This is a 2014 documentary, released a few months before Winter’s death at 70 while he was touring Switzerland. The period covered shows him on tour over roughly the last year of his life, interspersed with interviews with him, cinema verité bits, comments from various people in the music business, and biographical material.
By this time, despite being off methadone, the long term addiction that replaced his relatively brief period of heroin addiction, Winter is physically frail, moves like someone 20 years older and sits down when playing. It’s a sad commentary, I suppose, on how a lifetime of addictions, and a wild life in general, can ruin a person’s physical health. In contrast, Keith Richards, who once represented the poster boy ideal for the dangers of the rock ‘ roll lifestyle is still very much alive and kicking, and recording, at 82.
Winter’s first recording was released in 1959, when he was 15, and the last one in 2014, presumably when he was still 69, and he has a significant discography from before he became famous in 1968 as well as subsequently, including a plethora of live recordings, in which he went from blues to hard rock back to blues. Today, he’s still primarily thought of as a Texas bluesman. The early ‘70s hard rock years stemmed from management and record label believing that this was the route to commercial success though the most creatively successful part of that decade was his association as producer and backing musician with the resurgence of Muddy Waters with 1977’s Hard Again album, and the three that followed, where Winter reigned in his overbearing, excessive trademark of egoistic, endless, fluid soloing for an tasteful, concise and incisive integrated contribution to a Chicago blues band style. Winters was a masterful, technically proficient guitarist encouraged by the “guitar hero” fixation of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s to abandon discretion in favour of excess.
I’m ambiguous about Johnny Winter’s music. The records I like best are the solo albums Nothin’ but the Bluesand White, Hot & Blue as well as the three Muddy Waters albums to which he contributed because he plays to serve the songs rather than showing off his extraordinary ability showcased for its own sake. Even the first albums on Columbia Records, as well as The Progressive Blues Experiment, seem to verge too much on hard rock than on the straightforward blues of that late ‘70s’ period. When Winter formed Johnny Winter And for the foray into hard rock, he lost me. I can admire how good he is on the guitar but it’s an intellectual appreciation rather than a visceral enjoyment; lengthy versions of “Highway 62 Revisited,” no matter how energetic, simply become tedious after a few minutes.
At 69, Winter still plays pretty much as fiercely and fluidly as he ever could, and nis voice, never his strongest suit anyway, just about holds up. The shocking part of the documentary is simply how frail he is and the sense, in hindsight of course, that one is watching a slow fade into death. If Winter had looked after himself, or had someone who minded him better, this last period of touring might not have been his last and absolutely wouldn’t have felt so forlorn and almost desperate, even if the audience clearly still adore him. The people who pay for the tickets are just happy to experience a living legend who mostly still sounds like he always did, while he’s still able to tour and to play.
Paul Nelson deserves much credit for weaning Winter off methadone and getting him back as close as possible to prime Johnny Winter and managing his career successfully at least for the last few years of Winter’s life so that he didn’t die in forgotten ignominy. I suppose it could be a badge of honour to have been in one of the audiences during that last period of shows, especially the final one, which wouldn’t have happened without Nelson’s dedication to rescuing Winter.
The bits of biographical detail are insightful and the comments from the likes of Joe Perry (Aerosmith) are full of admiration for a living icon of rock and blues. From a distance, just noting the regular record releases, it seemed that Winter’s career was chugging along satisfactorily and that returning to being a bluesman was comforting, of course, this public image never reflects what actually happens in the musician’s personal life, that will not only have the same kinds of challenges most people have but sometimes extraordinary ones specific to the musician’s life choices. Winter kept working, while dependant on methadone, but on a reduced level of efficiency, due to the machinations of his manager, until Nelson took over, though it couldn’t have been a happy life. Presumably, the final, methadone-free years, were good and Winter died during a positive period of his life.
Johnny Winter: Down & Dirty is your typical slice-of-life view of a specific time in a person’s life and that the period is close to his death makes the viewing quite poignant knowing that one is experiencing the final months of someone who isn’t anticipating his imminent, unforeseen demise. He was still articulate, verbally and as musician, and seemed optimistic that life would continue favourably for a while longer. To me, it seemed that this period would end with a slow decline due to the physical frailties, and that Winter would conclude his life in a frail care home of sorts, rather than a sudden exit at age 70.
I suppose I should investigate Winter’s music in more detail. I have the late ‘70s albums already mentioned, as well as collections of his pre-fame recordings and ‘90s blues period, but other than hearing some songs from the hard rock period, I’ve not gone on a deep dive into the back catalogue, mostly because, as mentioned, I’m not that much of a fan of Winter’s style but seeing as how Apple Music provides the resources, one should do the research and pay proper homage.
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