Customer Reviews

Johnny Winter:The Woodstock Experience (2CD)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Two discs 34 and 68 minutes each approximately. The sound is very good,especially a live recording from so long ago. The studio set has been remastered in the recent past,and is fine also.

This package contains Winter's first album for Columbia Records. It's the original album,without the "bonus" tracks which are on the latest reissue.
By now most Winter fans will already own the original record,so not much has to be said. It was a good first album,though lacking some of the fire found on his Sonobeat/Liberty Records album,"The Progressive Blues Experiment".

The live set is Winter's complete set at Woodstock. At the time he was a relative unknown-his appearance at this festival made him a star. Winter is accompanied by Tommy Shannon on bass,and "Uncle" John Turner on drums. Edgar Winter is also here,playing and singing on a number of tracks. Winter's guitar was on fire during his entire set. No matter what the tempo,his guitar playing was always scorching and his technique left quite an impression on people,especially his slide playing,which was razor-sharp yet had that "dirty " tone that was so popular. For those listeners who like blues/rock guitar,backed with some gritty vocals-this is it. Winter fans will find much to like here. His playing is close to the Sonobeat/Liberty album mentioned above. There are seven unreleased tracks-all worthwhile,the only track that's been released is "Mean Town Blues". Why these tracks were never released is a mystery. Its nice to finally have the entire set in one nice package.

The packaging is nice. Both discs are housed in a cardboard slip-case. Inside,each disc is in another cardboard sleeve,and inside that is a paper sleeve that houses the disc. The graphics are nice on all the sleeves. The original album is housed in a facsimile of the original album cover. The live disc is in a sleeve with photographs of Winter playing live. The inside paper sleeve has information on the tracks and a short essay on Woodstock. The poster is nice but not essential-especially since it's folded over several times to fit in the slip-case.
This is,possibly,one of the better sets in Sony's new Woodstock releases. Don't wait-this is worth it.

It is a major crime that Johnny Winter's performance at Woodstock has sat in a vault for 40 years! It is also a crime that not one song from his performance appeared in the movie or the soundtrack album. Luckily, Johnny's talent was too great to keep secret, as we all know he later became a blues and rock star. Johnny just plain tears it up during his set. Brother Edgar joins Johnny's three piece band, supplying keyboards and sax, and the lead vocals on an incendiary Tobacco Road. The LP-style sleeves are pretty cool, right down to the replica Columbia label on the CD. By comparison, the studio CD is understated, but it still burns white hot. I didn't have Johnny's first solo album in my collection so I was happy to buy this. If you love the blues at all, you have to own this. Each package is individually numbered.

First of all, forget the first CD. You know it, you love it and that's that. BUT...The Woodstock CD....damn, most people didn't even know he played there, but to finally hear what he was doing in 1969, LIVE, was absolutely among the best takes I've heard JW do! It's fresh, it's gritty and it's the best white-man playing the blues EVER. His guitar work sizzles as always and his vocals are just superb. Johnny is not one of those musicians who needs to stay in a studio. His talent is live and it's right on. To hear what my contemporaries heard in rural NY in 1969 is now my treat and it's as good as it gets. I LOVE "new old" stuff like this. Simply amazing.

I like Johnny Winter, I really do. This Woodstock performance is important as a "document" of his early years. I own a lot of music from artists during their early development, many no longer known, because they are important hallmarks in music.

Many of the performances at Woodstock were a crystalized moment in the lives and careers of the musicians and bands that played there. This performance was really good, not great. But it was an important performance for Johnny. It deserves to be in collections.

The inclusion of Johnny's debut album is a wonderful bonus, too. This whole package shows that Johnny was not a shallow player, but had depth and talent that would, as we have learned, sustain him with a long and successful (albeit marred by drug addiction in the early 70s) career that endures to this day, though only for real fans of his playing.

With so many performers at the Woodstock Festival, I hope they come out with many more of these packages. Many of the sets deserve to be chronicled and preserved and shared with music fans everywhere.

Johnny Winter went from good to great with his Columbia debut, 1969's "Johnny Winter." He'd tightened up his working trio of the time (Uncle John Turner, drums; future Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon), integrated brother Edgar's keyboard and alto saxophone on a cut or three, and delivered what "The Progressive Blues Experiment" (recorded shortly before, issued simultaneously, and displaying slightly weaker sound on mostly cover material Winter could probably have played in his sleep, though his impeccable "Mean Town Blues" was represented as well) merely hinted---hot-rod blues where the flash of his fretboard speed didn't interfere with his good sense and taste.

The only issue is why Columbia Legacy chose to reissue the album in a set with his Woodstock performance---the album has stood so well on its own over the years, and has received proper remastering well before this set arrived. Why fix what wasn't broken even for the sake of time-and-place considerations? The Woodstock set deserved a singular release in its own right.

That said, getting to strut his stuff at Woodstock so early in his career as a major recording artist (he'd been paying his dues with interest the south and Midwest for years, since he was an early teenager) was probably no big rip. Winter had played in more nerve-wracking conditions before, specifically at the Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper "Super Session" concert in New York where he was invited to jam a number---before an audience that just so happened to have a number of Columbia Records heavyweights on hand. He tore through "It's My Own Fault" with no little help from a sympatico Bloomfield and in spite of the evening's drummer having little clue to the blues early in the number, and bagged himself what was then a record advance on a new recording contract.

So Winter hitting the stage at Woodstock was probably just in a rollicking good mood, and it showed during his performance. He romped his way through "Mama, Talk to Your Daughter" to open the set and then got down to the red meat---a thrusting roll of "Leland Mississippi Blues"; a rip-roaring "Mean Town Blues" that laid his studio original to waste (and is probably the best concert capture of that chestnut and the Winter slide virtuosity in his catalog); a throbbing "You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now," toward the end of which he interpolates his Columbia debut's "Mean Mistreater"; and, handing brother Edgar (who'd stay part of the Winter group for "Second Winter") the microphone, a dripping "Tobacco Road," with some smooth keyboard work and a soulful alto saxophone turn around the guitar pyrotechnics. The brothers hang in for another turn or two, particularly a taste of the bristling version of "Johnny B. Goode" that would shine on "Second Winter."

Winter wasn't the only new kid on the block to make his bones at Woodstock. (Santana and Mountain were a couple of others.) But he was probably the only one present to shove the blues through a modern filter without leaving the soul of the music behind, even if there are portions where you wonder if he's too lost in the moment to avoid merely spraying notes around and gets a little awkward pulling himself back onto the track. Hearing this set again also causes you to lament that he felt compelled to break up this trio barely a year after they'd hit the bigtime together. (There were critics who thought, rather unfairly, that they were just plodding behind him rather than inspiring him, a thought rather well demolished when "Second Winter" rolled around.) It would be years before Winter worked with musicians as genuinely knitted to the blues as he was---and, after a brief enough but somewhat ill-advised turn toward straight rock and roll, returned to stay.

Whoever was in charge of including pablum like John B Sebastian in the Woodstock Albums and Movie while omitting this set should hang his or her head in shame. I wonder how much other really terrific stuff that we who were not there have never heard is out there in someone's vaults? If you haven't heard this, get it. I intend to play the entire 8 song set in my next show on KPRG.

This is a fantastic set. There is little out there of Johnny Winter from the Turner Shannon days and this adds some great live material. My only complaint is that the box is odd sized and does not fit with the other CDS, a digiak like the special 2 disk edition of Second Winter would have been a lot nicer (yeah, that is the other essential set with the Royal Albert Hall concert).

As with many other now-legendary musical figures, Woodstock was a turning point for Johnny Winter's career as one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time! He was virtually unknown before his performance there, and listening to the crowd before his encore of "Johnny B. Goode," it's quite clear that his days of obscurity were over right then and there!

Since I already owned Johnny's first studio album on CD, I was somewhat annoyed that I had to buy it again as part of this package in order to obtain the Woodstock recording, but I don't regret this duplicate purchase, particularly considering that this 2-CD package is selling for the same price as a lot of single CD's, anyway.

I would treasure the Woodstock CD even more were it not for the release of Johnny's 1970 Royal Albert Hall performance as part of the re-release of his second album, Second Winter. The Royal Albert concert features most of the same cuts as on the Woodstock recording. And like his Woodstock performance, it SMOKES! Some takes on the Royal Albert Hall are better than the Woodstock, and vice versa. Both are indispensable! So I would consider owning both performances on CD as complementary rather than duplicates of each other, since both are great...

A MUST HAVE for all Johnny Winter and Blues fans!!

Just a perfect set by Johnny at Woodstock, unreal this is only coming out now. Superb and tasty JW licks throughout, along with some of the his best vocals. Edgar joins in on a least a few songs, including, of course, Tobacco Road. Sound quality is great, perfect mix. Don't want to overuse "perfect", but it just keeps coming out.
For fans, a must have. If you're just discovering Johnny, this is a bonus, because it includes his first studio album + the mega hot Woodstock performance.

The studio part of this is good stuff, but the real reason to buy this is the Woodstock set. I collect Johnny Winter live music. This is as good sounding to me as any of the live stuff I have. I am not sure why he was not in the movie, but I can tell you, they really messed up by leaving Johnny Winter out of it! I was expecting a sound quality similiar to the bootleg series which is a soundboard type of recording. BUT what you get here is a great live recording of a true legend. In my opinion, this Woodstock recording blows away the bootleg series. It really sounds like it could have been recorded recently with updated equipment. Yes there is some better live playing from Johnny on other cd's, but overall, this is a true gem. Anyone who enjoys listening to great guitar playing live will want this in their collection.