’s making the money. We were just hired guns. He told us right out, ‘You want more money
^?We’ll hire younger guys.’ We never bothered Johnny about the money; I was getting a better deal than anyone else so I just kept my mouth shut.

“Teddy was a fantastic road manager; he took care of everything. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke—all he did was make the money and take care of everybody. He was the babysitter for all us babies. But when Teddy took over [more responsibilities], things progressively got worse. Our pay immediately got cut down. The venues were getting smaller due to playing blues. No more bus, now it’s a Winnebago. Everything got scaled down, and we started working six months out of the year. I couldn’t live in Manhattan on six months work. So when the Grace Slick thing came along, I took it.”

When Torello left, Johnny brought back Richard Hughes. When Slick cancelled her tour to rejoin Jefferson Starship, Torello was out of luck. But he rejoined Johnny in 1982, and enjoyed being part of Johnny’s flamboyant lifestyle on the road.

“What was Johnny like on the road?” he said with a laugh. “He’s a maniac. He’s crazy. Sometimes it got hairy when he got a little out of hand; he’s a pretty eccentric guy. But for the most part, it was total fun. All you had to do was show up and play the gig. Very rarely would we do sound checks because we had a real tight knit band. We stayed at the best places, had twenty-four-hour room service all the time. Johnny usually had a girlfriend on the road with him. I had a different one in every time zone; he could afford to take one with him all the time. Every musician in the world would come to see us—the respect he has from musicians is incredible. The Rolling Stones in the audience, Van Halen waiting in the dressing room, all kinds of people.

In a move he soon regretted, Torello left Johnny in April 1983 to play with Michael Bolton, who was embarking on a career as a rock artist. He played on the
Michael Bolton
LP on Columbia, the MTV video for the single “Fool’s Game,” and the consequent tour.

“I thought it would be the next Bon Jovi,” said Torello. “Johnny always told me: If you can find a better job, take it because it doesn’t matter. I’ll always play and we’ll always be friends. I took it and it was the wrong move. The Michael Bolton organization ... they didn’t even call me and tell me I wasn’t working anymore. Let’s leave it at that. I tried to get back in Johnny’s band. But by then, they said, ‘Bobby’s just gonna quit again because he keeps jumping ship,’ and that was the end of it.”

Raisin’ Cain
fulfilled Johnny’s original Columbia contract, and signaled the end of the Blue Sky label. “Blue Sky dissolved because Steve Paul lost interest in it,” says Johnny. “’Cause there wasn’t any big money in it. He was making good money off of all of us but he wanted big money. He wanted somebody huge. Selling almost a million copies, like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.”

With no record label and a burning desire to play blues, Johnny started checking out blues labels. “I just wanted to play on other people’s records,” he says. “We went to Malaco Records, but they didn’t know what to do with me and they weren’t gonna give me enough money. The record companies never wanted to pay blues artists—that’s why so many couldn’t make a living. Labels figured they could make more money on something commercial.”

After gaining acclaim for reviving Waters’s career, Johnny thought about producing other older bluesmen, including Memphis Slim and Otis Rush. He talked to Rush about a project, but didn’t like his attitude.

“Me and Dick saw Otis Rush in Chicago,” says Johnny. “I liked him a whole lot as a guitar player and he sang real well too. I asked him if he was willing to have me produce him or if he needed/ wanted to get a record deal—he wasn’t interested. He said he didn’t care about the way it was produced or who produced him. He said the money’s the only thing that made any difference to him. After hearing that, I didn’t care about working with him anymore.”

Determined to produce an older bluesman., Johnny approached several blues labels, but none were interested. “I didn’t want any money; I just wanted a chance to do it,” he says. “I don’t know why they said no—maybe they didn’t want any fresh ideas or different ideas from what they’re doin’. There were great musicians who deserved recognition and needed help. Old musicians who were well-known but didn’t have any money comin’ in—who hadn’t had anything goin’ for them for a while. I felt like I was in a position where I could help people like that.”

Johnny still kept in contact with Waters, frequenting his gigs whenever his idol was in town. When Waters played the Beacon Theatre in New York in March 1981, both Johnny and Cotton were guest stars. Johnny saw Waters at the Savoy two months later; Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee opened the show. Johnny’s wish came true when drummer Styve Homnick, who had played with the duo since 1978, approached him about producing Terry’s next album. A country blues harmonica master, Terry was best known for acoustic albums with McGhee, his longtime partner.

“I walked up to Johnny, who was at a table with Edgar, and said, ‘Sonny would like to do a record with you. Will you play guitar and produce it?”’ remembered Homnick. “Johnny says, ‘Damn right. I’d love to do that.’ He gave me his phone number, and two days later, we were up in Johnny’s penthouse with his manager, working out the details.”

“I didn’t know Sonny very well when I decided to produce him,” says Johnny. “I think he saw what I did for Muddy and was hoping I could do the same thing for him. We got together at my house in New York and I got to know him pretty well. I loved him; he was a great guy. We talked a lot. He’d been on a bunch of different labels. He was well known for the folk music thing, but I don’t think he made any money.”

“Sonny and I were real close and he trusted me,” said Homnick. “I said, ‘Sonny, you haven’t done any decent albums in a long time. You’re getting old. It’s time you did an album that’s out of this world. Why don’t you let me throw together the right crew?’ He said, ‘You put it together, whatever you want to do.’”

Aware of the impact Johnny had on Muddy’s career, Homnick wanted him to produce Terry’s last album.

“Sonny was getting to that point where he was about to stop playing; his arthritis and gout were killing him,” said Homnick “I thought, it’s gotta end with a bang. Who would be better than Willie Dixon on standup bass and Johnny Winter on guitar and producing?”

“Sonny had never done an album with an electric guitar player,” says Johnny. “I always wanted to make a record with Sonny because I thought he needed a more Mississippi-style guitar player. Like me. I played a lot of slide on that record because it fit with his voice and his harp. Sonny was great at those sessions. He had a real unique style; he didn’t sound like anybody else. He did the whoopin’ thing, played great harp and sang great too. Sonny had a raspy voice—a Mississippi Delta sound. He could keep the rhythm going on his harp while he was singing. He was seventy when we did that record. He had bad arthritis and was having a hard time getting around. He was in pain all the time but he still played great.”

Johnny wanted to work with Dave Still, who engineered all his records at The Schoolhouse studio, but Still had moved to Pennsylvania. So Johnny et al drove to Mechanicsburg for the July Fourth weekend to record at Baldwin Sound Productions, Inc., where Still worked.

“We picked up Willie at the airport with his standup bass, traveled down together, and had a hell of a time,” said Homnick. “Sonny’s wife Emma was in the studio the whole time. Sonny and Johnny got along famously. They got a kick out of each other. Johnny loved Emma, and Susan, what a girl! Everybody got along great. We all thought we were making history.”

The Baldwin Sound Productions studio, a large square room with high ceilings, was an ideal location for Johnny to set up the mikes and the musicians to capture the ambient sound of early blues recordings.

“We set up in a circle,” said Homnick. “Willie was on my left, Sonny was on my right, and I was facing Johnny. Like a baseball diamond. Johnny threw most of the mikes in the middle of the room, with a few mikes near my drum set, and mikes near everybody. It was incredible. Sonny and Emma picked the songs. Willie brought in a song he wrote that was never recorded—‘I Think I Got the Blues.’ He sat right there in the studio, sang it a cappella, and coached Sonny on how to do it the way he envisioned it. Ten or fifteen minutes down the line, Sonny got it the way Willie wanted it, and we recorded it spontaneously, just from Willie humming it.”

The band had never played together, so they spent the first day in the studio just jamming. Like the sessions with Waters, the players followed the leader.

“Sonny did what he wanted to do and I fit my style into it,” says Johnny. “You gotta follow Sonny ’cause all his songs weren’t strictly by the book—they changed when he wanted to change.”

“We all followed Sonny because Sonny really doesn’t know twelve-bar blues,” said Homnick. “He’s just in another world. He’ll turn around before the twelfth bar, or he’ll go thirteen bars. Or he’ll go to the eleventh bar and go one or two beats after the eleventh bar, go right around, and go back to the beginning. You don’t know when he’s going to do that, so if you don’t follow him, you screw up the whole song. There is one song [on
Whoopin‘
] where it is completely noticeable. You’ll be tapping your foot and all of a sudden, it ain’t workin’.”

Just as Johnny couldn’t get Waters to play guitar on
Hard Again,
he couldn’t convince Terry to play electric harp to get the distorted raw sound of Chicago blues.

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