Edgar Winter, ‘Brother Johnny’: Album Overview

Massive-cast all-star tribute albums are often a buyer-beware proposition. Too usually they’re slapdash and unfocused, an idea put collectively in someone’s workplace that appears good, or a minimum of probably good, on paper however does not fairly gel within the studio. Brother Johnny, fortuitously, is a uncommon exception. Eight years within the making, it is a musical love letter from Edgar Winter to his older brother Johnny, the blues-rock nice who died in 2014 on the age of 70.

It is huge – 17 tracks, 76 minutes – and crammed with A-list names, particularly on the guitar entrance. However Brother Johnny is a real labor of affection, and each second is crammed with a real ardour and regard for a man who, regardless of now not being nonetheless alive and effectively, left a substantial amount of glorious music that is nonetheless with us and will get its correct due on this tribute. Greater than 50 years on, some rock followers could not recall or could have by no means identified in regards to the affect Johnny Winter made when he emerged from Beaumont, Texas, getting a recording contract – reportedly for a file advance of $600,000 – after Mike Bloomfield invited him to jam with him and Al Kooper on the Fillmore East.

Along with his lengthy blond hair and albino pores and skin, Winter was a visible shock, whereas his electrical blues was a shock to the system that instantly vaulted Winter into the higher echelon of guitar heroes. Edgar Winter was alongside for the trip on brother Johnny’s first two albums and at Woodstock, and he famously introduced him again from a substance-induced hiatus with a visitor look on Roadwork, the 1972 stay album by Edgar’s band White Trash. The Winters labored collectively on and off all through Johnny’s life, making his brother the one one certified to helm this sort of tribute. Brother Johnny manages to be so much, however not an excessive amount of of a superb factor. It is pushed by Edgar’s imaginative and prescient but additionally the presence of a single drummer, Gregg Bissonette (save for Ringo Starr on “Stranger”), which supplies the set a cohesive rhythmic persona that is refined however actually felt. There are solely two bassists – Sean Hurley and Bob Glaub – as effectively, which suggests the inspiration is robust for the assembled visitors to shine in Winter’s honor.

And that they do. Brother Johnny is the form of affair the place you’ll be able to drop the needle nearly wherever and discover one thing to be enthusiastic about. It begins at a high-speed shuffle, with Joe Bonamassa‘s slide stinging by “Imply City Blues,” whereas Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Bon Jovi‘s Phil X put crunch into “Nonetheless Alive and Nicely.” Billy Gibbons and Derek Vehicles duel their approach by a lusty, meaty “I am Yours and I am Hers,” and Joe Walsh supplies the lead vocal on Chuck Berry‘s “Johnny B. Goode, with David Grissom performing the guitar heroics. Walsh then picks up his axe for an aching “Stranger,” sung by Michael McDonald.

It goes like that all through Brother Johnny. Shepherd and the Doobie Brothers‘ John McFee lock horns over Edgar’s striding guitar line in Bob Dylan‘s “Freeway 61 Revisited,” and Edgar takes the lead vocal on “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hoochie Koo,” with Steve Lukather soloing. Gov’t Mule‘s Warren Haynes grinds out some gritty funk on “Reminiscence Ache,” and veteran bluesman Bobby Rush is an impressed selection, on vocals and harmonica, for “Obtained My Mojo Workin’.” There are quiet moments, too – rustic, front-porch takes on “Lone Star Blues” with Keb’ Mo’ and “When You Obtained a Good Buddy” with Doyle Bramhall II,” whereas a horn part accompanies Edgar on a gradual take of Ray Charles’ “Drown in My Personal Tears,” whereas a string quartet-sweetened “Finish of the Line,” which closes the festivities, attracts a number of tears of its personal. And it is laborious to not be moved by the presence of Foo Fighters‘ Taylor Hawkins, who died instantly simply three weeks earlier than Brother Johnny‘s launch, on a hard-hitting model of “Guess I will Go Away.” There was a way that, even at 70, Johnny Winter was gone too quickly, and his latest albums similar to Roots and the posthumous, Grammy Award-winning Step Again actually supported that notion. Brother Johnny celebrates the six-string stallion that he was, and hopefully, this salute can function a portal to ship listeners again to discover the unique works.