Johnny Winter

American Musician and Producer. Winter released nearly 20 albums and earned seven Grammy nominations in his career as an iconic blues musician. When he was ten years old, he and his younger brother Edgar, who were both born with albinism, appeared on a local children’s show, playing ukulele and singing Everly Brothers songs. Johnny would release his first record ‘School Day Blues’ when he was 15 years old. In 1968, he was spotted by Mike Bloomfield who invited him to play at his show at the Fillmore East in New York. That lead to Winter signing with Columbia Records for a $600,000 advance, the largest record advance ever at the time. In 1969, he released his self-titled debut album and performed at Woodstock that same year. Among studio albums he would release were ‘Johnny Winter And’ (1970), ‘Saints and Sinners’ (1974), ‘White Hot and Blue’ (1978), ‘Guitar Slinger’ (1984), ‘I’m a Bluesman’ (1984) and ‘Roots’ (2011). In 1977, Winter met blues legend Muddy Waters and would go on to produce several albums for Waters which would earn him three Grammy Awards. Winter, who was on the cover of the first issue of Guitar World magazine and in 1988, was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and was named one of Rolling Stone magazines top 100 guitarists of all-time, died in his hotel four days after his last performance at the Lovely Days Festival in Wiesen, Austria.