Through the rain of summer in Somerset came a sound the likes of which I had never heard before, from a long-haired albino with a limp and squint, and his guitar: "Two, three, fah," he had mumbled, before unleashing a vortex of electric blues. This was Johnny Winter's first gig in the UK, the 1970 Bath festival, and I was mindful to catch his second, at the Albert Hall, supporting Santana.
These were the days when the blues were an infinite adventure I had seen the masters play: Son House, Bukka White. The discourse was why these Delta legends could get gigs in England, worshipped by John Mayall and Eric Clapton, while back home they barely played beyond the shotgun shacks of Mississippi. There were, however, three disciple exceptions to this British reinvention of the blues: Elvin Bishop, Michael Bloomfield and Johnny Winter.
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