Today is Johnny Winter's 56th Birthday. Johnny is still one of my favourite blues musicians. He was the first white artist to be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Johnny burst onto the scene in 1969 with a self tilted album of electric and acoustic blues that featured Willie Dixon on bass. He was led into the Rock world, but turned his back on it and has focused on the blues for the last twenty five years or so. When Muddy Waters' carreer was at a low point in the mid seventies Johnny sought him out and produced and played on the Grammy award winning "Hard Again" a collection of Muddy classics. This introduced Muddy to a whole new audience, myself included. They did two more albums together, I believe they were both Grammy award winners. Muddy referred to Johnny as his son up until his death, a bit of a joke I'm sure as Johnny is an Albino.

In my opinion there have been a number of white guitarists who dabbled in the blues, but Johnny is a bluesman through and through.

Happy Birthday Johnny, thanks for all of the great music.