As part of the Woodstock Experience discs being released by Sony/Legacy on Tuesday, Johnny Winter's complete set at the legendary 1969 festival is paired on a double-disc with the Texas guitarist's 1969 debut album for Columbia. As with the other Woodstock Experience packages, there are no bonus tracks or extras on the Johnny Winter album, although the original album art is recreated in loving detail, right down to the red Columbia logo on the disc itself.
Listening to Winter's Woodstock set, you can almost imagine how much bigger he might have been had the performance footage been included back when the documentary was first released. If anything, Winter's blues-based, guitar-heavy rock immediately reminds you of Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, who became huge stars after their own performance of "I'm Going Home" in the movie.
Backed by the standard rock lineup of guitar, bass, and drums, Winter's guitar — and especially his slide playing — does most of the talking here on blues workouts like "Mean Town Blues" and "Leland Missisippi Blues," a standout track from his debut album. Nothing too fancy here — just a shit-hot blues guitar player backed by a tight-ass little blues band.
Johnny is joined by his brother Edgar on sax and piano for the last several songs of the set, including "I Can't Stand It" and a ten-minute version of "Tobacco Road." The latter song would become a staple of Edgar's own concerts in the seventies, particularly on his live double album Roadwork, with his band White Trash.
In this performance recorded so many years prior, Edgar is already beginning to work out the trademark scream and sax solos he would later make famous on the version still to come. Hearing it here in a more embryonic stage with brother Johnny is one of the true delights of this set. Edgar's prolonged screams towards the end still produce chills even now.
Edgar sticks around for "Tell The Truth," and wisely turns the spotlight back to brother Johnny who turns in a lightning-fast guitar solo. This soon makes way for some nice scat singing, and more of those trademark screams by Edgar. Although the new DVD box does finally include Johnny Winter, I'd loved to have seen this stuff included as well. Maybe next time (in ten or so more years). The band closes out the set with a barn-storming "Johnny B. Goode" — a song which Johnny Winter would make a trademark of his for years to come.
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