Edgar Winter

Edgar Winter - Entrance - 1970 - Epic

The great US blues rocker Edgar Winter's career was arguably, at it's best in the early '70's with his solo work and collaborations with brother Johnny. The pairs' early compositions were wonderful blends of R&B, rock, jazz, and soul. The later albums of Edgar, and Johnny, with White Trash, The Edgar Winter Group, and Roadwork were more pure rock orientated, had far less less jazz/soul influences, and appealed more to rock audiences. and nothing wrong with that. The 1976 "Edgar Winter and Johnny Winter Live" is a cracking album full of great Rock'N'Roll covers, and The Edgar Winter Group's 1972 "They Only Come Out at Night" album is one of the great rock albums of the early seventies. But to get back to "Entrance", the album is essentialy a demonstration of Edgar Winter's jazz leanings. A brilliant album of wonderful songwriting and superb musicianship. There is great organ work from Edgar, and great horns from Brooks Tillotson, Ray Alonge, and Earl Chapin. If you are not familiar with the more laid back, "gentler" side of Edgar Winter, you will love this album, which is HR by A.O.O.F.C. Buy his "Jazzin' the Blues" album, and give his great " Live in Japan" album a hearing. and check out his great "Winter Blues" album @ EW/WBLUES For more music of this type, listen to the Ten Years After "Cricklewood Green" album

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

01. Winter's Dream Entrance - E.Winter/J.Winter
02. Where Have You Gone - E.Winter/J.Winter
03. Rise to Fall - E.Winter/J.Winter
04. Fire and Ice - E.Winter/J.Winter
05. Hung Up - E.Winter/J.Winter
06. Back in the Blues - E.Winter
07. Re-entrance - E.Winter/J.Winter
08. Tobacco Road - Loudermilk
09. Jump Right Out - E.Winter/J.Winter
10. Peace Pipe - E.Winter
11. A Different Game - E.Winter/J.Winter
12. Jimmy's Gospel - E.Winter

MUSICIANS

Edgar Winter - Organ, Piano, Keyboards, Saxophone, Sax (Alto), Vocals
Johnny Winter - Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals
Randal Dolanon - Guitar
Gene Kurtz,Tommy Shannon - Bass
John Turner, Jimmy Gillen - Drums
Brooks Tillotson, Ray Alonge, Earl Chapin - Horns
Russell Savkus, Gene Cahn, Ralph Oxman, Paul Gershman, Emanuel Green - Strings

REVIEWS

This album is not what you expect. Edgar is Johnny Winter's brother and organ/piano player—yet this album is definitely not blues or rock 'n roll. The closest classification that fits is free-form jazz—but even that, while explaining the musical framework, doesn't take into account Edgar's distinctive vocal style. He sounds like Mose Allison on some cuts ("Back in the Blues") but on most of the album Edgar's frenetic, high-pitched vocal style is all his own and very effective with the bebop-type lyrics (authored by the Winters) that most of the cu's contain. The album is divided into two sections. The first side, entitled "Winter's Dream," features seven cuts that slide into and out of each other nicely and work effectively as a musical statement. Highlights are Edgar's vocal work-out on "Where Have You Gone," his sax solo on the extended "Fire and Ice" segment and brother Johnny's harp-playing on "Back in the Blues." While tight and together, this side does suffer from an occasional excess of strings and horns, that in many cases don't add a thing to what is, or could be, happening without them. But, in most cases, Edgar prevails. The second side opens with the most exciting version of that old war-horse "Tobacco Road" I've heard in a long while. Johnny plays guitar on this one and Edgar sings with more fervor than I believed possible, besides playing sax and organ. Two tour-de-force jazz-shaded cuts on this side really pull things around. "Peace Pipe" opens with an "Eleanor Rigby" type organ riff on top of a scat vocal and then drives along with theme changes that eventually come back to a scat vocal/Rigby-ish close. The other jazz cut, entitled "Jimmy's Gospel," features a demonstration of just how well Edgar can play alto sax. This instrumental is a mellow yet forthright explosion that is the essence of this album, even though it comes last. Had his brother not been such an overnight music phenomena, Edgar would probably never have had the opportunity to assemble an album. And, even though this one is a little overdone in spots, one hopes that another is forthcoming soon. (RS 65) © GARY VON TERSCH, © 2009 Rolling Stone

Edgar Winter came out of the chute kicking with this remarkable record filled with jazz, blues and a little old-fashioned rock & roll. The record follows an established theme throughout its first side, stringing the songs together without breaks, highlighted by dreamy keyboard and sax work, plus Winter's smooth vocalizations. But jazz isn't the only thing Edgar brings to the party. His first recorded version of the old J.P. Loudermilk tune "Tobacco Road" has a few nice punches in it (although the live version with White Trash a few years later would prove the definitive one). "Jimmy's Gospel" plays on his early church influences, while "Jump Right Out" is the predecessor of half a dozen "jump up and dance" numbers Winter would pepper his records with in years to come. © Michael B. Smith, allmusic.com


BIO

Although he's often skirted the edges of blues music, at heart, saxophonist, keyboardist and composer Edgar Winter is a blues musician. Raised in Beaumont, TX, the younger brother of ukulele player and guitarist Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter has always pushed himself in new directions, synthesizing the rock, blues and jazz melodies he hears in his head. As a consequence, his fan base may not be what it could have been, had he made a conscious effort -- like his brother Johnny -- to stay in a blues-rock mold over the years. He's one musician who's never been afraid to venture into multiple musical arenas, often times, within the space of one album, as in his debut, Entrance (1970 Columbia Records). Edgar Winter, the second son of John and Edwina Winter, was born December 28, 1946 in Beaumont, TX, and much of the credit for Edgar and Johnny's early musical awareness must go to the brothers' parents, who have been a constant source of encouragement throughout their respective musical careers. The boys' father sang in a barbershop quartet, in their church choir, and played saxophone in a jazz group. Edgar and Johnny, who's three years older, began performing together as teens, playing local watering holes like Tom's Fish Camp before they were old enough to drink. The pair's early R&B and blues groups included Johnny and the Jammers, the Crystaliers and the Black Plague. In high school, Edgar became fascinated with the saxophone stylings of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley and Hank Crawford, and he began playing alto sax in earnest. As a pre-teen, he had played ukulele, like his older brother. But by the time he was of college age, Edgar had become competent on keyboards, bass, guitar and drums. Edgar was signed to Epic Records in 1970 after performing on his brother's Second Winter album. He recorded Entrance, his debut, which featured himself on most of the instruments. After radio success accompanying his brother on Johnny Winter And, he formed a large horn ensemble called White Trash. Although it was a short-lived group which broke up in mid-'72, Winter assembled another group to record two more albums for Epic Records, White Trash and Roadwork. Winter's single, "Keep Playing That Rock 'n' Roll," reached number 70 on the U.S. rock radio charts, and the album Roadwork hit number 23 on the album charts. By the summer of 1972, through constant touring, (and a ready willingness to do interviews, unlike his older brother), Winter formed the Edgar Winter Group in the summer of 1972. In January, 1973, Epic released They Only Come Out at Night, produced by guitarist Rick Derringer, which reached number three in the U.S. This album had Winter's most famous song, "Frankenstein," which reached number one in the U.S. in May of 1973. Later that year, "Free Ride" from the same album reached number 14. Although he's never matched that kind of commercial radio success again, Winter has continued to tour and record at a prolific pace. He relocated from New York City to Beverly Hills in 1989 to pursue movie score work, which he's had some success with, most notably with a slightly reworked version of "Frankenstein" for the movie Wayne's World II. Although his early-'70s albums like Entrance, White Trash, They Only Come Out at Night and Shock Treatment are bluesier affairs than some of his later albums, there are blues tunes like "Big City Woman" on one of his 1990s releases, Not a Kid Anymore (1994), on the Intersound label, and 1999's Winter Blues was almost wholly devoted to the idiom. A good introduction to Winter for those who weren't around in the early '70s is The Edgar Winter Collection (1993) on Rhino Records. © Richard Skelly, All Music Guide