No, it ain't heavy metal, prog, or even fusion, but if you have any passing interest in red hot, blistering blues-rock filled with wicked guitar playing, Johnny Winter And's Live at the Fillmore 10/3/70 needs to find its way into your CD collection. Sure, Winter has had plenty of live releases over the years, and both his Live and Captured Live from the 1970's are both considered essential listening for guitar fans, but this new release from the folks at Collector's Choice Music is a revelation and easily as good if not better than those other two classics.
The line-up here is the formidable but ultimately short lived And group, featuring Winter, Rick Derringer, Randy Jo Hobbs, and Randy Zehringer. At this point in time, Winter's blues roots were fusing with hard rock, bringing the guitarist to superstardom. An early version of "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" is here in all its glory, as well as the blues standard "Good Morning Little School Girl", but it's the near 23-minute "It's My Own Fault" that is worth the price of admission alone here. This guitar extravaganza sees Winter and Derringer battling it out with plenty of ferocious blues and rock solos, rivaling some of the best of Allman & Betts on the Allman Brothers Fillmore set. It's that good folks, and 'shred guitar' never sounded better! Look out for Winter's wild slide guitar on the frenzied "Highway 61 Revisited", and the band slows down with some mean Texas blues for the 18-minute "Mean Town Blues", with Winter delivering some scorching solos once again. The set closes out with a ferocious take on "Rollin' and Tumblin' ", as both Derringer and Winter trade sizzling leads while the rhythm section cooks underneath.
Normally, a phenominal recording such as this would get a perfect score from me, but I'm deducting a half a point for the cheap packaging on this thing, which is a very dark digipack with just a cool cover photo and essay. No credits, no additional photos, nothing. Pretty drab for such a landmark release if you ask me, but at least there's the absolutely stellar music. Essential listening for Johnny Winter fans and guitar freaks of all ages.
Track Listing
1. Guess I'll Go Away
2. Good Morning Little School Girl
3. Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo
4. It's My Own Fault
5. Highway 61 Revisited
6. Mean Town Blues
7. Rollin' And Tumblin'
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