• Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
• Side 2 of Second Winter starts off with two Little Richard songs, followed by “Johnny B. Goode” and “Highway 61 Revisited”. 

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Johnny Winter – Second Winter (Album 1 Only) (1969):  Johnny Winter is a renowned blues guitarist from Texas who is known for his high-energy blues-rock concerts and albums; he and his brother Edgar Winter, who have made music together since they were children, were both born with albinism traits.  In December 1968, Michael Bloomfield invited Johnny Winter on stage at Fillmore East during a concert that also included Al Kooper, several months after the release of their classic album with Stephen Stills, Super Session (1968).  At the concert, Johnny Winter performed the B. B. King song “It’s My Own Fault” to enthusiastic applause.  Within a few days, representatives of Columbia Records who were at the concert signed Johnny Winter to a recording contract with a reported advance of $600,000, the largest signing bonus ever up to that point in time. 

Second Winter is Johnny Winter’s third album and his second for Columbia.  It is a double album with only three sides being recorded; Side 4 is blank.  I have a few albums like that in my collection, such as the Pink Fairies album Uncle Harry (1998, but with music from 1970 and 1971), where the fourth side is embossed with multiple images of a flying pig similar to those on the cover of the Pink Fairies’ third album Kings of Oblivion (1973).  However, as far as I can tell, I have only ever owned the first album in Second Winter.  Johnny Winter’s debut album for Columbia, Johnny Winter (1969) is mostly a straight blues album, though there has always been a rock undercurrent in Johnny Winter’s music.  That comes through more clearly in Second Winter; Side 2 of the album starts off with two Little Richard songs, “Slippin’ and Slidin’ ” and “Miss Ann”, followed by Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Johnny Winter’s take on Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”.  Side 1 includes the only Johnny Winter composition on my album, “I’m Not Sure”; “The Good Love”, written by Dennis Collins, who also contributes some bass on Second Winter; and Percy Mayfield’s song “Memory Pain”.  The four songs on the missing Side 3 are all written by Johnny Winter.  Johnny Winter appeared at Woodstock, although none of his songs are on either the main Woodstock soundtrack album or the follow-up Woodstock Two; however, the mammoth 10-CD box set The Woodstock Experience (2009) includes a CD with eight songs that he performed live at Woodstock and another CD with the Johnny Winter album.