Johnny Winter emerged to national prominence in 1968, after a journalist for Rolling Stone magazine wrote, “If you can imagine a hundred and thirty pound cross-eyed albino with long fleecy hair playing some of the gutsiest fluid blues guitar you have ever heard, then enter Johnny Winter.”
Winter’s scorching playing more than lived up to the hype. He signed a huge deal with Columbia Records and rapidly became the first American blues-rock guitar hero to headline stadiums. In concert and on record, Johnny proved himself extraordinarily adept with old-time country blues and high-energy blues-rock played bare-fingered or with a slide.
During the ensuing half-century Winter remained true to his roots in the blues, classic rock and roll, and the songs of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. He had many ups and downs, including long periods of inactivity and intense bouts with drug addiction. He also enjoyed many successes; his favorite among these was playing a vital role in resurrecting the career of his idol Muddy Waters during the 1970s and ’80s.
Through it all, Johnny Winter remained intensely devoted to the guitar. “I really love playing guitar,” he said near the end of his life. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever really been great at!” This type of understatement was typical of Johnny, who, like his fellow Texan Stevie Ray Vaughan, was always quick to praise and credit the musicians who’d inspired him. In truth, Winter excelled at producing, arranging, and performing, and he was exceptionally knowledgeable on the history of Texas and Mississippi blues music and early rock and roll.
In conversations, Johnny came across as unpretentious, upbeat, and accommodating. At the time of this May 2, 1984, interview, Johnny had just released 3rd Degree, the best of his albums on Alligator Records. We agreed to focus our talk on the art of slide guitar.
###
Would you be willing to discuss the art of slide guitar?
Sure! It’s kind of hard to explain it, you know, but I’ll be glad to try.
On this new album, you used a couple of open tunings.
Yeah. I always use the same two. Usually it’s the open E and open A, but on this record I think I used the open E tuning in G in one case, and the A tuning I use on “Iodine in My Coffee.” I’m not sure if that song is in A or not – I think it is. But I use those two basic blues tunings that I picked up from Robert Johnson, mostly – listening to Son House and Robert Johnson records. In fact, when I was learning, I wasn’t aware of any books, so I had to learn it by listening to mostly, like I say, to Son House and Robert Johnson records. You just had to figure out what the open strings were by listening to the records, and it was a whole different thing.
I later found out that I was right, when people started writing books and stuff. But before they started writing on the back of album covers and telling what that stuff was, they called it bottleneck guitar at first because that’s what the guys would usually do – break the neck off of a bottle and use that. It was definitely difficult. That open A, they usually call it open G.
If you have a guitar tuned regular and you’re going to go to open A, how would you tune it?
It’s like that hillbilly A chord, putting your fingers on the second fret on the second, third, and fourth strings.
So you tune those three strings up a whole note.
Right.
When you said you played one of the songs in open E, but in G, do you mean you capoed at the third fret?
No. I just had real light-gauge strings on and just tuned it all the way up to G.
So if you’re going to an open E, you start with your guitar tuned the regular way and then you tune your fifth, fourth, and third strings up.
Yeah. It’s usually open E, so usually I just turn the third string up one fret. I just tune it to the regular E chord. Usually if I’m gonna do a song in G, I’ll use the open A tuning. But I had real light gauge strings on my guitar, and if I’d have tuned down and used that tuning, it just wouldn’t have had as much balls. So I went ahead and tuned it all the way up. Luckily I didn’t break any strings. That was for “It’s My Life, Baby.”
For a beginner, could you explain the advantages of playing in an open tuning versus standard tuning?
Well, when you’re playing with a slide, the advantages are that you’ve got that chord there. You can just barre the strings and you’ve got a chord to work with. That’s the advantage – that you’ve got an open chord to work with, and you can have that chord ring down in the bass notes while you play the top strings with your fingers – I do some of that. You know, I keep the bass going with my thumb and play lead with my fingers, especially if I’m playing by myself. That’s a big help. The notes are easier to go to. It’s easier to go to blues notes in those two tunings than it is if you’re just tuning to standard tuning. Duane Allman was about the best slide man at playing with a regular tuning. You just don’t get too many chords, especially if you don’t use your little finger [for the slide]. That’s pretty important.
I started out using my ring finger because it really feels weird playing with a slide on your little finger, but a guy from the Denver Folklore Society – I think his name was Dave Debetzer – he was a blues freak, and he got me my first National guitar for about a hundred-and-fifty bucks, and he really helped me a whole lot, man. He forced me to use that little finger. He said, “Man, you’re gonna be unhappy later on down the line if you don’t change.” It’s so hard to do at first.
So you were initially wearing the slide on your ring finger, like Duane did.
Yeah. That’s what feels natural at first, but when you do that, you really can’t play chords. You can fret with those free fingers if you put the slide on your little finger. You can do a lot of fretwork with those three fingers. If you put the slide on the middle, it pretty much screws you up. You can’t do much chord work that way. So I have the slide halfway up my little finger, not all the way on it, but halfway up to where I can still bend that little finger.
What kind of slide do you use now?
I’ve had the same slide forever. This same guy took me to a plumbing supply place and I had to buy a twelve-foot-long piece of conduit pipe, and then I had the guy there cut it into pieces for me. I think they are about an inch-and-a-half, pretty close to two inches, long. I gave the rest of them away years ago. I’ve had the same one. I should have buffed it down immediately, but I didn’t. It started out like a garbage can color, not shiny at all. It changed from that to a kind of a black shiny color, and then that finish wore off and now it’s kind of bright silver. I did that just playing guitar. I should have just buffed it down as soon as I got it because it sounds much clearer now.
At first, it wasn’t slick at all, so it didn’t really sound good. It’s got to be nice and smooth to get a good tone. But before that, man, I’d use my wristwatch, I’d use knives, I’d use lipstick covers, I’d use a test tube. And this piece of conduit pipe is without a doubt the best. I’ve never had a store-bought slide that was small enough to fit just halfway up my little finger. I went to the plumbing supply place and tried different pieces of pipe until I found one that fit me perfect.
Is it heavy?
No, it’s not really heavy, but it’s not super light.
Do you know what it’s made of?
I sure don’t, man. It’s not copper. It’s shiny. It’s just some kind of metal. It’s fairly thick. It’s not super heavy like some of those store-bought slides I’ve seen that are really heavy. I really don’t know the thickness. It’s kind of right in the middle, though. It’s perfect for me. It’s not real heavy and it’s not real light. But it should be right for you. If it’s too heavy, you’re not gonna really be able to feel how hard to press down. If you press down too hard, of course, you’re gonna hit the frets. And if you don’t press down hard enough, you’re not gonna get a nice tone. And just knowing how hard to press down was the hardest part, for me, in getting that nice tone. At first the harmonics when you slide up there would be as loud as the tone I was trying to get. I was really bad at first.
How did you get better?
Practicing. Just kept on playing, man. That’s the way I did everything. I just played with all the records first. Then, after I got down what the people were doing on the records, I started putting my own stuff to it.
What were your favorite slide cuts? What would be essential for a young player to check out?
It’s good to start with someone like Son House, because Son played real simple. Robert Johnson, without a doubt, though, is the best of those Delta guys. He’s so far above everybody else that it was scary. Robert Johnson, without a doubt. Either one of those Columbia Robert Johnson albums – the first one and King of the Delta Blues. That stuff is just great. That’s really where I learned most of my first stuff. Well, actually the first slide I heard was Muddy Waters. It was off this album The Best of Muddy Waters, on Chess. And I didn’t know what it was. I remember hearing it for the first time, and at first I thought it was a steel guitar. And then I could tell for sure there was one cut on there that was just one guy playing, and he would fret the guitar sometimes and sometimes he would use the slide. I didn’t know what it was for a long time.
I just kept buying albums, and I’d hear somebody else. I don’t really remember how I finally found out what it was – I think probably from some album liner notes. But as soon as I found out what was going on, I started experimenting with different things and trying to get the right tuning.
First I was trying slide without tuning my guitar different at all, and I knew that wasn’t right. And then you just got to where you could hear it by listening over and over. You could hear this must be tuned to this chord, and I would just tune my guitar where I thought was right and then I would play along with it. I started being able to copy what was on the record, so then I figured, “Well, this must be right.” That’s the way I learned it.
Later on, after the Muddy Waters stuff, I found the Son House album on Columbia, right when he had been rediscovered and he’d just put this album out. I think it was The Legendary Son House. It was definitely on Columbia. It was right when he first got rediscovered.
Are we talking about the early 1960s?
Early ’60s, mid ’60s. Yeah, about the same time I got the Robert Johnson albums. And those albums really took me a long way, man. That was the kind of stuff I was really into. I’d heard Earl Hooker on a couple of 45s, and I could tell he was doing something different, but at that point I hadn’t heard that much of Earl Hooker, and I was really interested in the more primitive stuff – you know, the Robert Johnson and the Son House.
Is there much difference between playing acoustic slide versus electric?
Yeah, yeah. In fact, just playing acoustic guitar versus electric is harder for me, because I never did much acoustic playing. I just always played electric guitar. Even if I was sitting around the house, I would just play my electric with no amp. The only thing that made me want to play acoustic guitar was when I heard the National, because that was such a rough, different sound. It reminded me of a garbage can with a wire across it or something. It had a real nasty sound. Most acoustic things are nice and mellow and pretty, and I just didn’t really want that. But when I heard that first National guitar, I knew there was something different. And then when I saw one, I was determined to get one of those.
With that nickel-plated body?
Yeah! That was the whole thing for me, the National guitar and getting that sound. And it’s a hard guitar to play. For me, it doesn’t balance quite right, and I really have to get used to it. I can’t just switch from my electric and pick up my National and play on it very well. I have to sit down for an hour or two and mess with it.
Do you ever play slide with your guitar held flat on your lap?
Never have. I mean, I tried it a couple of times, and it just didn’t feel right at all to me. Yeah, I do remember buying a steel [lap steel guitar] at one point, and just seeing if that worked. And it just felt full awkward to me. And every time I ever set down with anybody’s steel guitar, I just can’t do anything. It just feels totally, totally wrong for me.
I remember taking piano lessons when I was a little kid, and it felt the same way. If I’d have practiced forever, I don’t think I would have ever been a good piano player. It just didn’t feel right. Immediately, the guitar just felt like it was part of me. You’d see T-Bone Walker play with the guitar turned up that way. He would just play normally, with a strap around the guitar, but he’d have the guitar turned up like that [strings facing the ceiling] and he kind of played down on it. But he still fretted with his hand around the guitar – he didn’t go from the top. I really just didn’t ever feel comfortable doing that.
What’s your favorite electric guitar for slide?
Well, my favorite guitar for everything was the [Gibson] Firebird.
Do you change the guitar’s action for slide?
Yeah, I usually have it up a little bit higher. I have my action pretty high normally, so I can just tune up one of my regular guitars and play slide on it. But I couldn’t play slide with action the way most people have theirs. But usually I have one guitar with the action set up just a little bit higher so I can still fret it – I don’t have it high enough to where I can’t fret it. But it will make it a little bit easier.
Do you raise it at the bridge?
Yeah, yeah. Always. I never have done anything at the nut. I’ve never had a higher nut or anything like that.
If you’re going to be playing slide, will you leave the older strings on the guitar?
No, not usually. I usually change strings when they start sounding dead. I like a pretty bright sound. But when you first change strings, it’s pretty bad, you know. When they’re brand new, you get a whole lot of that surface noise. So it really helps to play on it for a few hours. If you change strings and go right out and play a job, you’re going to have a whole lot more noise than you want.
What string gauges do you use for slide?
I have been using the same gauges for everything – .009, .011, .016, .024, .032, .042. But for the last couple of months . . . I got that Lazer guitar, and the strings on it were heavier. I tuned it down to D, because I think it started with a .010, and then .013, .018, .026, .036, .046, I believe is what he had on there. It felt good but it was a little harder to play, so I tuned it down to D. A lot of the things on the record are in D, just tuned down to a regular open tuning, but starting with D instead of E. I really like that, so I’ve been doing that a lot lately, just playing the Lazer guitar tuned down to D. Jimi used to go Eb a lot, and D, boy, you hit that bass string and it sounds so nice. I don’t know – it’s just been sounding so good that I might keep doing it. “Boot Hill” is in D, just regular tuning. That’s kind of an example. And “Lights Out” and “Don’t Take Advantage of Me” – I’ll play those when I got my guitar tuned down to D and I’m playing that Lazer.
So every string is tuned down a whole step from open E.
Right.
Is that Lazer a full-scale guitar?
Yeah. In fact, it goes a little further. If it’s tuned to E, you can hit two octaves – it goes all the way up to high E.
Do you wear a thumbpick when you play slide?
Yeah, I always use a thumbpick. Even when I play mandolin, I play it with a thumbpick.
Do you use the fingers of your right hand too?
Yeah. I use the first two fingers.
For slide?
Yeah. For everything.
How do you keep the other strings from ringing out? Do you damp anywhere?
Sometimes I want ’em to ring, but if I don’t, then I always use the heel of my right hand to dampen the strings. Yeah, I’ve always done that. In fact, the first Fender guitar I ever got, it had that tailpiece on it, and I hated that. I thought, “Man, am I the only guy that needs that thing off?” The first thing I did when I got a Strat was take that tailpiece off because I can’t play without being able to dampen the strings down there.
But definitely playing slide, you also have to be able to use your left hand to deaden some strings, and that’s a whole different technique. You know, you’re using that slide and not fretting, so sometimes if you don’t want but one string to ring, you really have to work it out so you can use some of those other fingers to deaden some of the strings.
In other words, if you’re doing an Elmore James slide up to the twelfth fret on two or three of the strings, your index finger or your index and middle fingers would be laying across the strings below the slide.
Yeah. Usually. Yeah.
When do you not dampen?
Sometimes you just want the whole thing to ring. That’s the whole advantage of having the open chord.
As far as amps go, what do you prefer for playing slide?
I been using the Music Man amps for a long time, but the Music Man amps that I have aren’t new. They were from when Leo Fender was with Music Man. But on the record, I used a Mesa/Boogie. And I had never used a Mesa/Boogie before, and I really loved it. It was just an excellent-sounding amp. Most of the album we cut with a Mesa/Boogie, and I’m really happy with it. I really like that Mesa/Boogie. I’d been hearing about them for years, and it’s the first time I actually cut with one of them. But, man, it just sounded great.
What pickups do you prefer for slide?
Usually I almost always use the pickup by the neck. And that’s one of the strange things about getting used to these Lazer guitars, because I’ve never really liked using that treble pickup very much. But somehow it sounds pretty damn good. I’ve gotten used to it. It’s got enough balls to where I like it okay. But usually I tend to almost always use the lower pickup.
Muddy loved that real trebly Telecaster sound. He got a great sound using the treble pickup. Somehow I have so much treble on my amp anyway that sometimes I use that pickup and there’s just too much. There’s so much treble you can hardly find the notes. It’s just a little too much treble. But with the Lazer guitar, I played “Iodine in My Coffee,” and it doesn’t have a bass pickup. It only has the pickup by the bridge, but it’s not quite as close to the bridge as most guitars. It’s got a switch – you can push down on the bass/treble control, and it goes from a one-coil pickup to two coils, and that makes a lot of difference. I really like that because it gives it more body. It’s two completely different tones, though.
Did Muddy Waters ever say anything to you about playing slide?
Not really. He just said, “Keep doing it – sure sounds good to me!” By the time that I’d met Muddy, I had pretty much absorbed what Muddy did to where if I wanted to, I could play note-for-note what he was going to play. It’s kind of too bad – it would have made it a lot easier for me. But there wasn’t anybody that played slide that I had a chance to ask about it, until I met this guy Dave from Denver. Nobody had ever showed me anything.
Did Muddy usually go for single lines instead of chords?
Yeah, almost always, because he had a very, very short slide. You couldn’t get but about two strings with it – at the very most. That’s all he could get with that slide.
Did he play with it on his little finger?
You know, I can’t remember if Muddy played with it on his little finger or on his ring finger. That’s unbelievable. That’s really unbelievable. [Asks his wife.] Yeah, his little finger.
Did he damp?
You know, I really never watched Muddy that much. But just listening, yeah, he did to a certain extent. Yeah.
Did you ever get a chance to play with Duane Allman?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We played together a lot. In fact, I just got a tape last week when I was out on the road. I just got a tape of me sitting in with the Allman Brothers at the Hollywood Bowl back in ’70 or ’71. Way back there. I hadn’t heard it since we did it. We were doing all those festivals together, and Duane and I played a whole lot together.
How would you characterize the differences between your slide styles?
Oh, there wasn’t anything similar. I mean, there was nothing similar, nothing at all. Duane’s style is so totally a whole different thing. Even the sound is different. He never played open chords. He never did anything in open tuning, so it was usually one or two strings at a time. [Ed. Note: While it’s true Duane Allman played slide in standard tuning during “Dreams” and “Mountain Jam,” most of his other slide songs were in open E.] And he did a lot of damping on both sides – with both hands. It was very, very original, man. I mean, Duane, it was almost like he just did everything totally his own way. He didn’t seem to get that style from anybody else. I mean, Earl Hooker was about his only influence as I could see. It was a little Earl Hooker, but he had a real individual style. In those days, when you thought of slide, you thought of open tunings. Nobody played slide in regular tunings.
Have you ever recorded any slide songs in regular tunings?
Never ever. I hardly ever do it. Once in a while on gigs I’ll try it, but I’m not really too good at it.
Are there differences in your approaches when you’re playing in E or A?
Not a whole lot. They’re pretty much the same – you add an extra string there in the A. The A tuning is the same things as the E tuning, with an extra string on top. The high string.
So the same patterns basically work for both.
And it took me a while to figure it out. It sure seemed fairly easy to go from one to the other, and I realized why – it was exactly the same thing, except for the top string.
You just move the patterns over a string, basically.
That’s right.
Do you have any advice for beginners?
Boy, it’s so hard. I remember just being really frustrated because things just didn’t sound right. I guess just don’t get discouraged, because slide really sounds terrible at first. You just don’t ever think you’re gonna get it right. But you keep on practicing and getting that tone right, just knowing how. You just got to feel it – just exactly how hard to push down to keep from hitting the fret, but hard enough to get a nice tone.
It’s mainly just keep on practicing and get your tone down. For me, that was the hardest thing – getting a decent tone. And, of course, you got to get used to the totally different tuning. But for me, it wasn’t near as hard as I thought it was going to be. It just kind of fell into place. Like any style of guitar, it takes a lot of practice.
There’s sure a lot you can do with it too.
Yeah! I’ve heard people say it’s confining, and it is, because you can’t go to as many different chords as you can in regular tuning, but it’s a whole different thing. It’s just great for blues. It seems like it was just made for blues. All the notes are right there, the blues notes. You can get right to them.
It’s great to play slide when you’re by yourself.
Yeah. It really is. It’s got such a nice, lonesome sound that just sustains forever. It does have a real beautiful, totally different sound. I really couldn’t believe it the first time that I ever heard Muddy’s stuff. That was the first slide that I heard, and it’s so unique, so original-sounding. I’ve heard how it supposedly started, but it doesn’t sound like Hawaiian music to me.
It started with Hawaiian music?
Supposedly.
I heard it started with the diddley bow.
Oh, I’ve heard that, of course. That’s definitely one of the main things. I mean, even I played one of those. Every kid from down South at one time does that – puts the wire up on the barn door.
With a couple of spools under it.
Yeah. Just nail it up there. I remember we had a shelf that was hanging up, supported by a wire, and you could tune it by just pulling down on the shelf and you could use a slide. The shelf was just supported by a piece of wire. That was the first time I ever messed with one. I was noticing that you could get to where it made a note. You could put a little tension on the shelf and play tunes with it like that. That was the first time I did anything like that. But I’ve always heard stories that somehow Hawaiian music was supposed to have influenced slide. But, to me, what makes the most sense was so many people had rotten guitar with bowed necks. I think that probably the guitars’ neck got so bad you couldn’t fret ’em. It was just a lot easier to play slide.
It’s hard for me to imagine that someone like Robert Johnson would have been exposed to Hawaiian guitarists.
Me too. That’s just hard for me to believe. But that’s what I always heard – that somehow, someway, the Hawaiian music and steel guitar got to Mississippi and they had heard it over there and took the idea. But to me, that never quite made sense. I mean, how did those people in Mississippi ever hear Hawaiian music?
And if they heard it, would they want to play it?
Yeah, exactly! Yeah! [Laughs.] To me, it makes a lot more sense that they had cheap guitars with the neck all bowed, and it’s just a lot easier to slide something up and down it. But that’s just all theory – I never read that anyplace.
Hey, thanks, Johnny.
It’s been great talking to you. A lot of people have been asking me, “How come nobody seems to be playing slide anymore?” It does seem like there’s a lot less people playing slide now. I think that’s just because there’s less blues, and slide is such a blues-oriented thing, or bottleneck – whatever you want to call it. You don’t hear as many people playing slide, and not many people learning it. So I’m hoping this record will change that around.
###
Coda: Johnny Winter enjoyed a flurry of activity during the final years of life. He was the subject of a 2010 biography by Mary Lou Sullivan, Raisin’ Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter. He appeared at that year’s Crossroads Guitar Festival and oversaw the release of the Johnny Winter Live ’80s DVD. In 2011 he put out the Roots CD on Megaforce/Sony, and then journeyed to Japan to film the Johnny Winter: Live from Tokyo DVD. Johnny’s final studio recording, 2014’s Step Back, featured guest performances by Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Ben Harper, Brian Setzer, Leslie West, and others. He gave his final performance at the Cahors Blues Festival in France two days before his death on July 16, 2014.
###
This interview is an excerpt from my book Talking Guitar: Conversations with Musicians Who Shaped Twentieth-Century American Music, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2018.
Help me support my family and continue producing guitar-intensive articles and podcasts, by becoming a paid subscriber ($5 a month, $40 a year) or hit that donate button. Paid subscribers have complete access to all of the 160+ articles and podcasts posted in Talking Guitar. Thanks for your support!
©2024 Jas Obrecht. All right reserved.