Johnny Winter Bluejeans' Place

The 2000 Delta Blues Festival ran very, very far behind schedule and most of the crowd was gone before Johnny Winter came out on stage at twelve minutes to midnight, but, heck, it's a blues festival, so three in the morning would've been okay with me so long as the blues were cool!

If you have Johnny's 1997 "Live in New York City" CD, got turn it on now. Johnny played exactly like he did on that CD! In the next few pictures, I'll correspond each picture to the song he was playing when I played "Jimmy Olsen, cub photographer," and snapped the shot.

Quick--turn on Track 2--on the "Live in NYC" CD because Johnny came out playing "Got My Mojo Workin'"!

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I've seen the Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, Herman's Hermits, Barry Manilow (ugh--got dragged to see him!), Bo Diddley and others live in concert, but Johnny's playing on stage matched the CD exactly! It was spooky hearing how much the same it sounded!

The crowd of about 150 people was wildly cheering now as Johnny and his band swung into "She Likes To Boogie Real Low."

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Don't you feel like you're there in the front row with me?

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By this time, it was past midnight and the crowd had thinned out to maybe just a 100 people or less--but who cares? It's a blues festival and the best blues music is played after midnight!

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At this point, Johnny launched into "Johnny Guitar" (if my memory serves me right).

But all good things must come to an end--near the mid-point of that song, the local peace officers, from the Sheriff's office, decided we all needed to go home because the festival's permit expired at midnight like Cinderella!

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I've been a lot of places in my life, but never before in a place where the cops thought we were out too late..but here you can see that Johnny and his band and his fans were told it was time to sing those "gotta close the show blues..." You can see Johnny's manager behind him arguing with the cop, but it did no good...it was time for the show to go...!

In any event, it was one heck of a show! If you get a chance, get to the Delta Blues Festival and catch up with Johnny Winter on tour somewhere--in both cases, you'll get your money's worth!