Johnny Winter - Winter Essentials 1960-1967 Volume One

As the title says, this is early Johnny Winter - previous to his days of a blues-based, long-haired rock'n'roller. There is literally no information included on this hep set, so there is no indication of the time periods of the different songs or who else, other than Johnny, appears on any of the cuts. A lot of it sounds like pre-Beatles rock'n'roll, some of it pretty damn similar to what Dr. John (then Mac Rebennack) was doing out in New Orleans around the same time. Even in this period, he was influenced by R'n'B and the Blues, but there are some hints of Link Wray, Surf, Doo-Wop, Chuck Berry and any number of other coolness.

Lots of neat rockers here, from the opening instro guitar work out, "Ice Cube", to the N'Awlins-y "School Day Blues", the doo-wop-ish "You Know I Love You", "Oh, My Darling" and "One Night of Love" (not certain if it's him on the sorta lightweight vocals, although it could be), the wildly rollickin' instrumentals "Geisha Rock" and "Creepy" (he could already play a helluva mean guitar), the sing-along upbeat R'n'B of "Hey Hey Hey Hey", "That What Love Does" is similar to Lazy Lester's "Sugar Coated Love" and "Shed So Many Tears" is a nice R'n'B ballad with more swingin' git-work.

Of course, he had to ride on the Twist wagon with the frantic, sax-fueled "Voo Doo Twist"(great sax/guitar trade-offs here), and he goes full-on bluesman with the Jimmy Reed-styled "Ease My Pain", but doesn't fare as well with a goofy instro take on "By The Light of the Silvery Moon", but then does a speed-freak take on Bo Diddley's "Road Runner" followed by a super-groovy dance number with "The Guy You Left Behind" and a nice slow blues instrumental in "Five After", an early rock'n'roll vocal number with "Stay By My Side", while "Broke and Lonely" sounds like a take-off of Ray Charles (certainly not a bad thing, although I'm spacing on what song specifically this was "influenced" by), there's another slow blues with "Crying in my Heart" and a swingin', tremelo'd Link Wray-like blues instrumental, "Crazy Baby", for the closer.

Don't pick this up if you're looking for another Still Alive and Well or even The Progressive Blues Experiment, but if you're interested in the man's roots, this is a hip'n'fun comp.