Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) (56 page)

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Authors: Mary Lou Sullivan

BOOK: Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition)
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“Ninety percent of his income was touring; at his age that’s sad,” said Nelson. “I made a twenty-point list; number one was health, and it had things like the band, bootlegs, appearance, endorsements, equipment, promoter, booking agent, attorneys, and accountants. I knew there were tons of bootlegs and I went onto eBay and started purchasing DVDs and CDs, and also contacted the traders that collected Johnny. I asked them to send me copies of the bar codes, the lot numbers, and the record companies of all the bootlegs. I made a tree of all the companies and submitted it to the attorneys.”
Serendipitously, when Johnny played a gig in Texas, a fan told him his original contract with Roy Ames was displayed in a local museum. Nelson gave a copy to Johnny’s attorneys. He also contacted BMI to try to increase Johnny’s royalty revenue stream.
“BMI attorneys sent letters to all the writers listed,” said Nelson. “If they don’t respond in a month, full ownership of the song goes back to the artists. We worked that out; now we’re checking all the original major record deals. I also got all the rights to the footage. But I couldn’t do any of this if Johnny wasn’t healthy and didn’t have his business matters back on track.”
Nelson also set up reunion shows with Rick Derringer and Edgar Winter, who were both thrilled to see Slatus out of the picture. The first Johnny and Edgar reunion show was a “Still Alive and Well Homecoming Benefit” for the Southeast Texas Food Bank at the Beaumont Civic Center on November 17. The following day, Johnny and Edgar would be inducted into the Southeast Texas “Walk of Fame” in their home town for their contributions to music and career accomplishments.
On October 31, less than three weeks before that show, Johnny fell and broke his other hip. This time, he couldn’t afford a yearlong recovery. Johnny went straight to the hospital, where doctors set it with pins. He was in the hospital for three days, went to rehab for two weeks, and then had therapy at home three days a week. Determined to play the gig despite his pain, and without igniting further rumors about his health, Johnny agreed to Nelson’s plan to carry him onto the stage with the house lights down.
“Paul made it so nobody knew,” said Susan. “We were afraid it would domino if we canceled one gig. We had already canceled gigs because of his hand, so he went ahead and played.”
Despite the respect and camaraderie he shared with Nelson, Johnny felt guilty about firing his former friend and longtime manager, wondering if he’d done the right thing. Less than seven weeks after he let Slatus go, fate—or perhaps karma—closed the door on any second thoughts he may have had.
Three days after Johnny fell and broke his hip, an inebriated Slatus tumbled down the stairs of his home. According to the police report, when Kent Illausky, Slatus’s live-in handyman, woke him around 7 AM that morning, an already-drunken Slatus demanded another bottle of Johnny Walker Red. Illausky returned with a bottle, had a drink with Slatus, and went out to work in the yard. When Frances Brown, the woman who cared for Slatus’s dogs and birds, later looked in on him, she found him in bed “drunker than I had ever seen him.” When Illausky checked on him around 10 AM, Slatus was lying with his head on the stairwell, his legs up the stairs. Illausky called 911, and when police arrived, they found Slatus smelling of alcohol, with injuries to his head and right hand, and cuts and bruises on the left side of his face and forehead. He died shortly after at the Middlesex Medical Center in Marlborough; the official cause of death was “ischemic heart disease.”
After Johnston died, Slatus changed his will designating John Johnston III, Johnston’s brother, and Diane Oliver (who he also gave power of attorney), as equal beneficiaries. Hired as his cleaning lady in 2001, Oliver became his caretaker and started running the business after Johnston died. At Slatus’s funeral, she said she had been Johnston’s personal assistant for four years, and although she didn’t know what she was doing, she took over all aspects of the business when Johnston died.
Slatus’s funeral service was reminiscent of that of Ebenezer Scrooge—there were no friends to mourn him, just a handful of local businessmen. The rabbi read from the newspaper obituary, which said he became “performance manager” for Johnny Winter in 1966—two years before Steve Paul brought Johnny to the Scene. It was obvious no one knew him or how he had spent his life. Instead of displaying his pride and joy—the life-sized framed photo of Slatus proudly standing beside Muddy Waters seated in the ornate carved chair that graces the cover of
King Bee—
his memorabilia table, put together by Oliver and Brown, displayed a photo of Slatus with his mother, several wedding photos, and pictures of him with his cockatiels and dogs. The prayer card photo depicted a pensive gray-haired Slatus lying back with his dogs.
Johnny’s oft-quoted reaction to Slatus’s death-“Are we having tacos tonight?”—was a way to shield his feelings. Underneath the Texas bravado, Johnny has always been a sensitive man. One can’t have a business and personal relationship with someone for thirty-six years without feeling pain at their passing.
Neither Johnny nor Susan attended Slatus’s funeral. Susan wanted to pay her respects, but due to the Winters’ lawsuit to recoup their losses from his estate, her lawyers advised her against it. Johnny felt differently.
“I just didn’t want to go,” says Johnny. “I didn’t care about him at that point. I was almost glad [he died]. I hate to say that but ... ”
When asked if he felt any sorrow over Slatus’s passing, Johnny’s initial response was “No, I’m just glad.” Yet his words were betrayed by the sadness in his voice. When pressed, it was difficult for him to separate sorrow from his feelings of betrayal.
“I guess I do [feel sorrow),” he says softly. “It pisses me off that I was that dumb; that I let him get away with it. He was so close to me for years, but he was still unfair to me. I can’t believe he did that. It’s hard to believe he was that bad, and everybody else saw it but me.”
“We could never get back what Teddy took,” said Susan. “We find out almost every day something else that Teddy’s done. Paul made sure everything comes to us now and I have control of all bank accounts. I see what he spends; I control everything. With Teddy, we had an accountant who didn’t care about receipts or invoices.”
Despite the betrayal and the enormous financial hits, including attorneys’ fees for the lawsuits filed by the German promoter and against Slatus’s estate, both Susan and Johnny are happy that what one music writer called the “Slatus Death Ride” is over. “Johnny’s doing so much better,” said Susan. “It’s like a big cloud went away.”
15
 
FULL CIRCLE
 
F
ully aware that Johnny had been his own worst enemy in terms of career decisions, Paul Nelson made it clear at the onset that Johnny would have to follow his directives. Rather than allowing Johnny to “worry” himself out of doing interviews or playing with other artists, Nelson waits until the last minute to discuss it with him.
“What I do with Johnny is—and he knows I do this—I tell him everything two minutes before he’s supposed to do it,” said Nelson. “He’s accepted me as manager, and I’ve accepted the responsibility to do the right thing. I know if it’s a huge interview, if I tell him in advance, he’s going to worry about it, stew over it, brood over it, and eventually cancel it. So I don’t give him that opportunity. Every time, he always says, ‘I’m so glad I did that—this is great.’”
Johnny’s renewed health and busy touring schedule left no room for Montgomery to further his career with his own band, so he left and Nelson joined the lineup.
Johnny’s career has experienced a renaissance under Nelson, who rebuilt bridges Slatus burned, got him endorsement deals for a Gibson Custom Shop Johnny Winter Signature Firebird V, a re-creation of Johnny’s 1963/1964 Firebird (when Gibson analyzed Johnny’s Firebird at the Custom Shop in Nashville, they found a serial number on the headstock and were able to date the neck as 1964, and the body design as 1963), the Dunlop “Texas Slider,” a pinky slide modeled after Johnny’s slide, and D’Addario strings. He is back in the headlines with stories in
Guitar World, Vintage Guitar,
Goldmine, Modern Guitars, Blues Matters, Blues Revue, Penthouse,
and the
AARP Bulletin,
which recognized his achievements on his sixtieth birthday.
Fans can still buy music new to their ears:
Breakin’ It Up, Breakin’ It Down,
a live recording of formerly unreleased material with Johnny, Muddy Waters, and James Cotton, was released in June 2007. That CD won “Historical Album of the Year” in the 2008 Blues Music Awards presented by the Blues Foundation in Memphis.
Live Bootleg Series Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4,
and
Volume 5,
authorized bootlegs of live archival material, were released in October 2007, March 2008, July 2008, February 2009, and June 2009 respectively, generating brisk sales and rave reviews from fans.
Johnny played guest DJ on Bill Wax’s Bluesville program on XM satellite radio, and does interviews with newspapers on tours across the U.S., Canada, and Europe that keep him playing three to five nights a week. He began with an average of 120 to 140 gigs a year; by summer 2008, his price had increased so he could cut down to one hundred gigs without losing any income.
For the first time in thirty-seven years, Johnny performed with the Allman Brothers Band. He joined them for three songs on April 8, 2007 during their sold-out run at the Beacon Theater in New York. Allman Brothers’ guitarist Warren Haynes, who caught one of Johnny’s shows and visited him in his bus, invited him to that show.
“I told Johnny the day before the gig, but I had already agreed with the Allman Brothers that it was gonna happen,” said Nelson with a laugh. “When musicians ask, ‘Is Johnny excited about playing with us?’ I have to say something like ‘Words can’t describe his feelings,’ because he doesn’t know yet.”
Rather than bear the exorbitant expense of the tour bus that Johnny loves, Nelson found a less expense mode of transportation with a similar set up. The same model is available throughout the U.S., so Johnny, whose vision is greatly diminished, doesn’t have to adjust to a new layout in every city. He still stays up all night listening to the blues, but now it is on an iPod that Nelson has loaded with 10,332 blues songs, including Johnny’s entire catalogue.
The highest visibility gig of Johnny’s renaissance in 2007 was his performance with the Derek Trucks Band at the Crossroads Concert in Chicago on July 28. Crossroads generated a spread in
Rolling Stone
titled “Clapton’s Guitar Summit,” that included a photo of Eric Clapton and Johnny, with the caption BLUES BROTHERS CLAPTON WITH JOHNNY WINTER, WHO ROCKED A TEN-MINUTE SLIDE VERSION OF DYLAN’S “HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED.” According to writer David Fricke, “The show’s first highlight came during Derek Trucks’s set, which peaked during his version of ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ with Johnny Winter.” Johnny also joined Clapton, Buddy Guy, John Mayer, Hubert Sumlin, Robert Cray, and Jimmie Vaughan on “Sweet Home Chicago” during the all-star jam.
It was Nelson’s perseverance and quick thinking that got Johnny that gig and coerced him to hang around for the jam. Knowing Johnny wouldn’t play in the daytime, Nelson waited until the day of the concert to tell Johnny he went on at 1:30 PM. Getting Johnny to hang around till the 11 PM jam took a stroke of genius.
“After Johnny did the show with Trucks, he wanted to go back to the hotel,” said Nelson. “I said hold on, went outside, and saw B. B. King. I told him Johnny Winter wants to say hello to you and he said great. I asked him to wait a minute, and told Johnny, B. B. King wants to say hello to you. I sent him in the bus, and he was in there for half an hour. Then I thought, how many musicians will it take for Johnny to meet to kill enough time to make him sit in this bus until the all-star jam? So I went out and did that to Vince Gill, Hubert Sumlin, Los Lobos, John Mayer, Robert Randolph, Stevie Winwood. I told him each one wanted to meet him, brought them on the bus, and by the time it was done, it was thirty minutes before show time. The jam became the last song on the [2007
Crossroads
] DVD and was all over PBS. It was a hit, it showed him healthy, and Johnny’s price went up for all his gigs. I got a letter from Clapton, saying thank you very much; we’d love to have you again in three years.”
Professionally, Crossroads was a high point, but the close-up shots of Johnny during that performance depict a man who looks like he lost his best friend. And he did. Uncle John Turner, his closest friend, and the man who convinced him to take a chance on playing the blues, died in Austin on July 26, two days before the concert.
One of Johnny’s deepest regrets, one that has stayed with him, was firing Turner and Shannon, who believed in him before he became famous and were willing to take a financial hit to play the music he loved. Following the directive of his manager to let them go with a severance payment of $2,000 each still bothered him, although both had forgiven him and never let it affect the friendship. When he discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan has generously shared his success with Shannon by giving him “points” or a percentage of profits from the recordings they made together, he felt even worse.
In November 2006, Johnny called them onstage to play “Johnny Guitar” at a gig at La Zona Rosa in Austin. It was the first time they had performed live together since 1970. The audience surprised Turner and Shannon with a rousing cheer when they walked onstage and a standing ovation when they finished. But Johnny, who has become quite taciturn due to a decade of overmedication, didn’t have much to say when they visited him after the show. The reunion they had longed for was hardly the heartfelt moment they had hoped it would be.

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