Born: February 23, 1944

Born John Dawson Winter III in Leland, Mississippi, Johnny Winter grew up in Beaumont, Texas, and attended Beaumont schools and Lamar State College of Technology. In high school and college, he played with the band he had formed at 14, called Johnny and The Jammers, playing local clubs and talent shows with his younger brother, Edgar.

Both of Johnny’s parents were musicians, and he became interested in music at an early age. He learned to play the clarinet at 5 years old and the ukulele at about 8; he taught himself to play the guitar at 11 years old. Before Johnny and the Jammers, he and Edgar worked as a ukulele duo around Beaumont. By the late 1950s, Johnny was touring with Gene Terry and the Downbeats, working gigs through Texas and Louisiana.

Johnny formed various rock groups, The Crystaliers, It & Them, The Black Plague, and Traits, and worked local gigs into the 1960s before attending Lamar. 1962 found him working club dates in Chicago, and he worked with Mike Bloomfield at the Fickle Pickle Coffeehouse there in 1963.

The following two years, Edgar and Johnny teamed again to play clubs, roadside bars, and campus dates through the Southeast. Johnny continued to play the club scene and record numerous singles, both on small local labels and on major labels like MGM and Atlantic, but he couldn’t land a major label contract until 1968.

1968 was the year that Winter traveled to England in search of a more receptive musical climate. He had just recorded some songs for Imperial Records before he left. He spent part of that year working dates in London and considered moving the band over there. When he returned home, he discovered that Rolling Stone had printed an article raving about the unknown albino blues guitarist from Texas. Nearly every major label was on the phone trying to sign him.

Winter signed with Columbia Records and began to play major venues: the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore West in San Francisco, and the Fillmore East and the Scene in New York City. He released a self-titled album in 1969. Like his brother Edgar’s band White Trash, Johnny Winter’s band included some noted local musicians, including drummer “Uncle John” Turner, a Port Arthur native who also appeared at Woodstock. Singer and bass player Tommy Shannon also played with the Johnny Winter Band, recording Progressive Blues Experiment, Johnny Winter, Second Winter, and Third Degree with the group. Shannon went on to play with Stevie Ray Vaughn.

A blues guitarist of the first order, Johnny was influenced by the rhythm and blues of Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. His albums on Epic Records were best sellers, several going gold. Winter has also produced four albums for Muddy Waters, three of which went gold. He has been nominated for Grammy awards several times, and he continues to tour and record.