April 8, 2022 • 49 mins
The legendary multi-instrumentalist behind classics like "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride" details the recording of his musical tribute to his late brother, Johnny Winter. Due out April 15, the album 'Brother Johnny' is equal parts all-star tribute and musical memoir, tracing the blues guitar titan's life and influences through 17 songs with the help of luminaries like Joe Walsh, Ringo Starr, Billy Gibbons, Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, Keb Mo, Derek Trucks, and Taylor Hawkins.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Studio on I Heart Radio. My name's Jordan Runtag, but
enough about me. My guest today is one of the
great innovators of popular music, blending blues, rock, jazz and funk,
and there his own unique creation. I suppose it's only
appropriate that one of his most enduring songs is named Frankenstein.
(00:22):
Oral amalgamation is his specialty. He's a veteran of woodstock,
an early synth pioneer, and a master of many instruments.
In short, he's a rock and roll hero, and now
he's using his permidable talents to honor his own hero
older brother, Johnny Winter, the legendary acts man who died
in After years spent processing his grief, he's assembled an
(00:43):
electrifying new record called Brother Johnny Do, out April fifteen.
It's less a tribute album and more of a musical biography,
charting the course of Johnny's life through seventeen songs. These
include covers of his old favorites like Johnny Be Good
and Highway sixty one Revisited, as well as he vamped
versions of his own songs like Self Destructive Blues and
of course rock and roll hu Chi Kou. There are
(01:05):
also new original tracks penned in his brother's memory. The
album includes an astonishing array of rock and roll heavy
hitters we've all turned out to play their best for
the late Texas Blues icon. Among them are Joe Walsh,
Ringo Star, Joe Bonamassa, Billy Gibbons, Steve Luthaker, Michael McDonald, Kebmo,
Derek Truck's and Taylor Hawkins, who died shortly after taping
(01:26):
this interview. More than just a deeply touching retrospective, it's
an album that truly rocks and I can't wait for
you to check it out. I'm so happy to welcome
Mr Edgar Winner. There was an interview you gave not
(01:48):
too long ago where you were asked to define the
blues and you defined it as transforming suffering into joy
and I thought that was beautiful and that phrase stuck
with me as I was listening to brother John an
him and there's a lot of joy coming through on
these tracks, but obviously there's this, It's underscored by this,
this tremendous loss as well. What was it like for
you putting this record together? Was it cathartic for you.
(02:11):
It was. Indeed, I spent years not making this record.
I was well. First of all, shortly after Johnny's death, Uh,
I had a number of requests, uh, you know, to
do a tribute album. I was just adamantly opposed to
(02:32):
doing it. I was devastated by Johnny's death, and uh,
it just didn't feel like the right time, and and
it seemed like exploitation of Johnny's name. I just wasn't ready,
you know, to be honest, and uh, and it took.
It took a number of years. But what started that
(02:55):
process with this tour that we did together, which we
had been scheduled to do. Johnny was in Europe at
the time of his death, and there was a thing
called the Rock and Blues Fest, and we were both
scheduled to appear with our respective bands and then there
would be jamming at the end. And I had just thought, well,
(03:17):
surely this is gonna be uh, this is gonna be canceled.
But much to my surprise, the promoters wanted it to
go on as planned with me and my band as
the headliners. And I thought, oh, this is this is
this could be brutal, this could be very difficult and
highly emotional. And uh, the I'll never forget the first
(03:42):
night of that tour after I did Frankenstein, I did
Rock and Roll, who She Coup and Uh alive and
well and uh, I forget Johnny be Good three or
four of Johnny songs and dedicate the end of the
of the set to my brother Johnny. And Uh there
was a great source of strength and comfort in playing
(04:06):
those songs, and everybody on that tour, well, there was
so much love and respect for Johnny, and everybody would
uh would get up to jam at the end, and
it sort of became a tradition. And it helped me
realize that that this wasn't simply a question of uh
(04:26):
making an album and people sensing a business opportunity. It
was Johnny's devoted fans that really wanted to see this happen,
and uh that that was the beginning of it. Uh.
And the people I really want to acknowledge, first of all,
my wife, Monique, my lovely wife of forty two years
(04:49):
uh uh and we have our first anniversary coming up
this month. Congratulations, No, thank you, not that for rock
and Roller, true yeah, Uh, and uh I trust she's
such an intuitive heart, sooner giving person. I think, uh,
(05:10):
musicians are pretty self absorbed in general, and that that
was uh the case with me for many years. But
I trust her intuition more than my analytical thinking and
reasoning about it. And she said, well, of course, from
(05:31):
everything I've ever heard you say, Johnny is your all
time musical hero and if it weren't for him, you
wouldn't be where you are today. So you you know,
you owe that to that, that acknowledgement to yourself and
uh uh to Johnny and to the world. And that
made perfect sense to me. And so uh then the
(05:55):
next thing that occurred was I met Bruce Corto, who
was uh the president of Quarto Valley Records, which is
a small custom label, and uh he honestly and sincerely
he loves Johnny. He wanted to bring that music to
the world for all the right reasons, and he said, agrew,
(06:19):
you can have as long as you want and do
it exactly however you want. You know, may have opinions
from time to time, but uh, this is this is
up to you. So uh I knew he was the
right person to make the album. And thirdly, and finally,
I want to thank Ross Hogarth the engineer, mixer and producer.
(06:42):
It was really a co creation. And Ross Uh I
worked with on my last album, Rebel Road. UH and
Uh when we completed that project, I said, in my
mind and heart, I'm never gonna work with with another
UH mixer other than Moss. He was just the greatest
(07:04):
and he was just Uh he as I said, loves
Johnny as much as I do, and it's as familiar
with his material. And Uh, I hadn't realized the extent
to which Ross was going to become involved. I just
had him as the engineer mixer, but we really ended
(07:27):
up it's really a co created album. And he suggested
so many people. Uh brought so many great people into
the project. Uh Phil Lex for example, he plays with
bon Jovi, who I knew who he was, but I
was not that familiar with his playing. People like David Grissom,
(07:48):
who fellow Texan and great guitarists. Uh. He also suggested
John McPhee to do the slide on on Highway sixty
one when we were trying to think of of UH
fly people. Uh, Doyle bram Hall, Uh, you know, to
do the acoustic uh the version of when you've got
(08:09):
a good friend, which uh Johnny always had one of
those those beautiful old style Delta acoustic songs. So thank
you Ross and the there you have it. That's that's
how it all be game and all again right here
in in Winterland, my little home studio. But I did
(08:29):
all the keyboard parts here at home, and here's my
sixty seven and I sang all the vocals on and uh,
you know it. I honestly I had thought that it.
I knew it was gonna be emotional, and I thought
it might be difficult, and uh there was a lot
(08:49):
of laughter and some tears along the way, but it
really did turn out to be a joyous experience. Uh
so that's the beginning, so uh far away with more questions. Oh,
I mean, it's it comes across as such a celebration
and just the structure the album so cool because these
(09:10):
songs chart the course of Johnny's life in the sense
it's like a musical biography. And for anyone who loves music,
you kind of you love playing that game with yourself
of sort of tracing songs back to the beginning to
find out, you know what the songs were the first
got you hooked on music. What was the process like
for you of choosing the songs that you were going
to include on this album? Uh, it was very interesting.
(09:33):
The first question in my mind was should I do
a straight ahead blues record, a traditional blues record and
just pay tribute to the great legacy that Johnny left
the world, or should it be uh more personal dedication
(09:53):
from me to my brother based on my own particular
personal favorite and Uh, I decided it it should be
a balance of both. And uh, you know Johnny. Johnny
always encouraged me, uh two follow my heart uh with music,
(10:18):
and I love uh jazz and classical as well as
blues and country and rock and all pretty much all style.
I think, Uh, when it came to selecting the songs,
I feel like Johnny had more depth and scope than
(10:41):
a lot of people realize. And his first love obviously
was the blues, and his authenticity as a as a
blues player, particularly his slide guitar, was the thing that
most impressed me. Uh, I think unparalleled. I don't. I
can't think anybody who really, I mean, our musical tastes
(11:04):
were somewhat different, but when it came to selecting the songs,
I thought, well, There are obvious songs that people associate
with Johnny, the songs like Still Alive and Well and
rock and Roll Whuchi Ku that are just uh absolute
songs that you you couldn't imagine doing an album without those.
(11:26):
And then there are all of those songs that Johnny
became associated with uh over the year, sounds like uh
like Jumping Jack Flash that he played with Johnny Winter
and which I thought was just a great rock band,
and uh Highway sixty one. He he loved Dylan, he
(11:46):
loved the Stones, and UH I didn't Uh, I couldn't
imagine leaving those out. And then there were songs like
uh more obscure songs. It's not like Stranger, for example,
which I think is a beautiful ballad and very uncharacteristic
(12:07):
of the style that Johnny usually writes in, and it
reveals a sensitive, vulnerable side that that you don't usually
see uh in in Johnny. And uh uh then you know,
uh self destructive blues. Uh was always my favorite Johnny
(12:31):
shuffle and he he loved shuffles, and you know, he
did a lot of the traditional blues shuffles. But I
love that one because it has a great sense of
humor and it's it's uh, you know, to to talk about. Uh,
that's what the blues is. It's telling your story. And
to write that song self destructive Blues, it was just
(12:52):
so cool to me. It's got a great a great
real just always one of my favorites. Uh. Then Uh,
I had to do john and My on tears. Uh
was the most emotional song on on the album. Uh
for me. Uh, I had always felt like Johnny did
(13:15):
that song especially for me at the time. It was
on his first uh CBS album and he knew how
much I loved Ray Charles. Ray Charles was was my inspiration.
And uh, Johnny loved the old Delta blues, the people
(13:35):
like like Lightning Hopkins and Alan Wolfe and Muddy of
course uh, and I gravitated more towards the urban style
of blues, people like Ray Charles and Bobby Blue Bland
and and uh uh O t bone Walker, guys like
that of BB King. Uh. And he asked me, and
(13:58):
it was so surprised me because he said, Edgar, can
you know, just write out the horn charts just like
Ray did it and played the piano and uh, he said,
I just want to do it that way just like
Ray did it. There's not even any guitar on it,
but I always felt like like he did it for
(14:21):
me because he he wanted me to be able to
express something on that album in the style that he
knew I loved. So when it came time for me
to do that song on this album, UH, I felt
like like I was singing it back to him the
(14:41):
way he sang it to me so many years ago
when he was so young and alive. And not only
to him, but to my mother and father who have
passed on, and all the past members of bands that
that I've had the honor to share the stage with,
the last surviving member of the Ugar Winner group, Dan
(15:03):
Hartman and Ronny Mancho's Chapra uh are all gone, Jerry Lacrosse,
the lead singer in White Trash. But you know, I've
really broke down doing that song, uh, but got through
it and uh and he talked about was it cathartic? Absolutely?
And and uh I after doing that it was a
(15:28):
very uh uh transcendent, freeing, sort of uh purifying experience
h that I felt, you know, after after having done
that song. Uh. And I should mention there are two
songs on the album that I wrote, one of them
(15:48):
being Lone Star Blues, which features Kebmo and uh uh
the last one on the album end of the Line.
That's one of my favorite tracks on there. Oh my gosh,
it's an amazing song. Thank you Jordan's uh. One of
the things that that I that I wanted to express
(16:09):
that that I doubt most people are aware of. But
one of the main differences between Johnny and I growing
up was that he had that dream, He had that
drive and the determination. As far back as I can remember,
he wanted he was gonna be a star. He watched
Bandstand and he read all of magazines. He had a
(16:31):
huge record collection. He knew everybody that played on on
every song, and he was Johnny Cool, Daddy Winner with
the Coomfadur and the Shawnny and the Jammers, Johnny and
the Jammers. And I was like the Cliot tip that
played all the instruments. And I never wanted to be famous.
I never dreamed of being famous. Uh. The point being
(16:52):
that that Johnny had this this dream, and he having
worked all his life to attain this, when he finally
achieved it and had uh seemingly everything, recognition, fame, adoring fans. Uh.
It wasn't what he expected. And I remember him saying, Neddar,
(17:17):
I never thought it would be like this. It's like,
I feel so isolated and alone. I don't know who
to talk to and who to trust. It was like
one of those be careful what you wish for, uh scenarios,
and UH for me it was it was. Uh. He
(17:40):
went through a difficult period and uh, you know that
that disillusionment he resolved. Uh. I think after he went
through the whole rock era with Johnny Winter, and he
had basically he loved the blues, but and he and
he's a great player, and he was always encouraged by
(18:04):
management and the record companies to go more in our
rock direction. Uh. Yet his heart was always with the blues.
And after that period he rededicated himself to the blues.
And I feel resolved that in in his mind. The
last the last time I saw him, I remember having
(18:25):
that specific feeling is he seemed at peace, as though, uh,
you know, all all of that was behind him, and
I think he came to appreciate everything that he had
done throughout his career. But in the song Long Star Blues,
I tried to write that in that particular voice, the
(18:46):
way Johnny felt at that time. And uh, and when
Kebmo decided to to do the song, which now here's
another example of how, of course I didn't know keV
Moo and Ross did the taj Moo album with Taj
Mahal and so they had worked together, and uh he
(19:10):
uh put us in touch and just set up a hello,
get acquainted call and I and I told Kevo about
the song and he said, yeah, that's uh let me
let me hear it, you know. And all I had
on it was a sort of a simulated slide guitar
that I played on the keyboard and a vocal and
(19:34):
Kebmo completely tore it down and started over and he
put all all the instruments on. But when I heard
him sing that, when he sang the courses, uh, it
it like when I wrote it. It was just in
in that voice, that voice of the young Johnny that
(19:56):
was confused and disillusioned. But when Kevmo made it to
duet and he had come in sound like the long
Stome blues, it just introduced this note of compassion. He
sort of became like the old wise blues man. That
was like saying uh, that was empathizing and saying, yeah,
(20:18):
you know it can it can get tough, but it's
gonna be all right. And I thought that was just
so beautiful. And then after I heard him every time,
every time he came in, it was like the whole
thing came to life. And I wasn't where I was
born in Boumart, you know, in this Johnny style, and
(20:39):
then that sounded just completely, uh, completely wrong, and so
I redid my vocal in more of of that sort
of uh, with more warmth and more of heartfelt storytelling thing.
And you know, thank you keV Moo for for doing that.
(21:00):
He completely transformed that song into something ready beautiful. So
there you hadn't you mentioned Johnny's roots, like I love
(21:22):
that you opened the album with Meantown blues. I just
think it's such a perfect opener because it's such an
amazing fusion of the Delta blues he loved. But then
everything knew that he brought to it and brought to
that style too. I thought that was such a cool
jumping off point for the rest of the record. Thank you,
thank you. You know we I had no idea how
it was gonna come out. I selected a lot more
(21:43):
songs than we ended up using. I didn't know for
sure what was going to end up on and off,
and uh, I didn't select songs with the idea of
a particular artist in mind. I didn't want anybody to
do a song that they didn't passionately believe in and
(22:07):
want to sing. And I would usually give everybody at
least four or five, you know, three or four or
five choices. Uh. And many times like uh, when I asked, uh,
Joe Bonamasa now uh, Uh Ross knew show really well
and I played shows with Joe and we'd talked in passing.
(22:30):
But I was reading a list of songs. And when
I said self destructive blues, Wow, you're really gonna do
self destructive? That was the first Johnny song I ever learned.
And I played that with my band. That's the one
I wanted, you know, that's the one I want to do.
And uh, same thing with Warren Haynes. When I as
soon as I said memory pain, you you can stop
(22:52):
right there. That's that's the Johnny song for for me.
And you know it was Uh. I didn't want to
make a sound alike album, and I never I never
asked anybody to, you know, to try to play like Johnny.
I just wanted great artists doing songs that they really
(23:14):
wanted to do as a tribute to Johnny. And I
mentioned before like if I had done it just entirely
as a straight ahead blues album, I don't think Johnny
would have liked that. Uh. I think he would have said, well,
you know, why are you suddenly, like, you know, trying
to play everything in my exact style? That's not you. Uh.
(23:39):
And uh, Like I think all all of these artists
brought something special uh and really offered heartfelt performances that
were honest. And I don't think you can you you know,
you can't expect any more than that. But uh, I
(24:01):
think Joe Bonamasa, out of all the guitarists, he seemed
to channel Johnny in a way to get inside uh
Johnny's style. Johnny had this sort of relentless uh excitement
uh in his playing. I used to call him the
cultrane of of blues row. Wow. Yeah, that's an incredible Yeah,
(24:27):
I love that. What what that means? I'm familiar with Coltrane,
but Coltrane could extend himself as a soloist and there
was it was this uh unending inventive stream of consciousness. Uh,
you know, one idea after another. Most people would play
(24:47):
four or five courses. He could play twenty and uh,
that's the way Johnny was when it came to rock
and roll jamming like uh, and you know that was
another thing. I thought, well, maybe I'm maybe I'm making
too much of a musician's album because there there are
a lot of long, extended solos and that can be
(25:10):
self indulgent on on the part of musicians. Uh, but
I just can't. I can't help it. I this to me,
this album sounds like albums that were made in the
seventies when there were groups like Cream and they those
guys they came to play, We're gonna play and that's
the way Johnny was. And it wouldn't it wouldn't. That's
(25:34):
what Johnny did. And so of course there's gonna be
a lot of that on there. But Joe, Uh, it
was just amazing in that sense. On Meantown Blues, I
didn't know if he could do the slide like that
when I heard him play, When I heard him play
(25:54):
Self Destructive Blues, I was just floored. I couldn't when
he walked in and he had said, he, yeah, I
knew the song and and it that one was just
just easy. He just walked in and did it. And
when he started to play, I just closed my eyes.
It was just like Johnny was in the room. I
couldn't believe it. And then when I when it came
(26:17):
time to try to find somebody to do Mean Town,
I always thought that was gonna be the hardest song
to duplicate. And like you said, when I heard that song,
I think, wow, what is this. It's sort of like
this electric boogie, uh delta blues fusion thing. I've never
(26:38):
heard anything like it before. Uh, nor do I think
anyone else had. But uh, that sort of became the template.
I loved Johnny's early writing because that was what he
was so cool with, taking all of these old traditional
blues riffs and then presenting them like in uh, in
(26:58):
an electric kind of format. You know that Uh made
it like a completely different kind of thing. Uh. And man, Joe,
uh he told me, he said, when I asked him
to do it, he said, well, that will be a challenge,
and uh he he took a while. He said, you know,
give me a couple of weeks. And and uh man
(27:24):
once again we we that one was was not as
uh as naturally easy. Uh. We had to work. I
remember in the beginning, in the middle of that session
he said, there is something about it. He actually stopped
the session, went out and bought a thumb pick Johnny
(27:46):
played with. He said, there's just doesn't have the weight.
It doesn't have this Johnny, there's something missing and he
said maybe maybe, and he had never played with a
thumb pick before. Uh and uh. And by the time
he finished that, it was just unbelievable, and we decided
(28:07):
to I. I just think it epitomizes uh Johnny who
he was at that particular time, and you know, in
his early early career, and it's the person perfect fusion
of that old traditional blues with with something uh completely different, uh,
unique and very original on Johnny's far. No. I mean,
(28:31):
I love that you included this absolutely rip and cover
of Johnny be Good. I mean, you you got those
Johnny Johnson riffs on the piano. I mean, it's just
it's so great. I mean, and that really, I mean
reading the liner notes, that sounds like that really was
kind of your big break in a way when you
were kids playing on the Johnny Melody Contest, Like that
(28:54):
sounds like that song was a really pivolal moment for
for both you and Johnny. It was. Indeed, that's why
Johnny did it. And like if you think of that, well,
it seems so obvious you think, well, Chuck Berry, Johnny
be Good, it's a Johnny Winner tribute. Uh but uh,
(29:15):
uh thanks for you've obviously done your homework and reading
the line or note. But that song had a very
special personal significance to us because as you were telling
the story, uh, when we were kids and had our
first band, Johnny and the Jammers, there was this local
contest and Johnny be Good was the hottest song we knew.
(29:37):
So we went on. Uh, we entered, we played it,
we won, and first prize was getting to make your
very own record. So uh you know there, Uh there
was a studio called Golf Coast Recording there in Beaumont,
and this guy named Jack Clement who he worked with
(29:58):
Johnny Cash. He was a real a country guy. Uh
and uh Roger Miller people like that, and uh, you know,
had it not been for the song Johnny be Good, uh,
who knows, but you know that's It's not only Johnny's story,
it's the story of every young kid coming from humble
(30:18):
beginnings who has that dream just like Johnny did and
picks up a guitar, you know, dreaming of of making
it one day. But yeah, that that had to be
on there. Oh and I forgot to mention uh into
the line. Uh, I don't like finished almost all, but
(30:39):
finished the album when I realized that that there was
really not uh and how all these great Johnny songs,
but there was not really a single Edgar song on
the album. And Uh, I just felt like I needed
to add my voice in a And in every album
(31:02):
I've ever made, there's always I think of album sort
of as uh uh snapshots h of a period in
your life. And there's always been a song on each
album that I tried to, uh explain that had the most,
(31:25):
the and deepest personal significance for me and whatever I
was going through at that time. Uh. In many cases,
like on Rebel Road, there was a song on the
Further I Go, the Closer I Get to You that
I wrote from my wife moneyue on on on White Trash,
Dying to Live. Uh. I always try to put one
(31:48):
on and I knew this. This album didn't have on
and you know, sometimes you don't know uh why you
write a song. But just the the title flashed and
to my mind into the line and you know, it's bluesy.
And as I started to write it, I uh, I
(32:10):
began to realize, Wow, I'm I'm writing about the end
of the Winter family line and that hadn't occurred to
me when I thought of the title. Uh. But you
know the last verse uh Uh songs may end or
(32:30):
just fade away, but the music never dies. UH. That's
that's the idea that I wanted to get across uh
in the song uh and uh I wanted to make
it uh. I hope all of you will excuse my
(32:52):
doing more. Uh. I. I wanted to do it with
just piano and strings. And I could have thought about
doing it more like a blues like more like a
gospel blue song with with Oregon and like maybe acquire there.
There are a number of ways you could have done
that song. But like I said, Johnny always used to
encourage me. I think he liked it most when I
(33:14):
was playing uh, when I was playing uh jazz and
classical things that he felt worth close to my heart.
So I, uh, I thought that's the way he would
have wanted me to do the song. And I feel
a lot worry about about the whole album. It's not
the album Johnny would have done, but I think it's
(33:35):
the album that he would want me to do for him.
That's his brother, that and that's what I tried. That's
what it's just purely an expression of love and admiration
from my brother Johnny, who I've always looked up to
and always would There was um an interview you gave
(34:08):
recently where you said, I'm paraphrasing, but something with the
effect of, um, if it wasn't for Johnny, I would
have been a struggling jazz musician or maybe an engineer.
What was it that the Johnny taught you about songwriting?
And there still lessons that he taught you about writing
a song that you still hold dear, that you you
know whenever you sit down to write, they still are
at the front of your mind. Um. Well he opened
(34:32):
that door for me in the uh. My first album,
the Entrance Album, was the closest Johnny and I ever
came to a collaboration, and we had just done Woodstock,
which changed my life completely changed my ideas about music. Uh.
(34:54):
That's another story. But Uh, to answer the question that
that you uh that you just put before me, Uh,
I thought of myself more uh as a musician then uh.
Uh I thought of myself as a serious musician. Thankfully,
(35:15):
I've gotten over that to some degree. But but like
I said, I love jazz and classical and stuff that
I considered serious music. And uh and uh, whereas Johnny
wanted to be a star, I just always wanted to
be a better musician. And uh. Whereas Johnny was outgoing,
(35:39):
uh I was. He was the extrovert, and I was
the introvert. I sort of withdrew into my own private
world of music. And uh. Therefore, when I did the
first album, I didn't think I was a songwriter. I
had all of these ideas, uh, and I didn't really
(36:00):
ever tried to write lyrics, and so uh Johnny wrote
a lot of of the lyrics, and uh I started
to change and modify some of the things, but he
wrote things like that you would never expect Johnny uh
to write like when the sun changes the blue into
(36:23):
gray and New York acts just the way that l
A does. People change saying you're different and strange sufficient
enough you remain while your friends just keep putting you down,
wondering why they keep hanging around about you without you.
And I came up with now as the time a
new day is just beginning. But it was like trying
(36:45):
to modify a lot of the lyrics that he wrote
was how I learned to write, and even uh began
to have the feeling that uh uh it actually caused
me to develop an interest in writing. Now. I love
(37:06):
writing lyrics and uh, I just loved the whole aspect
of of writing. It's just one of the most rewarding
things that that that h that you can do. And
as you mentioned it, it's very cathartic. But I'm uh
(37:28):
write a lot of poetry now, uh, I have enough
poetry for a book. I have a whole series of
short stories that occur in this uh, this mythical realm
called the shadow Lands. Uh. And I just love writing
and I'm doing it all the time. And uh I
(37:51):
think Johnny by just a simple example of doing it.
I was amazed because he had never really thought much
or or you know, I've never seen him devote a
lot of attention to writing, and he just seemed naturally
to be able to do it, and when we started
doing it together, that's that's how the whole thing began.
(38:16):
So I learned it of from John. This is a
question that's gonna betray the fact that I've never written
a song in my life. Even though I play music,
I've never been able to to write. And whenever i'm
I'm lucky enough to speak with people who are blessed
with that ability to write music, I'm always so curious
what compels them to do it. Is it a a
desire to connect with other people or is it to
(38:39):
just express something and almost expel it from out of you,
almost like an exorcism. And if you were on a
desert island somewhere, you'd be writing just as much because
it's all about just getting it out of you. Or
is it a combination of both, Yeah, it is, it
is all of that. Uh. I tend to write most
(38:59):
of myne use it in that sort of alpha state,
either just drifting off to sleep or when I'm just
coming back into awareness. Uh in the morning, I dream
a lot of songs. Uh, and I think that uh
for me, Uh, it's hard to it's hard to try
(39:25):
to write. It's not an unnatural people. Like just like
you said, if you've never felt like you ought to
just sit down and write a song some or just
write a write a poem, all write a story, alright, anything,
and you'll then you'll understand exactly what it is. But
(39:45):
if you just clear your mind, it's sort of like
it's sort of like meditation. Uh. You can't put some
if there's something else already there. Uh, it's it's hard
to put some thing, uh to display something that is
already there. But uh, if you just relax your mind
(40:07):
and uh and try to clear it, then thoughts will
come into it. And all you have to do is
just put those down, whatever they may be. And the
whole trick to that is you're immediately tempted to start
uh judging whatever it is that comes up, and then
(40:30):
all is it. I don't think that's good, that's not
good enough for this, But just go ahead and go
ahead and do it anyway. Uh, it's it. It's not
really a magical thing. Like if you stop and think
about it, we're having a conversation right now. You are
creatively engaged. You don't know what you're going to say,
(40:54):
and and I don't know what I'm gonna say in
response to what you say. We're having a conversation, and
that's all. That's really all writing. It's not a mysterious
or a magical thing. It's really easy. It's being present.
It sounds like that sounds like a big, big part
(41:14):
of it, just being present in the moment and seeing
whatever you respond to. Yeah, that's that's true. Oh well,
thank you for that. That is I will you have
my word that I will. I will try to put
that to good Jews. Oh man, I I could. I
could speak to you all day. I don't want to
take up too much more of your time, but I
I might just to end on. I have a question
(41:36):
that that I don't know the answer to. So if
I don't know the answer to it, I probably have
no right to really ask it. But I'd be interested
to hear what you say anyway. Um, what is it
about music that makes it such a powerful medium to
transmit emotion? You know, we we we found even in
in times and when we were living in caves trying
(41:57):
to survive as a species, we still find ancient remains
of ancient primitive instruments. So clearly this was a priority
even when we were just struggling to feed ourselves and live.
And it's I think that's one of the great mysteries
of humanity. We've had music for so many thousands of years,
and I don't know why, and I don't know what
it is about about music that that touches people in
(42:19):
such a special way. And I was wondering what your
thoughts are on that. Uh, that's a great question. Um,
I'll start uh in another interview. Uh, someone asked me
another question which relates to to this one, in a why.
(42:41):
They asked me, what is your first memory of music?
And I thought, wow, that's a good question. What what
is that? When I had to cast my mind back
and try to when it was the first time I
remember music, and DNI fine and what I came up
with it took it took a while, but this was
(43:06):
before I could talk, because there weren't any words connected
with it. But I was safe and warm and comfortable,
and I was nettled in my mother's lap, and I
remember just hearing this beautiful sensation just uh grabbing around
(43:28):
me and flowing all through me and around me, and
I didn't know what it was. I didn't uh have
a word for it. Uh. Now I know that it
was music, but uh, she was playing the piano, and
I said, I've got to get to that sound. What
(43:48):
And I was able to sort of pick up between
her arms over the edge of the keyboard, and I
could see these hands making these beautiful, graceful movement. And
then as I I was just enthralled in this experience,
and I said, oh, there's those the hands. There's some
(44:10):
correlation between those hands and this sensation they they're making
this sound. And it was the most uh uh profound. Uh.
It's one of my first not only my first memory
of music, but one of my first memories of any
(44:31):
any kind that I and I think that uh, since
that time, I've asked a lot of people that question,
and most people it's like something mechanical, like a song
they heard on the radio or a record or something.
And for me, I think that that explains so much
of my feelings about music. Our whole family was musical.
(44:55):
My my dad uh played uh guitar and band Joe
and he played alto sax in its wing band in
his youth, and he sang in the choir and he
had a barbershop quartet that would come over to the
house and sang, and my mother uh sang and played
beautiful piano. Everybody in our family was musical. But uh,
(45:17):
to finally get to the your question about what is it?
What is it? I think essentially that that life is
a spiritual quest. And I think that there is uh
uh a spiritual connection with music, at least for me.
(45:40):
And it's really it's it's very simple. It's the reason
music is as powerful as it is as uh, because
you lose your sense of self within something beyond yourself
(46:00):
when you sit down to play music or when you're
listening to a great performance of music. And it's the
same thing uh as a sports person being in the zone.
You're uh, you're entirely beyond yourself or like losing yourself
(46:21):
in a great book. Uh. For that moment in time,
all your cares and troubles and the things that uh
you can go along with every day living are forgotten
and uh you're transported. Uh. And I think that's I
think that's why people, that's why I love to play music,
(46:46):
is because I love that feeling of of release uh
and and freedom that that I get uh And and
it's on both sides either either making it or listening
to it. Uh, and I I don't I don't think
(47:06):
I can explain it any any better than in those words.
So I think that is I think maybe the most
beautiful description of music I could could possibly conceive of
its suspended in something divine. I think that is a
perfect thank you. Thank you for that, Edgar. Thank you
(47:27):
so much for your time today, your your thoughtful answers,
and most importantly, thank you for your music. It's been
such a joy speaking to you. It's such an honor.
I am such a fan of your work. Thank you
so much. You're so very welcome Jordan's And just in closing,
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of
(47:48):
our fans that have followed uh my career as well
as that of my brother Johnny throughout all of these years. Uh,
we could not have done it without you, and uh
we love you all. And UH it's meant the world
to us two be able to do what we most
(48:09):
love and see you all out there rocking and having
a great time. So UH, you know, I tried to
make this album not only attribute to Johnny, but attribute
to the to the blues and to guitar. Try to
make a great guitar album. So you know, if you
(48:30):
if you love the blues or if you just love guitar,
and especially if you love Johnny, you're gonna love brother Johnny.
So uh, we love you all and get ready to
rock and roll. We hope you enjoyed this episode of
Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio. For
(48:52):
more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
check out the I heart Radio app Apple podcast four
ofver you listen to your favorite party, Yes,
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Studio on I Heart Radio. My name's Jordan Runtag, but
enough about me. My guest today is one of the
great innovators of popular music, blending blues, rock, jazz and funk,
and there his own unique creation. I suppose it's only
appropriate that one of his most enduring songs is named Frankenstein.
(00:22):
Oral amalgamation is his specialty. He's a veteran of woodstock,
an early synth pioneer, and a master of many instruments.
In short, he's a rock and roll hero, and now
he's using his permidable talents to honor his own hero
older brother, Johnny Winter, the legendary acts man who died
in After years spent processing his grief, he's assembled an
(00:43):
electrifying new record called Brother Johnny Do, out April fifteen.
It's less a tribute album and more of a musical biography,
charting the course of Johnny's life through seventeen songs. These
include covers of his old favorites like Johnny Be Good
and Highway sixty one Revisited, as well as he vamped
versions of his own songs like Self Destructive Blues and
of course rock and roll hu Chi Kou. There are
(01:05):
also new original tracks penned in his brother's memory. The
album includes an astonishing array of rock and roll heavy
hitters we've all turned out to play their best for
the late Texas Blues icon. Among them are Joe Walsh,
Ringo Star, Joe Bonamassa, Billy Gibbons, Steve Luthaker, Michael McDonald, Kebmo,
Derek Truck's and Taylor Hawkins, who died shortly after taping
(01:26):
this interview. More than just a deeply touching retrospective, it's
an album that truly rocks and I can't wait for
you to check it out. I'm so happy to welcome
Mr Edgar Winner. There was an interview you gave not
(01:48):
too long ago where you were asked to define the
blues and you defined it as transforming suffering into joy
and I thought that was beautiful and that phrase stuck
with me as I was listening to brother John an
him and there's a lot of joy coming through on
these tracks, but obviously there's this, It's underscored by this,
this tremendous loss as well. What was it like for
you putting this record together? Was it cathartic for you.
(02:11):
It was. Indeed, I spent years not making this record.
I was well. First of all, shortly after Johnny's death, Uh,
I had a number of requests, uh, you know, to
do a tribute album. I was just adamantly opposed to
(02:32):
doing it. I was devastated by Johnny's death, and uh,
it just didn't feel like the right time, and and
it seemed like exploitation of Johnny's name. I just wasn't ready,
you know, to be honest, and uh, and it took.
It took a number of years. But what started that
(02:55):
process with this tour that we did together, which we
had been scheduled to do. Johnny was in Europe at
the time of his death, and there was a thing
called the Rock and Blues Fest, and we were both
scheduled to appear with our respective bands and then there
would be jamming at the end. And I had just thought, well,
(03:17):
surely this is gonna be uh, this is gonna be canceled.
But much to my surprise, the promoters wanted it to
go on as planned with me and my band as
the headliners. And I thought, oh, this is this is
this could be brutal, this could be very difficult and
highly emotional. And uh, the I'll never forget the first
(03:42):
night of that tour after I did Frankenstein, I did
Rock and Roll, who She Coup and Uh alive and
well and uh, I forget Johnny be Good three or
four of Johnny songs and dedicate the end of the
of the set to my brother Johnny. And Uh there
was a great source of strength and comfort in playing
(04:06):
those songs, and everybody on that tour, well, there was
so much love and respect for Johnny, and everybody would
uh would get up to jam at the end, and
it sort of became a tradition. And it helped me
realize that that this wasn't simply a question of uh
(04:26):
making an album and people sensing a business opportunity. It
was Johnny's devoted fans that really wanted to see this happen,
and uh that that was the beginning of it. Uh.
And the people I really want to acknowledge, first of all,
my wife, Monique, my lovely wife of forty two years
(04:49):
uh uh and we have our first anniversary coming up
this month. Congratulations, No, thank you, not that for rock
and Roller, true yeah, Uh, and uh I trust she's
such an intuitive heart, sooner giving person. I think, uh,
(05:10):
musicians are pretty self absorbed in general, and that that
was uh the case with me for many years. But
I trust her intuition more than my analytical thinking and
reasoning about it. And she said, well, of course, from
(05:31):
everything I've ever heard you say, Johnny is your all
time musical hero and if it weren't for him, you
wouldn't be where you are today. So you you know,
you owe that to that, that acknowledgement to yourself and
uh uh to Johnny and to the world. And that
made perfect sense to me. And so uh then the
(05:55):
next thing that occurred was I met Bruce Corto, who
was uh the president of Quarto Valley Records, which is
a small custom label, and uh he honestly and sincerely
he loves Johnny. He wanted to bring that music to
the world for all the right reasons, and he said, agrew,
(06:19):
you can have as long as you want and do
it exactly however you want. You know, may have opinions
from time to time, but uh, this is this is
up to you. So uh I knew he was the
right person to make the album. And thirdly, and finally,
I want to thank Ross Hogarth the engineer, mixer and producer.
(06:42):
It was really a co creation. And Ross Uh I
worked with on my last album, Rebel Road. UH and
Uh when we completed that project, I said, in my
mind and heart, I'm never gonna work with with another
UH mixer other than Moss. He was just the greatest
(07:04):
and he was just Uh he as I said, loves
Johnny as much as I do, and it's as familiar
with his material. And Uh, I hadn't realized the extent
to which Ross was going to become involved. I just
had him as the engineer mixer, but we really ended
(07:27):
up it's really a co created album. And he suggested
so many people. Uh brought so many great people into
the project. Uh Phil Lex for example, he plays with
bon Jovi, who I knew who he was, but I
was not that familiar with his playing. People like David Grissom,
(07:48):
who fellow Texan and great guitarists. Uh. He also suggested
John McPhee to do the slide on on Highway sixty
one when we were trying to think of of UH
fly people. Uh, Doyle bram Hall, Uh, you know, to
do the acoustic uh the version of when you've got
(08:09):
a good friend, which uh Johnny always had one of
those those beautiful old style Delta acoustic songs. So thank
you Ross and the there you have it. That's that's
how it all be game and all again right here
in in Winterland, my little home studio. But I did
(08:29):
all the keyboard parts here at home, and here's my
sixty seven and I sang all the vocals on and uh,
you know it. I honestly I had thought that it.
I knew it was gonna be emotional, and I thought
it might be difficult, and uh there was a lot
(08:49):
of laughter and some tears along the way, but it
really did turn out to be a joyous experience. Uh
so that's the beginning, so uh far away with more questions. Oh,
I mean, it's it comes across as such a celebration
and just the structure the album so cool because these
(09:10):
songs chart the course of Johnny's life in the sense
it's like a musical biography. And for anyone who loves music,
you kind of you love playing that game with yourself
of sort of tracing songs back to the beginning to
find out, you know what the songs were the first
got you hooked on music. What was the process like
for you of choosing the songs that you were going
to include on this album? Uh, it was very interesting.
(09:33):
The first question in my mind was should I do
a straight ahead blues record, a traditional blues record and
just pay tribute to the great legacy that Johnny left
the world, or should it be uh more personal dedication
(09:53):
from me to my brother based on my own particular
personal favorite and Uh, I decided it it should be
a balance of both. And uh, you know Johnny. Johnny
always encouraged me, uh two follow my heart uh with music,
(10:18):
and I love uh jazz and classical as well as
blues and country and rock and all pretty much all style.
I think, Uh, when it came to selecting the songs,
I feel like Johnny had more depth and scope than
(10:41):
a lot of people realize. And his first love obviously
was the blues, and his authenticity as a as a
blues player, particularly his slide guitar, was the thing that
most impressed me. Uh, I think unparalleled. I don't. I
can't think anybody who really, I mean, our musical tastes
(11:04):
were somewhat different, but when it came to selecting the songs,
I thought, well, There are obvious songs that people associate
with Johnny, the songs like Still Alive and Well and
rock and Roll Whuchi Ku that are just uh absolute
songs that you you couldn't imagine doing an album without those.
(11:26):
And then there are all of those songs that Johnny
became associated with uh over the year, sounds like uh
like Jumping Jack Flash that he played with Johnny Winter
and which I thought was just a great rock band,
and uh Highway sixty one. He he loved Dylan, he
(11:46):
loved the Stones, and UH I didn't Uh, I couldn't
imagine leaving those out. And then there were songs like
uh more obscure songs. It's not like Stranger, for example,
which I think is a beautiful ballad and very uncharacteristic
(12:07):
of the style that Johnny usually writes in, and it
reveals a sensitive, vulnerable side that that you don't usually
see uh in in Johnny. And uh uh then you know,
uh self destructive blues. Uh was always my favorite Johnny
(12:31):
shuffle and he he loved shuffles, and you know, he
did a lot of the traditional blues shuffles. But I
love that one because it has a great sense of
humor and it's it's uh, you know, to to talk about. Uh,
that's what the blues is. It's telling your story. And
to write that song self destructive Blues, it was just
(12:52):
so cool to me. It's got a great a great
real just always one of my favorites. Uh. Then Uh,
I had to do john and My on tears. Uh
was the most emotional song on on the album. Uh
for me. Uh, I had always felt like Johnny did
(13:15):
that song especially for me at the time. It was
on his first uh CBS album and he knew how
much I loved Ray Charles. Ray Charles was was my inspiration.
And uh, Johnny loved the old Delta blues, the people
(13:35):
like like Lightning Hopkins and Alan Wolfe and Muddy of
course uh, and I gravitated more towards the urban style
of blues, people like Ray Charles and Bobby Blue Bland
and and uh uh O t bone Walker, guys like
that of BB King. Uh. And he asked me, and
(13:58):
it was so surprised me because he said, Edgar, can
you know, just write out the horn charts just like
Ray did it and played the piano and uh, he said,
I just want to do it that way just like
Ray did it. There's not even any guitar on it,
but I always felt like like he did it for
(14:21):
me because he he wanted me to be able to
express something on that album in the style that he
knew I loved. So when it came time for me
to do that song on this album, UH, I felt
like like I was singing it back to him the
(14:41):
way he sang it to me so many years ago
when he was so young and alive. And not only
to him, but to my mother and father who have
passed on, and all the past members of bands that
that I've had the honor to share the stage with,
the last surviving member of the Ugar Winner group, Dan
(15:03):
Hartman and Ronny Mancho's Chapra uh are all gone, Jerry Lacrosse,
the lead singer in White Trash. But you know, I've
really broke down doing that song, uh, but got through
it and uh and he talked about was it cathartic? Absolutely?
And and uh I after doing that it was a
(15:28):
very uh uh transcendent, freeing, sort of uh purifying experience
h that I felt, you know, after after having done
that song. Uh. And I should mention there are two
songs on the album that I wrote, one of them
(15:48):
being Lone Star Blues, which features Kebmo and uh uh
the last one on the album end of the Line.
That's one of my favorite tracks on there. Oh my gosh,
it's an amazing song. Thank you Jordan's uh. One of
the things that that I that I wanted to express
(16:09):
that that I doubt most people are aware of. But
one of the main differences between Johnny and I growing
up was that he had that dream, He had that
drive and the determination. As far back as I can remember,
he wanted he was gonna be a star. He watched
Bandstand and he read all of magazines. He had a
(16:31):
huge record collection. He knew everybody that played on on
every song, and he was Johnny Cool, Daddy Winner with
the Coomfadur and the Shawnny and the Jammers, Johnny and
the Jammers. And I was like the Cliot tip that
played all the instruments. And I never wanted to be famous.
I never dreamed of being famous. Uh. The point being
(16:52):
that that Johnny had this this dream, and he having
worked all his life to attain this, when he finally
achieved it and had uh seemingly everything, recognition, fame, adoring fans. Uh.
It wasn't what he expected. And I remember him saying, Neddar,
(17:17):
I never thought it would be like this. It's like,
I feel so isolated and alone. I don't know who
to talk to and who to trust. It was like
one of those be careful what you wish for, uh scenarios,
and UH for me it was it was. Uh. He
(17:40):
went through a difficult period and uh, you know that
that disillusionment he resolved. Uh. I think after he went
through the whole rock era with Johnny Winter, and he
had basically he loved the blues, but and he and
he's a great player, and he was always encouraged by
(18:04):
management and the record companies to go more in our
rock direction. Uh. Yet his heart was always with the blues.
And after that period he rededicated himself to the blues.
And I feel resolved that in in his mind. The
last the last time I saw him, I remember having
(18:25):
that specific feeling is he seemed at peace, as though, uh,
you know, all all of that was behind him, and
I think he came to appreciate everything that he had
done throughout his career. But in the song Long Star Blues,
I tried to write that in that particular voice, the
(18:46):
way Johnny felt at that time. And uh, and when
Kebmo decided to to do the song, which now here's
another example of how, of course I didn't know keV
Moo and Ross did the taj Moo album with Taj
Mahal and so they had worked together, and uh he
(19:10):
uh put us in touch and just set up a hello,
get acquainted call and I and I told Kevo about
the song and he said, yeah, that's uh let me
let me hear it, you know. And all I had
on it was a sort of a simulated slide guitar
that I played on the keyboard and a vocal and
(19:34):
Kebmo completely tore it down and started over and he
put all all the instruments on. But when I heard
him sing that, when he sang the courses, uh, it
it like when I wrote it. It was just in
in that voice, that voice of the young Johnny that
(19:56):
was confused and disillusioned. But when Kevmo made it to
duet and he had come in sound like the long
Stome blues, it just introduced this note of compassion. He
sort of became like the old wise blues man. That
was like saying uh, that was empathizing and saying, yeah,
(20:18):
you know it can it can get tough, but it's
gonna be all right. And I thought that was just
so beautiful. And then after I heard him every time,
every time he came in, it was like the whole
thing came to life. And I wasn't where I was
born in Boumart, you know, in this Johnny style, and
(20:39):
then that sounded just completely, uh, completely wrong, and so
I redid my vocal in more of of that sort
of uh, with more warmth and more of heartfelt storytelling thing.
And you know, thank you keV Moo for for doing that.
(21:00):
He completely transformed that song into something ready beautiful. So
there you hadn't you mentioned Johnny's roots, like I love
(21:22):
that you opened the album with Meantown blues. I just
think it's such a perfect opener because it's such an
amazing fusion of the Delta blues he loved. But then
everything knew that he brought to it and brought to
that style too. I thought that was such a cool
jumping off point for the rest of the record. Thank you,
thank you. You know we I had no idea how
it was gonna come out. I selected a lot more
(21:43):
songs than we ended up using. I didn't know for
sure what was going to end up on and off,
and uh, I didn't select songs with the idea of
a particular artist in mind. I didn't want anybody to
do a song that they didn't passionately believe in and
(22:07):
want to sing. And I would usually give everybody at
least four or five, you know, three or four or
five choices. Uh. And many times like uh, when I asked, uh,
Joe Bonamasa now uh, Uh Ross knew show really well
and I played shows with Joe and we'd talked in passing.
(22:30):
But I was reading a list of songs. And when
I said self destructive blues, Wow, you're really gonna do
self destructive? That was the first Johnny song I ever learned.
And I played that with my band. That's the one
I wanted, you know, that's the one I want to do.
And uh, same thing with Warren Haynes. When I as
soon as I said memory pain, you you can stop
(22:52):
right there. That's that's the Johnny song for for me.
And you know it was Uh. I didn't want to
make a sound alike album, and I never I never
asked anybody to, you know, to try to play like Johnny.
I just wanted great artists doing songs that they really
(23:14):
wanted to do as a tribute to Johnny. And I
mentioned before like if I had done it just entirely
as a straight ahead blues album, I don't think Johnny
would have liked that. Uh. I think he would have said, well,
you know, why are you suddenly, like, you know, trying
to play everything in my exact style? That's not you. Uh.
(23:39):
And uh, Like I think all all of these artists
brought something special uh and really offered heartfelt performances that
were honest. And I don't think you can you you know,
you can't expect any more than that. But uh, I
(24:01):
think Joe Bonamasa, out of all the guitarists, he seemed
to channel Johnny in a way to get inside uh
Johnny's style. Johnny had this sort of relentless uh excitement
uh in his playing. I used to call him the
cultrane of of blues row. Wow. Yeah, that's an incredible Yeah,
(24:27):
I love that. What what that means? I'm familiar with Coltrane,
but Coltrane could extend himself as a soloist and there
was it was this uh unending inventive stream of consciousness. Uh,
you know, one idea after another. Most people would play
(24:47):
four or five courses. He could play twenty and uh,
that's the way Johnny was when it came to rock
and roll jamming like uh, and you know that was
another thing. I thought, well, maybe I'm maybe I'm making
too much of a musician's album because there there are
a lot of long, extended solos and that can be
(25:10):
self indulgent on on the part of musicians. Uh, but
I just can't. I can't help it. I this to me,
this album sounds like albums that were made in the
seventies when there were groups like Cream and they those
guys they came to play, We're gonna play and that's
the way Johnny was. And it wouldn't it wouldn't. That's
(25:34):
what Johnny did. And so of course there's gonna be
a lot of that on there. But Joe, Uh, it
was just amazing in that sense. On Meantown Blues, I
didn't know if he could do the slide like that
when I heard him play, When I heard him play
(25:54):
Self Destructive Blues, I was just floored. I couldn't when
he walked in and he had said, he, yeah, I
knew the song and and it that one was just
just easy. He just walked in and did it. And
when he started to play, I just closed my eyes.
It was just like Johnny was in the room. I
couldn't believe it. And then when I when it came
(26:17):
time to try to find somebody to do Mean Town,
I always thought that was gonna be the hardest song
to duplicate. And like you said, when I heard that song,
I think, wow, what is this. It's sort of like
this electric boogie, uh delta blues fusion thing. I've never
(26:38):
heard anything like it before. Uh, nor do I think
anyone else had. But uh, that sort of became the template.
I loved Johnny's early writing because that was what he
was so cool with, taking all of these old traditional
blues riffs and then presenting them like in uh, in
(26:58):
an electric kind of format. You know that Uh made
it like a completely different kind of thing. Uh. And man, Joe,
uh he told me, he said, when I asked him
to do it, he said, well, that will be a challenge,
and uh he he took a while. He said, you know,
give me a couple of weeks. And and uh man
(27:24):
once again we we that one was was not as
uh as naturally easy. Uh. We had to work. I
remember in the beginning, in the middle of that session
he said, there is something about it. He actually stopped
the session, went out and bought a thumb pick Johnny
(27:46):
played with. He said, there's just doesn't have the weight.
It doesn't have this Johnny, there's something missing and he
said maybe maybe, and he had never played with a
thumb pick before. Uh and uh. And by the time
he finished that, it was just unbelievable, and we decided
(28:07):
to I. I just think it epitomizes uh Johnny who
he was at that particular time, and you know, in
his early early career, and it's the person perfect fusion
of that old traditional blues with with something uh completely different, uh,
unique and very original on Johnny's far. No. I mean,
(28:31):
I love that you included this absolutely rip and cover
of Johnny be Good. I mean, you you got those
Johnny Johnson riffs on the piano. I mean, it's just
it's so great. I mean, and that really, I mean
reading the liner notes, that sounds like that really was
kind of your big break in a way when you
were kids playing on the Johnny Melody Contest, Like that
(28:54):
sounds like that song was a really pivolal moment for
for both you and Johnny. It was. Indeed, that's why
Johnny did it. And like if you think of that, well,
it seems so obvious you think, well, Chuck Berry, Johnny
be Good, it's a Johnny Winner tribute. Uh but uh,
(29:15):
uh thanks for you've obviously done your homework and reading
the line or note. But that song had a very
special personal significance to us because as you were telling
the story, uh, when we were kids and had our
first band, Johnny and the Jammers, there was this local
contest and Johnny be Good was the hottest song we knew.
(29:37):
So we went on. Uh, we entered, we played it,
we won, and first prize was getting to make your
very own record. So uh you know there, Uh there
was a studio called Golf Coast Recording there in Beaumont,
and this guy named Jack Clement who he worked with
(29:58):
Johnny Cash. He was a real a country guy. Uh
and uh Roger Miller people like that, and uh, you know,
had it not been for the song Johnny be Good, uh,
who knows, but you know that's It's not only Johnny's story,
it's the story of every young kid coming from humble
(30:18):
beginnings who has that dream just like Johnny did and
picks up a guitar, you know, dreaming of of making
it one day. But yeah, that that had to be
on there. Oh and I forgot to mention uh into
the line. Uh, I don't like finished almost all, but
(30:39):
finished the album when I realized that that there was
really not uh and how all these great Johnny songs,
but there was not really a single Edgar song on
the album. And Uh, I just felt like I needed
to add my voice in a And in every album
(31:02):
I've ever made, there's always I think of album sort
of as uh uh snapshots h of a period in
your life. And there's always been a song on each
album that I tried to, uh explain that had the most,
(31:25):
the and deepest personal significance for me and whatever I
was going through at that time. Uh. In many cases,
like on Rebel Road, there was a song on the
Further I Go, the Closer I Get to You that
I wrote from my wife moneyue on on on White Trash,
Dying to Live. Uh. I always try to put one
(31:48):
on and I knew this. This album didn't have on
and you know, sometimes you don't know uh why you
write a song. But just the the title flashed and
to my mind into the line and you know, it's bluesy.
And as I started to write it, I uh, I
(32:10):
began to realize, Wow, I'm I'm writing about the end
of the Winter family line and that hadn't occurred to
me when I thought of the title. Uh. But you
know the last verse uh Uh songs may end or
(32:30):
just fade away, but the music never dies. UH. That's
that's the idea that I wanted to get across uh
in the song uh and uh I wanted to make
it uh. I hope all of you will excuse my
(32:52):
doing more. Uh. I. I wanted to do it with
just piano and strings. And I could have thought about
doing it more like a blues like more like a
gospel blue song with with Oregon and like maybe acquire there.
There are a number of ways you could have done
that song. But like I said, Johnny always used to
encourage me. I think he liked it most when I
(33:14):
was playing uh, when I was playing uh jazz and
classical things that he felt worth close to my heart.
So I, uh, I thought that's the way he would
have wanted me to do the song. And I feel
a lot worry about about the whole album. It's not
the album Johnny would have done, but I think it's
(33:35):
the album that he would want me to do for him.
That's his brother, that and that's what I tried. That's
what it's just purely an expression of love and admiration
from my brother Johnny, who I've always looked up to
and always would There was um an interview you gave
(34:08):
recently where you said, I'm paraphrasing, but something with the
effect of, um, if it wasn't for Johnny, I would
have been a struggling jazz musician or maybe an engineer.
What was it that the Johnny taught you about songwriting?
And there still lessons that he taught you about writing
a song that you still hold dear, that you you
know whenever you sit down to write, they still are
at the front of your mind. Um. Well he opened
(34:32):
that door for me in the uh. My first album,
the Entrance Album, was the closest Johnny and I ever
came to a collaboration, and we had just done Woodstock,
which changed my life completely changed my ideas about music. Uh.
(34:54):
That's another story. But Uh, to answer the question that
that you uh that you just put before me, Uh,
I thought of myself more uh as a musician then uh.
Uh I thought of myself as a serious musician. Thankfully,
(35:15):
I've gotten over that to some degree. But but like
I said, I love jazz and classical and stuff that
I considered serious music. And uh and uh, whereas Johnny
wanted to be a star, I just always wanted to
be a better musician. And uh. Whereas Johnny was outgoing,
(35:39):
uh I was. He was the extrovert, and I was
the introvert. I sort of withdrew into my own private
world of music. And uh. Therefore, when I did the
first album, I didn't think I was a songwriter. I
had all of these ideas, uh, and I didn't really
(36:00):
ever tried to write lyrics, and so uh Johnny wrote
a lot of of the lyrics, and uh I started
to change and modify some of the things, but he
wrote things like that you would never expect Johnny uh
to write like when the sun changes the blue into
(36:23):
gray and New York acts just the way that l
A does. People change saying you're different and strange sufficient
enough you remain while your friends just keep putting you down,
wondering why they keep hanging around about you without you.
And I came up with now as the time a
new day is just beginning. But it was like trying
(36:45):
to modify a lot of the lyrics that he wrote
was how I learned to write, and even uh began
to have the feeling that uh uh it actually caused
me to develop an interest in writing. Now. I love
(37:06):
writing lyrics and uh, I just loved the whole aspect
of of writing. It's just one of the most rewarding
things that that that h that you can do. And
as you mentioned it, it's very cathartic. But I'm uh
(37:28):
write a lot of poetry now, uh, I have enough
poetry for a book. I have a whole series of
short stories that occur in this uh, this mythical realm
called the shadow Lands. Uh. And I just love writing
and I'm doing it all the time. And uh I
(37:51):
think Johnny by just a simple example of doing it.
I was amazed because he had never really thought much
or or you know, I've never seen him devote a
lot of attention to writing, and he just seemed naturally
to be able to do it, and when we started
doing it together, that's that's how the whole thing began.
(38:16):
So I learned it of from John. This is a
question that's gonna betray the fact that I've never written
a song in my life. Even though I play music,
I've never been able to to write. And whenever i'm
I'm lucky enough to speak with people who are blessed
with that ability to write music, I'm always so curious
what compels them to do it. Is it a a
desire to connect with other people or is it to
(38:39):
just express something and almost expel it from out of you,
almost like an exorcism. And if you were on a
desert island somewhere, you'd be writing just as much because
it's all about just getting it out of you. Or
is it a combination of both, Yeah, it is, it
is all of that. Uh. I tend to write most
(38:59):
of myne use it in that sort of alpha state,
either just drifting off to sleep or when I'm just
coming back into awareness. Uh in the morning, I dream
a lot of songs. Uh, and I think that uh
for me, Uh, it's hard to it's hard to try
(39:25):
to write. It's not an unnatural people. Like just like
you said, if you've never felt like you ought to
just sit down and write a song some or just
write a write a poem, all write a story, alright, anything,
and you'll then you'll understand exactly what it is. But
(39:45):
if you just clear your mind, it's sort of like
it's sort of like meditation. Uh. You can't put some
if there's something else already there. Uh, it's it's hard
to put some thing, uh to display something that is
already there. But uh, if you just relax your mind
(40:07):
and uh and try to clear it, then thoughts will
come into it. And all you have to do is
just put those down, whatever they may be. And the
whole trick to that is you're immediately tempted to start
uh judging whatever it is that comes up, and then
(40:30):
all is it. I don't think that's good, that's not
good enough for this, But just go ahead and go
ahead and do it anyway. Uh, it's it. It's not
really a magical thing. Like if you stop and think
about it, we're having a conversation right now. You are
creatively engaged. You don't know what you're going to say,
(40:54):
and and I don't know what I'm gonna say in
response to what you say. We're having a conversation, and
that's all. That's really all writing. It's not a mysterious
or a magical thing. It's really easy. It's being present.
It sounds like that sounds like a big, big part
(41:14):
of it, just being present in the moment and seeing
whatever you respond to. Yeah, that's that's true. Oh well,
thank you for that. That is I will you have
my word that I will. I will try to put
that to good Jews. Oh man, I I could. I
could speak to you all day. I don't want to
take up too much more of your time, but I
I might just to end on. I have a question
(41:36):
that that I don't know the answer to. So if
I don't know the answer to it, I probably have
no right to really ask it. But I'd be interested
to hear what you say anyway. Um, what is it
about music that makes it such a powerful medium to
transmit emotion? You know, we we we found even in
in times and when we were living in caves trying
(41:57):
to survive as a species, we still find ancient remains
of ancient primitive instruments. So clearly this was a priority
even when we were just struggling to feed ourselves and live.
And it's I think that's one of the great mysteries
of humanity. We've had music for so many thousands of years,
and I don't know why, and I don't know what
it is about about music that that touches people in
(42:19):
such a special way. And I was wondering what your
thoughts are on that. Uh, that's a great question. Um,
I'll start uh in another interview. Uh, someone asked me
another question which relates to to this one, in a why.
(42:41):
They asked me, what is your first memory of music?
And I thought, wow, that's a good question. What what
is that? When I had to cast my mind back
and try to when it was the first time I
remember music, and DNI fine and what I came up
with it took it took a while, but this was
(43:06):
before I could talk, because there weren't any words connected
with it. But I was safe and warm and comfortable,
and I was nettled in my mother's lap, and I
remember just hearing this beautiful sensation just uh grabbing around
(43:28):
me and flowing all through me and around me, and
I didn't know what it was. I didn't uh have
a word for it. Uh. Now I know that it
was music, but uh, she was playing the piano, and
I said, I've got to get to that sound. What
(43:48):
And I was able to sort of pick up between
her arms over the edge of the keyboard, and I
could see these hands making these beautiful, graceful movement. And
then as I I was just enthralled in this experience,
and I said, oh, there's those the hands. There's some
(44:10):
correlation between those hands and this sensation they they're making
this sound. And it was the most uh uh profound. Uh.
It's one of my first not only my first memory
of music, but one of my first memories of any
(44:31):
any kind that I and I think that uh, since
that time, I've asked a lot of people that question,
and most people it's like something mechanical, like a song
they heard on the radio or a record or something.
And for me, I think that that explains so much
of my feelings about music. Our whole family was musical.
(44:55):
My my dad uh played uh guitar and band Joe
and he played alto sax in its wing band in
his youth, and he sang in the choir and he
had a barbershop quartet that would come over to the
house and sang, and my mother uh sang and played
beautiful piano. Everybody in our family was musical. But uh,
(45:17):
to finally get to the your question about what is it?
What is it? I think essentially that that life is
a spiritual quest. And I think that there is uh
uh a spiritual connection with music, at least for me.
(45:40):
And it's really it's it's very simple. It's the reason
music is as powerful as it is as uh, because
you lose your sense of self within something beyond yourself
(46:00):
when you sit down to play music or when you're
listening to a great performance of music. And it's the
same thing uh as a sports person being in the zone.
You're uh, you're entirely beyond yourself or like losing yourself
(46:21):
in a great book. Uh. For that moment in time,
all your cares and troubles and the things that uh
you can go along with every day living are forgotten
and uh you're transported. Uh. And I think that's I
think that's why people, that's why I love to play music,
(46:46):
is because I love that feeling of of release uh
and and freedom that that I get uh And and
it's on both sides either either making it or listening
to it. Uh, and I I don't I don't think
(47:06):
I can explain it any any better than in those words.
So I think that is I think maybe the most
beautiful description of music I could could possibly conceive of
its suspended in something divine. I think that is a
perfect thank you. Thank you for that, Edgar. Thank you
(47:27):
so much for your time today, your your thoughtful answers,
and most importantly, thank you for your music. It's been
such a joy speaking to you. It's such an honor.
I am such a fan of your work. Thank you
so much. You're so very welcome Jordan's And just in closing,
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of
(47:48):
our fans that have followed uh my career as well
as that of my brother Johnny throughout all of these years. Uh,
we could not have done it without you, and uh
we love you all. And UH it's meant the world
to us two be able to do what we most
(48:09):
love and see you all out there rocking and having
a great time. So UH, you know, I tried to
make this album not only attribute to Johnny, but attribute
to the to the blues and to guitar. Try to
make a great guitar album. So you know, if you
(48:30):
if you love the blues or if you just love guitar,
and especially if you love Johnny, you're gonna love brother Johnny.
So uh, we love you all and get ready to
rock and roll. We hope you enjoyed this episode of
Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio. For
(48:52):
more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
check out the I heart Radio app Apple podcast four
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