Customer Reviews

Blues in a Box

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Fortunately, I received this set as a Christmas gift. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed. First, the recordings are "bootleg" quality - amateurish at best. Second, the disks in my set were mis-labeled. The selection seems to span his entire career from high school (early '60's) to somewhere in the not-to-near past ('80's?) and sound like they were recorded on a 3-1/2" open reel type recorder in high school gyms, garages, and open fields. I wouldn't recommend this title to anyone. Still, it's better than no Johnny at all.

No, this isn't prime Winter and you won't find much of the blues rock that made him famous. Most of this is studio recordings from the early to mid 60's and covers a lot of stylistic territory. You can hear the young Johnny playing in a country band. Judging from these songs I'd say that Johnny was going for a sound somewhere between Roy Orbison and the early records by the Stones. There's also some great "surf" guitar playing here as well as some early blues recorded when Johnny and Edgar were still together. The third disc is a concert recorded in the late 60's and will sound very familiar if you've heard Johnny's live recordings from the 70's. The performances aren't as tight as on Johnny Winter And Live but the playing is still pretty hot.