Moved by the spirit of music

/Home/Blues Artists/Bluesmen/Contemporary Blues Men/Contemporary Blues Men Articles

Moved by the spirit of music
September 16, 2010
By Tony Sauro
Recordnet.com

Edgar Winter sounded as fired-up as a kid playing his first gig.

"It means the world to me to do what I love most," said the excitable and voluble Winter. "It's great getting to see everybody out there rockin'. Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo. So, get ready to rock."

At Winter's age - the blues-rock singer and multi-instrumentalist turns 63 in December - most people are content with a rocking chair.

Winter has been rocking out since he and brother Johnny were growing up in Beaumont, Texas.

He's now 45 years into a career that began at Woodstock, and brings the five-man Edgar Winter Group to the Lodi Grape Festival on Saturday.

Just mention a topic - his pioneering use of synthesizers, embracing Scientology, his affection for science fiction, music's transcendent spirituality - and Winter's off and rolling in a soft Texas accent.

"'I've always thought of music as a spiritual thing," said Winter, a self-styled "New York Texan living in Beverly Hills." "It really does have the ability, as all art forms do, to make us realize we are, in essence, one people. One world.

"I love Scientology, but also Christianity and Buddhism. They're all attached to the same source. Religion should be inclusive rather than divisive. That's what music does."

Heavily influenced by sacred music, Winter was attracted to L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology and "Mission Earth," his 1986 album, included lyrics by Hubbard. Winter is "really not as avid now."

"Religion is a personal thing," said Winter, whose parents were Baptist and Episcopalian. "It's not something I really talk about. Life is a spiritual quest for all spiritual beings."

Still best-known for classic-rock trademarks "Frankenstein" (No. 1, 1973) and "Free Ride" (1973), Winter started playing ukulele at 6 and teamed with Johnny in a duo styled after the Everly Brothers.

"I thought everybody played music," said Edgar. "Like everybody learns to read, write, add and subtract. Then I realized it was something special."

He and Johnny were weaned in a fertile, diverse musical culture on the Southern bar circuit until Edgar graduated from Beaumont High School. Then they moved to New York, where his brother played a pivotal role in Edgar's awakening.

"Jazz and classical music was very personal," Winter said of early inspirations that were matched by the eclectic Ray Charles. "I was more introverted. It was my own private escape world. I never really took it (blues-rock) seriously. It was something that was fun."

Edgar was playing keyboards in Johnny's band at Woodstock - the 1969 rock festival in upstate New York - when he had a musical and spiritual epiphany.

"It literally changed my life," Edgar said. "It made me really see music in a completely different light. I'll never forget looking out on an endless sea of humanity united in such a unique way.

"I thought, 'Wow, music really has the power to bridge all these boundaries. It can be a positive force and change the world for the better.' "

Except for the drugs. Winter, like his brother, had to clean up after descending into substance abuse in the '60s and '70s.

"Everybody I knew was pretty much into drugs," said Winter, who moved from New York to California in 1990 to "change and start over again. Now, just about everybody I know has gone through that and come out the other side. Or they're dead."

Winter's Woodstock experience led to Poor White Trash - "a good band name, especially with me in it," said Edgar, who is albino like Johnny - and the "quintessential all-American" Edgar Winter Group in 1972.

In its first four years, that band included singer-songwriter Dan Hartman (1950-94), who co-wrote "Free Ride"; guitarist Ronnie Montrose, a San Francisco native, now 62; and guitarist-producer Rick Derringer, 63, best-known for the McCoys "Hang on Sloopy" (No. 1, 1965).

Always tuned into his formative favorites - his parents played instruments and he began on piano and organ - Winter blazed an unfamiliar trail.

In 1973, he spotted some odd gizmos at a New York music store. Synthesizer keyboards.

"Hey, the guitarist got to have all the fun," Winter said of those adaptable Moog and ARP devices. "I wanted to get out front and boogie. It was such a simple idea. No one had thought of it. I'll never forget the first night I played one. It was one of those real rock 'n' roll moments. The crowd just went crazy."

Winter, while "variously acclaimed and accused of ushering in the era of synthesizers," wasn't as wild about some of the feedback.

"I did get a lot of negativity," said Winter, who now plays 76-key KORG and Roland models. "The synthesizer was thought to have dehumanized music to an extent. My whole approach, though, was to use it to create never-before-heard sounds. Using it experimentally really was my whole interest.

"It's one of the most human instruments ever invented because of its flexibility. The only boundary is what the human imagination can think of. It's like computers: 'Garbage in, garbage out.' "

Not surprisingly, Winter is totally tuned in to the Internet, which has provided expressive vistas beyond "chorus, verse, bridge/chorus, verse, bridge and everything has to rhyme."

Now, after 19 albums, he's writing "fantasy science-fiction" short stories with a "classical" soundtrack. Also, a "musical-comedy" stage show based on "Frankenstein."

He still performs occasionally with Derringer and Johnny, 66, who lives in Connecticut. He'll be in Johnny's band "for the first time in 40 years" during an eight-day Blues Cruise in October.

"He's my all-time musical hero," Edgar said. "If it hadn't been for him, I might have been a jazz guy or a classical person. I might have gone in an entirely different direction."

After living for 20 years in New York, he did that in 1990. Dominique, his wife of 31 years, read Carlos Castaneda's "The Power of Silence" and declared, "We have to move West."

His shows encompass Winter's career soundtrack - from vintage blues ("Tobacco Road") to the synth-propelled "Frankenstein" ("a heavy precursor of heavy metal and jazz infusion, too"), 2008's "Rebel Road" CD and lots of jamming.

"My first priority in the spirit of jamming and improvising is we wanna have some fun," Winter said. "That's why I still love to play every bit as much as I did starting out."

Contact reporter Tony Sauro at (209) 5