jilobank.blogg.se

The unfortunate thing was that no one ever said no.

All these things that he put into his system, he asked for. Everyone went round like the emperor’s new clothes. But I saw how it had developed, and I knew it had to stop. I couldn’t believe that it had gone on for that long. I said, ‘This guy is gonna die.’ I saw the shape Johnny was in, and I knew I had to fix it, just out of friendship and for the sake of a human being. “Y’know, I established a musical relationship with Johnny, then it turned into a friendship. He pointedly asks me not to use the term ‘manager’, but it’s clear that Nelson’s remit soon went beyond the role of sideman. When Johnny knew that I was there to help, not to hurt.” I don’t know what it is, but I think you two are gonna help each other in the future.’ That was the moment when we laid the groundwork. Everybody wants to compete with me.’ He goes, ‘I like you – I think we’re gonna be together for a long time.’ Later, the owner of the studio took me aside and said, ‘Paul, I don’t believe in premonitions, but there’s something about you and Johnny. Now I’ve heard what Johnny’s playing, I want to play less.’ Johnny turns to me and he goes, ‘Nobody’s ever said that to me. Why would you want to overshadow Mr Winter?’ All these people that worked with Johnny were like, ‘No one asks to redo their parts. Then I said to the engineer, ‘Okay, I want to do my parts over again.’ The whole studio gasped. “When we first met in the studio,” he remembers, “Johnny played and I played. Bandmembers were instructed not to rock the boat or ask too many questions, but Nelson didn’t get the memo. A lot of his fans were like, ‘What’s going on? What’s happened? Why is he like this?’ But there was no answer, because it was such a closed little clique that no one could penetrate.”Īt the heart of this shadowy set-up was Winter’s long-standing manager, Teddy Slatus, who kept his charge secluded and sedated (and therefore under his control). “BB King, Clapton, they were all joining up with U2 and re-establishing themselves. “It was a time when everyone was riding that retro gravy train,” says Nelson. Worse, while Winter floundered, his contemporaries found themselves feted by a new wave of admirers. Anybody that recommended seeing him as this iconic guitar god, y’know, it wasn’t a good recommendation. On stage, the nightly car-crash was agony to watch. I’d seen all the horror stories and I went, ‘My God, that’s happening here.’ So I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m honoured to be a part of this – but what am I a part of?’” It was like an Elvis thing, a Beach Boys thing, a Michael Jackson thing. He would fall asleep in his food, set his hat on fire. You see the footage of him at his worst in the film. Winter would sleep 14 hours a day, grunt monosyllabic answers at bewildered interviewers, slide through his life like a shadow. Brothers in arms: Johnny Winter and Paul Nelson.īy the 90s, that cocktail of downers had taken its toll on the once-vital bandleader.