Went to Asheville, NC for the holiday weekend, and while there, paid a visit to the Orange Peel Social Aid & Pleasure Club to see Johnny Winter. The club only holds maybe 600 people, and we were about 20' away from center stage, where JW sat & played. The opening act was a rockin' blues trio outta Chicago calling themselves Frank Bang & The Secret Stash, and they were tres deece. The bassist was a porky kid who looked like a younger version of jtr w/o the jewfro, but unlike Jess, this guy had skeelz. Frank Bang played guitar and sang, and included in their set was a killer tune Warren Haynes (of the Allman Bros.) penned, along with a very respectable version of Zep's When The Levee Breaks that had worked into its ending some of In My Time of Dying. Very nice slide guitar work by Mr. Bang.
Then Johnny Guitar hit the stage. Actually, his band came out without him for the first song, a rippin' instrumental with Paul Nelson on lead guitar. When I saw Winter about a year and half ago, Nelson was his opening act, and shredded. Now, he's Winter's de facto manager and accompanying guitarist, although after the first song, he only came out to join the band for one other tune. (Winter got ripped off rather severely by his previous manager, now deceased. He's suing the estate to try to recover some of what was stolen.) The last time I saw JW, he played mostly slow blues, had recently undergone hip replacement surgery, and couldn't straighten up when he walked. I read where his weight had dipped to about 90 lbs (!), but now he's back up to a "hefty" 140.
When Winter finally did make his appearance, he opened with the blues standard Hideaway, same as last time. While able to stand relatively straight, he is still obviously frail and crippled, needing assistance to and from the stage, and his walk is reminiscent of Walter Brennan on The Real McCoys. A dude sitting next to me said he's nearly blind now, and it's not hard to believe. He still sits during his entire show, but his set this time was much more upbeat and included some rockin' tunage rather than just down 'n' dirty slow blues. Some of the highlights were a Ray Charles blues number (can't remember the title), Sugar Coated Love, Lone Wolf, Johnny Guitar, Miss Ann, Hoochie Coochie Man, the Stones' It's All Over Now, and the song he ended with, Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. A great show from one of the best blues guitarists ever, especially given that he now looks like...
