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The Alligator Records Years

Although Winter’s commercial fortunes waned in the late 1970s as changing musical trends marginalized his blues-based rock ‘n’ roll sound, the guitarist was undeterred in his efforts. Aside from producing a handful of career-topping albums for blues legend Muddy Waters, the guitarist found time to record 1977’s Nothin’ But The Blues album with an all-star assemblage of talents from Waters’ band that included harp player James Cotton, guitarist Bob Margolin, pianist Pinetop Perkins, and drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith.

One of Winter’s best efforts, there’s nary a bad song on the album highlighted by Waters taking the microphone for his own “Walkin’ Thru The Park.” Delivered in an old-school Chicago blues style, the song’s mid-tempo arrangement barely contains the energy pouring out from the studio, Cotton’s wailing harp matching Winter’s lively fretwork note for note, Winter’s gruff vocals juxtaposed against Waters’ relatively silkier tones.

Although Winter continued to pursue his purist blues muse with albums like 1978’s White, Hot & Blue (what an awful title!) and 1980’s Raisin’ Cain, his days with Sony were clearly coming to a close. Neither album displays much in the way of energy or inspiration, the guitarist going through the motions with mostly rote performances of cover tunes and poorly-written contributions from the band. The six songs offered from the two albums here at the beginning of disc four are nothing to write home about. After a four-year studio hiatus, Winter signed with the esteemed blues label Alligator Records, coming full circle back to the blues of his youth and finding new inspiration for his restless guitar.

His debut for the label, 1984’s Guitar Slinger, is represented by a lone entry, but “Don’t Take Advantage Of Me” displays more engaged vocals, brighter guitar, and a more authentic, bluesier tone than Winter had shown in years.

Third Degree & Beyond

Serious Business (1985) was Winter’s second LP for Alligator, and while “Master Mechanic” is nowhere near the strongest song from that set, it’s a red-hot poker nonetheless. Winter’s fluid guitar licks scream across the grooves, a rudimentary shuffling percussion supporting the singer’s leering vocal performance. Third Degree (1986) was Winter’s final album for Alligator, and arguably his best, this cover of J.B. Lenoir’s “Mojo Boogie” firing up the grill for a good, old-fashioned Texas-styled string-pull. Winter’s greasy slide-work is perfectly suited for this sort of jam, the band delivering a relentless groove beneath Winter’s half-spoken, half-sung but entirely soulful vox.

From here, True To The Blues runs through the next quarter-century of Winter’s career in a mere six songs, an egregious oversight in my mind...I would have cut the six less-than-stellar songs from the beginning of this fourth disc down to three or four and back-loaded tracks from Winter’s MCA and Point Blank albums like the Terry Manning-produced The Winter of ’88 or 2004’s I’m A Bluesman. Still, we get the roaring “Illustrated Man” from 1991’s Let Me In, a fine late-career moment that fairly leaps off the turntable, and the funky, syncopated “Hard Way,” from 1992’s Hey, Where’s Your Brother? The set concludes with a pair of songs from 2010’s Roots, Winter’s version of Robert Johnson’s classic “Dust My Broom” spiced up with Derek Trucks’ fiery licks matching Winter’s lively slidework with no little glee.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

It’s always difficult to critically judge a career-spanning box set such as Johnny Winter’s True To The Blues. The hardcore faithful already owns much – if not all – of the music on the collection’s four discs and, save for the previously unreleased Atlanta Pop Festival material, there’s little among the set’s 50+ tracks that provides fresh insight into the artist’s work. True To The Blues nevertheless offers up a fine selection of performances that may interest any newcomer or casual fan to further explore a catalog of uniform consistency and entertainment value that spans some six decades.

Honestly, Winter’s legacy was writ permanently in stone years ago, and True To The Blues only codifies what many of us already knew – JW is one bad mammer-jammer of a blues-rock guitarist. Although he’s not the most innovative of instrumentalists, he has his moments, and while Winter’s songwriting often results in uninspired lyrics, the passion and fire he brings to his performances is unparalleled by talented contemporaries like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Warren Haynes. Winter’s influence has reverberated across the blues and blues-rock world like a tsunami over the decades, though, and True To The Blues does an admirable job of trying to catch some of that Texas lightning in a bottle. (Legacy Recordings, released February 25, 2014)