Monday, January 24, 2011

JW - 1985-04-27 - NYC

Here
Posted by at

1 comment:

Dr. Forrester said...

Johnny Winter at Key Largo, New York City - April 27 or 28, 1985

This recording is so special because the great sound quality and amazing performance with extended renditions plus some rare songs.And again, don't pass this one on, this is a rare recording, I've never seem this recording in any trading list out there!

By April 1985 Johnny'd stayed more than one year promoting Guitar Slinger LP and he was about to enter studio again to record Serious Business, his second disc for Alligator. Tom Compton joined the band on June 1984, replacing Moe Potts on drums. I must say I love the (left-handed) Compton style.

[On a side note, from the best Johnny Winter Story site - http://www.yee.ch/winter/ - "Tom Compton was Johnnys longest serving drummer, coming on board in June 1984 and playing thru till a little after the Live In NYC 97 release. Orginally from England, he spent 6 years playing for Alvin Lee appearing on 2 albums by Ten Years Later (Rocket Fuel & Ride On) and 2 albums by The Alvin Lee Band (Free Fall & RX5). A year after Alvin Lee and Johnny Winter toured together in 1983, he wanted a new boss and Johnny wanted a new drummer. Even though Alligator Records used different players for the records, Tom was always there in concert. Played on the last 4 albums (Winter Of 88, Let Me In, Hey Where's Your Brother? and Live In NYC 97). In late 98 he joined Savoy Brown and appears on their 1999 album - The Blues Keeps Me Holding On. But he left them before 2000"].

On this show at Key Largo Johnny states just before the second song that "this is the final show of a seven weeks tour" letting himself to play a different set list. Although Johnny in his best years (1978-1993) NEVER had a regular "song list" to a given tour - you can hardly count three or four pairs of shows with the same set list in almost 400 I have from these best years - in this show some of the current album "hits" and almost omnipresent in every show such as "don't take advantage of me", "mad dog" and "I smell trouble" are absent. And truly, there is NO slow blues that night! A speeded up (not to say rockier, Johnny would not like this :-)) set. Only "boot hill" was left, in a great shape. This is one more reason collecting JW recordings is so delightful: besides a masterful guitar playing, besides a great voice, besides so many great songs, besides his stage presence, everything summed to make enjoyable hearing experiences, that "unpredictability" that you'll never known which song you are about hear and every known song in a different way each time it was played!

This recording by came from a 2nd generation tape, another sent to me by from JW friend Steven Pearl (http://filmwisela.com/steven_pearl.htm). I used my Sansui Deck D-95M and Creative Live! 24 bits sound card to transfer the analog sound to digital format and Cool Edit Pro software to edit the blancs, fix some minor flaws, adjust the levels and index the tracks.

Steven did attend this show but he was not sure about the exact day, hence "27 or 28" above. Actually he said olny "April 1985" but he remembered that was on a Saturday or Sunday just after a gig (he also attended) at Beacon Theatre in NYC where Edgar guested on encore. Steven's records fit exactly on these days, I have a recording on April 26 (Friday) at Beacon Theatre that Edgar played on encore and it's not known any other recording in May 1985, remember Johnny's words about "last show of the seven weeks tour". Maybe someone here can state the exact day.

Set List (about 70 minutes):
1. succotash
2. killing floor
3. ain't just like a woman [rocker version]
4. hi-heel sneakers
5. boot hill [over 12 minutes rendition, with some "I can't hold out" lines by the end]
6. roll over Beethoven
7. encore: okie dokie stomp [9 minutes version, the longest ever, astonishing!]

January 24, 2011 at 11:38 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)