Few rock n' rollers pushed the limits of excess over such an extended period of time like Johnny Winter did. But somehow, Winter continued to remain - to borrow a title from one of his classic rockers - 'Still Alive and Well.' However, on July 16, 2014, Winter passed away at the age of 70, which came as a surprise, as his personal and professional life seemed to be the most sorted out it had been in some time, and was experiencing a resurgence in popularity.

And Winter's popularity seems to be growing only stronger in the wake of his passing, as evidenced by his friend/guitarist/producer, Paul Nelson, putting together a series of "Winterfest" shows, which will celebrate the guitarist's music with a variety of special guests, as well as the continued success of Winter's last album, the Grammy-winning Step Back, and the much-talked-about Johnny documentary, Down & Dirty, finally making its way to DVD.

Nelson recently spoke with BraveWords correspondent Greg Prato about all of the Johnny-related projects underway and on the horizon, as well as discussing Johnny's state of mind at the time of his death.

 

BraveWords: Let's discuss the Winterfest shows.

Paul Nelson: "The way that came about was after Johnny passed in Zurich, when we came back, I had to contact all the promoters and the venues, and we had to start the process of canceling shows, because we were booked for the next six months or so. And I talked to the powers that be, and they were like, 'Well, there's a problem.' And I'm like, 'What do you mean there's a problem?' 'Well, no one wants to return the tickets. They want you to play.' 'Well, we can't play, because Johnny's gone.' 'No, you don’t understand. They still want to hear Johnny's music, and the want you and the band to play. So if you can put together some guests that want to honor Johnny...' So I spoke to Edgar [Winter, Johnny's brother] about this, too, and he's like, 'Look, I'm going to tribute Johnny in my show, and if you do the same, I'll come and play with you guys.' And I said yes, because I want to keep Johnny's legacy going. I don't to do a tribute where someone comes out and they look like Johnny. That's not right. So we put it together and it was very successful. Edgar joined in on a few, Sonny Landreth, Warren Haynes, we did one in Jamaica, and we've been bring in all these artists. So now, it's turning into this Winterfest thing, and it's very similar to the Experience Hendrix thing, where all the musicians join in and it becomes a tour. So it's a great way to keep Johnny's legacy going, and getting all these musicians together. And all of them are related to him in some way, shape, or form. So we just started doing them, it went over really well, and we plan on continuing."

BraveWords: Are there set tour dates, or is it in the planning stages?

Paul Nelson: "We've done a lot of shows already. We just finished the last one at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago, and now, they're starting to book them at festivals for the summer shows. Now is the time they start booking more. Those dates will come up through social media, so everyone can see where that is. It's an on-going thing. We don't want his legacy to diminish in any way. And plus, when he passed, the album came out. So here, you have a release, and there's no band to promote the record. You had this tragedy, plus, the musicians want to play, so we can't just stop playing as a group. There's a lot of things involved in front of the scenes and behind the scenes, emotionally - that kind of thing. It helped us through it, as a band. It helped us come down a little slower, through playing and honoring Johnny's music. And then they said, 'Well, we can show the movie.' So we started showing Johnny's Down & Dirty movie before we would perform. So select venues could see the movie that's coming out. That was a huge thing, too. That also helped the fans - so they really understood Johnny and what was going on during this period of him coming back."

BraveWords: Could you sense that the album Step Back was going to do so well?

Paul Nelson: "It was bittersweet. It was a series of albums. I had already done Roots, produced that - that was with Warren Haynes and Johnny's brother, Edgar, and Vince Gill, Sonny Landreth, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi. So this was a series of albums. They were actually slated to do two more, and Step Back, it had Clapton on it, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Perry, myself, Dr. John. This one really showed Johnny's rock roots, because he was getting stronger every day, every week. He was off the drugs, he was off the drinking - he had really pushed the envelope. We knew - and he knew - this was a strong album. We knew the vocals were the strongest they ever were, the playing was as strong as it ever was, the song selection was more rock-ish. Leslie West was on this one. So we knew it was strong to begin with. And I had a suspicion that it would be well received. And he did, too - he ever said, 'Look, if we don't get a Grammy for this, they're nuts!' I laughed, but then when he passed, it got released like a month later. And because of the tragedy coupled with the fact that it was a really strong record, it hasn't stopped yet. It's still on the charts. It was #1 for three or four weeks and it's been #2 or #3 for 23 weeks. It's not going anywhere. And then it just won a Grammy last week. And he's up for the Blues Music Awards. You couple it up with the tragedy, yes, absolutely. But when I speak with interviewers like yourself and other people, before we start the interview, they said, 'Paul, I received the record as a promotional thing. I've got to tell you - with or without the tragedy, this was a really strong record. It's really good.' And I think it had a double thing to it. It got attention because of the tragedy, but at the same time, once it did, it's like, 'Wow. This is deserving of something else - for the work that was behind it, too.' I think the fans are seeing that and everyone else is seeing it. He was so proud of it. It was strange, because we had a discussion - he and I - I said, 'Johnny, they want us to do two more records. Why should we wait one year to do one, and then another to do the other?' And he's like, 'Yeah! I'm the strongest I've ever been. My singing's great. You never know how long those other musicians will be around.' So he picked 2 songs, and was actually talking about how healthy he was doing, and about the poor longevity of the other artists! So he had no thoughts of leaving us. That was the ironic part of it. That shows how strong he was. He was so physically fit - except for the emphysema, which we couldn't fix. He stopped smoking, but it just took its toll. And when you get emphysema, when you get a cold, you get a cold. So he really got a bad case of pneumonia, and we went to the hospital, and they gave him antibiotics, but it was just too much for him. But yeah, he was actually speaking outwardly about, 'Those other guys are getting older,' like he was a kid. That's how good he was feeling. He heard the record, he saw the movie - everything that's coming out now, he saw and witnessed and approved. It's not like, a lot of people release stuff after the fact. This was all approved stuff - from Johnny's merchandise to his recordings to the movie. So he was very proud of all this. And very aware of it. He was drug-free, alcohol-free. It's an amazing story. And the movie talks about that."

BraveWords: Let's talk a bit more about the movie, Down & Dirty, and if there are plans for it to come out on DVD.

Paul Nelson: "Yes, absolutely. It's probably going to come out on Megaforce and Sony in Japan, and Sony over here. It was directed by Greg Oliver, the same guy who directed Lemmy, which was a huge success. And I had seen Lemmy, and I had told the record company, 'We need to do a documentary on Johnny. No one's done one on him.' And they said, 'Oh, I think we have the guy.' So I met Greg, and I said, 'Perfect.' It doesn't matter what the musical style is, it's just the feel of this movie would be perfect with Johnny in the same kind of setting. It's very intimate, his way of filming, the interviewing. So I said, 'You need to come on the road with us.' And he came on the road with us for three years - to Japan, China, David Letterman, my house, Johnny's house in Texas, Europe. There's a lot of cameos. Billy Gibbons, Warren Haynes, Johnny's brother Edgar. They found Johnny's original guitar teacher, Luther Nally, who is 83 years old. But it's about rock, over-indulgence, stardom, a friendship between he and I - how we work together musically. It's about the history of blues, the history of rock. And it's about reverse racism - being too white and being chastised. It's very interesting. And it's funny. It was shown at SXSW in Texas, where they do the premieres for the movies, when Johnny was alive. I bought him some popcorn and we sat in the back of the movie theater, and he's like, 'This is great! I'm up on the big screen!' He loved it. And then that night, we played in the band on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and Lady Gaga was the guest. And Johnny's like, 'What the hell does she have on?' She came out, she had a dress made out of white coffee filters. He goes, 'That's just retarded! What kind of crap is this?!' Yeah, it was pretty funny. But yeah, the movie is deep. Johnny gets younger in the movie - over the course of the three years it was filmed, it's amazing to watch, to see him getting off of stuff."

 

BraveWords: Did Johnny's passing come as a surprise, or did you sense it coming?

Paul Nelson: "Didn't sense it at all. Thought he would last for a very long time. He thought he would last for a very long time. But like I said, the cold, when that happens, it's within a day. You can be sitting in front of an air conditioner, sitting in front of a vent, and you catch this cold, it multiplies quicker than anything else, because of the immune system. We did everything we could, but we did not see it coming. He didn't even know he had the cold. I said, 'You know, you're coughing a lot.' We checked it out, and he was like, 'Wow, I didn't even feel sick,' but he had a fever. We were in Zurich - we had done three shows, we did two in Austria and one in France. And I'm telling you…the crowds, what he experienced towards the end, he experienced that whole resurgence again. It was tens of thousands of people just going crazy for him. Like, when he would lift a water, they would cheer. When he would walk out, they would cheer. It was beyond music - they knew the back-story, they were rooting for him. And he felt that. So those were those last shows. And he just went to sleep - like all of us want to go. Some people say, 'He left us with his boots on.' I talked to the family about this, and he really left us on a high note. And he really got his just desserts, because in the '90s, he had done so much stuff, but he was being written out of history. And everyone knew how good this guy was. And whether you're a metal guitar player, a jazz guy, a rock guy, or a blues guy, every starter guitar player learned Johnny's riffs to start going. There isn't a metal guy…and I'm saying this because the people that read your stuff, we all learned Johnny's riffs and decided what music we wanted to go into. It was the foundation of all our playing - no matter what choice we did. That's why there's such an outpouring globally - all styles of musicians were affected by this guy."

BraveWords: What was your last conversation with Johnny?

Paul Nelson: "It was just, 'Good night, we had a great show' kind of thing. It wasn't anything monumental. There weren't any specific parting words. But we went day by day - that was our relationship with him. I will say that Johnny took me under his wing. I was his protégé. I always thanked him for that. He trusted me to help me, he had faith in me to produce him. He told me what to listen to, he steered me in the right direction, he was always concerned and made sure that my career kept on going, and that he was a fan of my playing as much as I was of his. He was like a father to me. The last days were great to see him really feeling that surge of the crowds. So if anything, that's my last memories - just seeing him relive the accolades that he had lost for some time."

Visit Paul Nelson at Paulnelsonguitar.com.

(Paul Nelson photo credit: Michael Weintrob)