So I went out and bought Johnny’s latest album ‘Let Me In’ (1991), and I was hooked! At the time, blues and blues-orientated rock was experiencing a great resurgence with the likes of JEFF HEALEY and WALTER TROUT making headlines and GARY MOORE famously going back to the blues. He lent me Johnny’s first album ‘The Progressive Blues Experiment’ (1968), and I got really into it. (Ray counted many famous people including BB KING ZZ TOP and JOHN MAYALL among his friends). Ray was a personal friend of Johnny’s and had been to his home in Texas on numerous occasions. Years later I moved home, and found myself living next door to the well-known blues expert RAY TOPPING (now also sadly deceased) of ACE RECORDS. It was blues the likes of which I’d never heard before – it was wild, aggressive, progressive, and loud! At the time I wasn’t a massive blues fan, although I always acknowledged it as the progenitor of the heavy rock / prog rock genres – my sole musical interests in those narrow-minded days! I first became aware of him back in the ’70s when a mate of mine called Mark (wonder what ever happened to him?) lent me the ‘Johnny Winter And’ (1970) album. He had been dogged by health problems for years (the details of which I am not qualified to discuss and are outside the scope of this article). I was saddened to hear this morning that the albino blues guitar legend JOHNNY WINTER had passed away yesterday (16th July), at the age of 70.
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