Johnny Winter  became a professional musician at the age of fourteen, when he and his keyboard-wizard brother Edgar formed Johnny and the Jammers in their home town of Beaumont, Texas. Already Johnny's rock and roll was steeped in the blues, from years of listening to Beaumont's black radio station and hanging out with Clarence Garlow, a local DJ and blues guitarist. Johnny and the Jammers were a local phenomenon, winning talent shows and eventually landed a recording contract with the Dart label. Their first single, "Schoolboy Blues", was released when Johnny was only fifteen.

From that time on, Johnny was a regular in the Houston and Beaumont recording studios, cutting dozens of tunes as both a a leader and sideman. When he wasn't in the studio, he was playing club gigs or sitting in with touring blues artists like B. B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland, earning a word-of-mouth reputation on the "chitlin' circuit". Except for a brief stay in Chicago in the early '60's (where he come in search of the local blues scene but was forced to make a living playing twiest music is the trourist trap bars of Rush Street), Jahnny was barnstorming the Deep South bar circuit. His bands played everything from Top 40 bubblegum hits and cocktail jazz to whatever hard blues they could sneak into a set. His singles, cut for dozens of little labels, were often leased to majors like MGM ond Atlantic. They eorned plenty of local radio play, but didn't break nationally.

Finally, in early 1968, Johnny decided to totolly commit himself to the blues, regardless of the economic consequences. He formed his trio with Tommy Shannon on bass (later with Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble) ond Uncle John Turner on drums, ond after being turned down for gigs by dozens of clubs, won a berth at the Vulcan Gas Company, an Austin bar. They were drawing good crowds, but couldn't get a recording break except with Bill Josey, a local entrepeneur who cut them on some portable equipment (these tapes later appeared on Imperial as The Progressive Blues Experiment). Discouraged, Johnny packed it up and went to England looking for a musical climate more open to the blues. "We had just cut the sides that Imperial Records would later release on album," he recalls. "I had gone over to England and I had the idea of moving the whole band there. When I came back,an article had come out about me in Rolling Stone, and every major label was phoning."

Columbia Records' Clive Davis prevailed in the bidding war for Johnny's recording contract and Johnny was signed to Columbia in the much publicized "million dollar" deal. (Though the exact figures were never disclosed, John's contract reputed to be the most lucrative record deal cut up to that time). Johnny was hailed in the national press as America's contender to win back the crown of guitar king from Britain's Clapton, Page and Beck.

Between 1968 and 1981, Johnny cut a series of classic albums: Johnny Winter and Second Winter (his albums with the original blues trio plus brother Edgar), Johnny Winter And and Johnny Winter And Live with his new band featuring Rick Derringer on second guitar. Johnny Winter And Live was his best seller ever, and is still considered an essential hard rock landmark.

Johnny was on the road for almost two years straight, crisscrossing the U.S. and Europe, playing every major festival and rock arena, including appearances at Woodstock, the Texas International Pop Festival, and the Bath Festival in England. It was a no-holds-barred lifestyle, and eventually Johnny had to call it quits, break up the band, and take most of 1972 to get his life sorted out. With his return in 1973 and the album Still Alive And Well, Johnny reestablished his blues and rock credentials and began a schedule of touring that kept him on the road six months a year for years after.

In 1974, Johnny cut John Dawson Winter III, his first album for Blue Sky, a CBS-distributed label founded by manager Steve Paul. Blue Sky also became the home for Edgar Winter, Rick Derringer and Dan Hartman, all of whom recorded their own albums as well as albums with Johnny. But it was in 1977 that Johnny was able to fulfill a lifelong dream by producing Muddy Waters for Blue Sky. Hard Again was a comeback album for Muddy, an album that brought him back to the original sound of his classic Chicago blues bands. Both Hard Again and the following Muddy LP, I'm Ready, won Grammy Awards. "Working with Muddy made me feel people were finally realizing that I'm not faking, and can really play blues," Johnny says. ''I felt I'd established myself."

With his final albums for Blue Sky, Nothing But The Blues (1977), White, Hot and Blue (1978) and Raisin' Cain (1980), Johnny turned his focus back to the blues, cutting songs by Junior Parker, Sleepy John Estes and Clarence Garlow.

But it was with Alligator releases that he made his deepest commitment to blues on record. Third Degree, Johnny's third recording for Alligator Records, is an exciting and diverse collection of blues. For the first time in over 15 years, Johnny's original blues trio of Shannon and Turner were reunited. The band first worked together in in the studio on Winter's 1968 Columbia debut LP, Johnny Winter.

Another special guest was Mac ''Dr. John" Rebennack. It was the first time these two had worked together in the studio, and Dr. John's distinctive piano playing adds a New Orleans flavor to Winter's roadhouse blues. Three of the cuts join Winter with the trio responsible for his two Grammy-nominated Alligator works, Guitar Slinger and Serious Business. The band, comprised of Ken Saydak on piano, Johnny B. Gayden on bass and Casey Jones on drums was, according to Winter, ''the cream of the crop as far as blues players today". Third Degree confirmed Johnny Winter's presence on the list of top guitarists in the world.