Wake up with Mojo Boogie!

January 28, 2018 • 6:30 am

Here’s Johnny Winter, who, along with his brother Edgar, are the only albino rock stars I know of, doing a smoking rendition of Mojo Boogie in Sweden in 1987. Sadly, Johnny died in 2014.

From Ultimate Classic Rock:

Winter is widely recognized as being one of the greatest slide guitar players of all-time. And while many guitarists utilize odd items to run up and down their fretboards – Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band famously used old Coricidin glass pill bottles – Winter’s choice was similarly unique. “I used to play slide before this, but could never find a good slide,” he told Tom Guerra. “I’d use everything from a wristwatch crystal to broken-off test tubes to lipstick cases, bottles … I tried everything, but nothing would work, until I found this conduit pipe, and I’ve used the same piece of pipe for 30 years for both acoustic and electric slide. Its just a piece of plumber’s pipe that just fits my finger real good.”

22 thoughts on “Wake up with Mojo Boogie!”

  1. gonna further degrade my anonymity here:

    I saw Johnny Winter play in 1995 or so.

    … ^^^ so much simpler to reply to this, instead of writing and rewriting and eventually deleting and not replying to the McLeish post from the other day. I tried! I just don’t know where to start!

    2. Lowell George was one of my favorite slide players ever. Of those from that era who still number among the quick, Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt are two that I dig the most.

      1. I got into Lowell George (and Little Feat) by a strange path. My first year of college (1974) I was getting into the Velvet Underground. I really liked John Cale and his electric viola. I listened to Cale’s solo album Paris 1919. I was blown away by the guitar on the song MacBeth. Found out it was Lowell George. Got a copy of Dixie Chicken. Great time to be alive. Paris 1919 is a great album.

      2. I love Lowell George. Don’t know if you’re a Phish fan, but I was at the 2010 Halloween show where Phish played all of Waiting For Columbus as their second set.

        I think Sonny Landreth is the greatest slide guitarist ever:

          2. Just FYI, I think that’s one of the worst covers they’ve ever played. But when you’ve covered well over 500 different songs and decide to play most of them on a whim in the seconds before the song starts, you’re bound to have some stinkers. You’re also bound to have covers like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so72eM1J_so#t=2h15m30s

            That wasn’t planned. Occasionally, they book a show way outside the obvious route of a tour, and if too few people show up they decide to punish everyone who didn’t come by playing something bonkers. So few people showed up to this show that they decided to play the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon during intermission. The rest is history.

  6. Johnny Winter knocked me out in the early ’70’s with two albums – ‘Johnny Winter’ and ‘Second Winter’. His ‘standard’ guitar playing was virtuosic, as well as his slide guitar playing. His singing style was also unique – just listen to Johnny’s soulful rendition of Ray Charles ‘Be Careful with a Fool’.

    His brother Edgar is also freakishly talented.

    rz

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