Review Summary: Johnny Winter expands the limitations of the blues rock format towards psychedelia
Recorded in Nashville during the summer of 1969, "Second winter" marks the extension of Johnny's original rock blues trio to his brother Edgar, so adding keyboards and wind instruments to the mix, dramatically broadening the sound and genre possibilities. Produced by the brothers themselves, the lp has the merit to expand the limitations of the blues rock format towards psychedelia operating also on the instruments tone saturation and sound compression, till exaggerating in the mix balance certain inputs at the expense of others, in order to confer a peculiar savour, mood, rawness or excitement to every track. An avantgard example of post modern rock blues is the guitar compressed sound on the Percy Mayfield cover "Memory pain" in which the abrasive vocals of the leader clashes against saturated bending notes, above the irregular syncopated drums tempo kept by 'Uncle' John Turner and caked through the thick Noel Redding styled bass line played by Tommy Shannon. Psychedelic blues colours both the Johnny penned "I'm not sure" (with an electrified mandolin heavily slapped in front of the mix) and the wah wah buried "The good love". Then we have a '50s flavoured r'n'b/rock'n'roll section ("Slippin' and slidin'", "Miss Ann" and the quite predictable "Johnny B. Goode") where Edgar showcases his multi-instrumentalist gifts. Johnny's fondness for Bob Dylan brings to the "Highway 61 revisited" cover, characterized by a razor-sharp slide guitar running wild in this guitar god hands. I think side 3 is the most interesting part of the record, consisting of all Johnny Winter's original compositions, from the best slide licks ever recorded by Winter in the fantastic "I love everybody", the frantic hyper fluent soloing wild ride of "Hustled down in Texas", the jazzy uptempo "I hate everybody" to the final experimental beast of "Fast life rider". This lp vies for the title of best ever Johnny Winter studio album with its main competitor 1970's "Johnny Winter and" which, if less adventurous, focuses more on songwriting and state of the art arrangements.
Originally published on rateyourmusic.com: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/johnny-winter/second-winter/
