Johnny Winter 1944 - 2014

"Every now and then I know it's kinda hard to tell,
but I'm still alive and well."

"Still Alive and Well", 1973

Alas, no longer. Blabbermouth.net with the news.

Blues legend Johnny Winter has died at the age of 70. The news was first reported by American Blues Scene and Jenda Derringer, wife of Winter's former bandmate Rick Derringer. Jenda wrote on Facebook: "Johnny passed early this morning in Zurich, Switzerland." She added: "He was not in good health and was very frail and weak."

More from consequenceofsound.com.

Born in Beaumont, Texas in 1944, Winter remained active in music for over five decades, earning acclaim as both a guitarist and record producer. His big break came while opening a show for Mike Bloomfield in 1968. Winter’s performance that evening caught the eye of Columbia Records, who quickly signed him to a contract. He was given a $600,000 advance, the largest one ever received at that time.

In the years that followed, Winter would release nearly 20 albums. He was praised for his high-energy performances and elaborate chops, leading to seven Grammy nominations and a nod as the 63rd best guitarist ever by Rolling Stone.

In addition to his solo work, Winter produced three Muddy Waters albums — 1977′s Hard Again, 1978′s I’m Ready, and 1981′s King Bee – as well as 1979′s Muddy “Mississippi” Waters – Live. Winter’s efforts as a producer earned him three Grammy Awards.

Winter is known for being an original performer at Woodstock ’69. He’s also brother of fellow music legend Edgar Winter.

Here's ten minutes' worth of that performance at Yasgur's Farm in upstate New York, the same summer I spent at Scout camp in deep East Texas as a Tenderfoot.



Most casual music fans knew him only as the brother of Edgar, who had the radio hit Frankenstein in 1972, the year before I entered high school.  So Johnny and his screaming blues guitar was just a little ahead of my formative years... but I caught up quickly.  There would be conflicting opinions on which album to get if you could only get one, but for me it would have to be Captured Live!, which mostly covered classics and came out in my senior year.  I still have the 8-track, in a case in my closet.

Like so many Texas artists of his genre -- the ones from my corner of Southeast Texas alone include ZZ Top, Janis Joplin, Lightnin' Hopkins, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Johnny Copeland, and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown -- never mind elsewhere-Texans Buddy Holly, T-Bone Walker, Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughn, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and on and on -- he came to be recognized as a virtuoso of his craft.

A bit more from Blabbermouth.

Speaking to JournalStar.com last month, Winter said: "When I was about 12, I knew I wanted to be a musician. The blues had so much emotion and so much feeling; if you don't have that, you're not going to be good at it."

Asked if there was anything left for him to accomplish, Winter said: "I've never won a Grammy on my own — I'd like to do that. The ones I've got have been with Muddy. I've been nominated a lot of times but never won."

Regarding what he would like his legacy to be, Winter said: "I just hope I’m remembered as a good blues musician."

Dude, you made it.   Long ago.

Texas Confederate license plates and other detritus

-- The latest developments (off again, on again, appeal again by Greg Abbott) in the Lone Star State's bid to reject the distribution of a vanity license plate commemorating our, ah, "Southern heritage" made me search the archives for the lively discussion between irregular poster Open Source Dem and conservative former blogger nee gadfly commenter Matt Bramanti.  It includes a rejoinder from former Progress Texas honcho Mark Corcoran, relating to OSD's criticism of them at the time.

As with the ongoing conflagration in the Middle East, I'm not taking any sides here.  I think vanity plates are fallen fruit for the state coffers, with rubes ripe for fleecing giving the state their money for nothing.  It seems to be more stupid than buying a hundred dollars' worth of lottery tickets, but the P.T. Barnum rule is in effect here.

Update: Socratic Gadfly with some related thoughts, and also Constitution Daily.

-- Hillary Clinton thinks that offices with fewer corners would be a good thing.

To the dismay of Jon Stewart, Hillary Clinton did not make her big announcement on "The Daily Show" on Tuesday.

The comedian and talk show host opened his interview with the former secretary of state and possible presidential candidate by praising her memoir, "Hard Choices," before pivoting to the question Clinton is asked everywhere she goes.

"It's an incredibly complex and well-reasoned and eyewitness view," Stewart said of the book. "I think I speak for everybody when I say no one cares. They just want to know if you're running for president. Are you?"

"I was going to make an announcement, but I saw ... you kind of spoiled it," Clinton replied. "So I have to reconsider where I go do it."

Stewart then rephrased his question, and asked if she would like to work in an office that has corners.

"You know, I think that the world is so complicated, the fewer corners that you can have, the better," Clinton said to applause from the studio audience.

So coy.

-- Some Democrats seem determined to push Elizabeth Warren in, despite her specific declinations.  This is silly season for this sort of thing, folks.  And this phase is going to last all the way into the middle of next year -- through the current election cycle, through the holidays, and well into the next session of the Texas Legislature.

This mentality is the reason that there are Irish betting services accepting wagers on the British Open in 2015.  And Las Vegas sports books taking bids on next January's Super Bowl champion.

It's still more pointless than trying to handicap next spring's Kentucky Derby, and the contestants are all less attractive.  If you want to play a game like this AND have some influence on changing the political system as it exists today, then work on convincing Bernie Sanders to run -- as either a Democrat or a Green.  Your choice.  You already have my opinion in this regard.  Sanders is a much better option (we need Warren in the Senate as bank watchdog), with a much greater likelihood of success (in influencing the system, not winning).

-- Speaking of banksters: Citigroup paid a $7 billion fine to the US government, and a few other injured parties, for their 2008 Mortgage Meltdown crimes.  That also bought them the right to say that they did nothing wrong.  They wanted to settle at $5 billion, Uncle Sam said ten, and like a couple of used car salesmen, they met in the middle.  When Citigroup announced higher-than-expected earnings as a result of the better deal they got on the fine, their stock went up dramatically, and so did the rest of the market.

The Corleone family ain't got nothin' on them.

-- One toon (there are so many good ones already this week that I'm having trouble winnowing the field):

Lots of campaign finance reports news today

None of which will be reported in this space.

Money is the root of all political evil, and no one has made that cliche' more obvious in this cycle than Greg Abbott and the brothers Koch.  Even the reporting on who raised how much from whom and how they spent it is insipid.  Here's proof of that from Wayne Slater.

Texas has no limits on political fundraising, and the SCOTUS is doing their dead-level best to see to it that the United States becomes more like us.  The only thing a campaign finance report should tell anyone is who the biggest crooks are.

So if you want to put yourself through your washing machine's spin cycle, knock yourself out.  I'm going to do what I can to keep assisting the Move to Amend folks in wringing the goddamned cash out of the system.

Because if every politician got the same (small) amount of public funds for their campaigns, you'd suddenly see a lot more responsiveness and honesty from your politicians.  Because then they would have to compete in the arena of ideas.  That would be anathema to a charlatan like Greg Abbott.  And Dan Patrick.  And on down the right-hand side.

Perhaps even the media would be able to cover political races in such a way that the candidates' words and deeds would be reported without its own bias and corrosive influence.  Because then the attack ads would be gone from the airwaves.

But until that day comes, they're all just going to keep feeding you vomit.  So the least we can do is not be good dogs and continue to eat it, okay?

Let's break Texas into five states while we're at it

California wants to subdivide itself into six.  Well, not all Californians.

A long-shot effort to break California into six separate states got a boost on Monday, when the billionaire venture capitalist behind the proposal said he had gathered enough signatures to place it on the ballot in two years.

Timothy Draper, a founder of a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that has invested in Twitter, Skype and Tesla, among other companies, has been agitating for months for a ballot initiative to chop the most populous U.S. state into smaller entities.

"It’s important because it will help us create a more responsive, more innovative and more local government, and that ultimately will end up being better for all of Californians," said Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the campaign. "The idea ... is to create six states with responsive local governments - states that are more representative and accountable to their constituents."

Don't forget those nine or ten extra Democratic US Senators, either.  They might come in handy.

...(T)he plan has raised bipartisan hackles across the state, and opponents say it stands little chance of gaining voter approval. If it does win the support of voters, it must still be passed by Congress, which opponents say is also unlikely.

"This is a colossal and divisive waste of time, energy, and money that will hurt the California brand,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic political strategist who has formed the group OneCalifornia with GOP strategist Joe Rodota to fight Draper’s plan. "It has zero chance of passage. But what it does is scare investment away... at a time when the Governor is leading us to an economic comeback.”

Draper's plan would split the world’s eighth-largest economy along geographic lines.

One state, to be called Silicon Valley, would include the tech hub along with the San Francisco Bay Area. Jefferson, named after the third U.S. president, would encompass the northernmost region. The state capital of Sacramento would be in North California, while South California would be made up of San Diego and the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles.

L.A. itself would be part of a state called West California.

Five years ago I blogged about the Texas plan to cut itself into five easy (somewhat conservative) pieces.  My Congresswad, John Culberson, earned "Douchebag of the Week" honors for pushing the idea out on national teevee.  Here's that map again, courtesy Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com.

It's a similar strategy as the one Culberson executed to add a dozen extra lanes to the Katy Freeway, which as we know he succeeded in doing (even as he fought against public transportation, even fighting with Ted Poe about it).  We'll blog more about that another day, though.

Texas divisionism is met with much skepticism itself, mostly from a constitutional perspective, although I suspect this proposal would be as deeply unpopular as California's.  As I mentioned in 2009, that separation might produce four or more Democratic senators -- two in El Norte, minimum one each in New Texas and Gulfland.

This is a fun parlor game, but don't expect to find 10-15 new Democrats in the Senate anytime soon.  As in your children or grandchildren's lifetimes.