Teil 2:
The manager and the damage done Nelson likens Winter's relationship with Slatus to the one Elvis Presley had with Col. Tom Parker: the artist was a cash register, and the drawer was always open. It's hard to deny the stacks of receipts and contracts Nelson has assembled that suggest gross financial exploitation on behalf of Slatus' management company. Specific examples include the unauthorized release of at least two DVDs, and thousands of dollars in receipts that Slatus submitted to Susan Winter, Johnny's wife, for airfare that had already been purchased by a European tour promoter. According to Nelson, you didn't need Sherlock Holmes to figure out what had happened.
"Teddy left a paper trail that was almost childlike," Nelson says. "It was obvious. There was no digging required. It was all right there. And no one could believe that one person could have had such a hold on all of this. We all knew something was up, and it always pointed to the manager."
Nelson officially took control of Winter's affairs upon Slatus' termination in 2005, and he was determined to help Winter re-establish his fading career. But first, Nelson had to worry about the guitarist's health. Winter, who has always been exceedingly thin, had at one point in 2003 withered away to nearly 90 pounds. He endured an eight-month layoff in 2005 after undergoing surgery on his left wrist for carpal tunnel, and for a time it appeared that the man they call "Johnny Guitar" would never play again. On top of it all, he was battling hip problems, which to this day require him to perform seated. (In 2000, Winter fell at home and broke his hip, resulting in the cancellation of a fall tour.)
Between of the substance abuse and the myriad physical problems -- as well as a messy lawsuit stemming from a series of German shows that were cancelled in bizarre, abrupt fashion in the summer of 2003 -- Winter had earned a reputation among club owners and booking agents as being less than reliable. He'd simply missed too many dates, and the ones that he did manage to perform weren't exactly memorable. His skills, including the fiery guitar chops that had once dazzled none other than the great Jimi Hendrix, had eroded. Scariest of all, Winter was genuinely oblivious to the fact that he had a problem.
"We were driving together in upstate New York in the middle of 2004, just when he was starting to snap out of this funk," Nelson recalls. "And out of the blue, Johnny said to me, 'Paul, was I that bad?' I said, 'Johnny, you mean you don't remember?' And he said no, he didn't remember. I said, 'You're kidding me, right? Johnny, you were bad. Beyond bad.'" The outlook for Winter has changed -- and for the better. "He's aware of everything now," Nelson says. "He knows he's getting better. He can feel it, hear it and sense it. Now that the Teddy regime is over, people aren't afraid to speak their minds and tell him the truth about things. When Teddy was still around, it was considered a big risk to talk straight with Johnny. It would mean instant termination."
Now, it's Nelson's job to rebuild the organization and achieve what just three years seemed to be a wildly daunting task: secure Johnny Winter's financial future, as well as his musical legacy. The former should be a legitimate possibility, pending a successful resolution with Slatus' estate and Winter's continued ability to tour; the latter, with a little luck, should eventually culminate with an induction ceremony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. In Nelson's mind, when Winter achieves that honor, the legendary guitarist's career journey, which began in the southeastern Texas town of Beaumont, will finally be complete.
Don't call it a comeback Thanks to a steady, healthy diet and physical regimen -- and a few tacos and milkshakes along the way -- Winter is now up to 140 pounds and looking better than he has in years. In 2006, Winter played roughly 120 shows, and Nelson expects his touring schedule to grow increasingly ambitious through 2007 and beyond. "He lives for the road," Nelson says, "and he lives the life of the ultimate night person. It's not an albino thing; it has nothing to do with the light, although a lot of people think that. He just really enjoys his sleep. He sleeps longer than anybody I know. He'll go to bed at 2 a.m., and then he won't wake up until 4 p.m. the next afternoon. Then he gets up and he's listening to music. He is the ultimate touring musician."
Nelson also notices other, more subtle changes: Winter is increasingly talkative and generally more aware and involved these days -- the emergence from his long, confusing haze continues. And Winter tells Nelson that he's tired of performing in a chair and would like to stand again, something he hasn't done in years. His musical skills are rebounding as well. He can again summon the magic from his vintage Gibson Firebird that transformed Bob Dylan's "Highway 61" into a slide-guitar tour de force, and the throaty growl that punctuated many of his classic 1970s recordings has resurfaced.
"The guitar riffs were always there," Nelson says. "They just were slowed down a bit because of the condition he was in. And now they're in synch, and he's improvising. He's returning to his old way of playing, where the songs were a format for his soloing and improvisation. Ideas are flowing out of him, his phrasing is in place, the singing, everything." But be advised: This is not a comeback. "It's not a comeback," Winter says with a hint of defiance, "because I never went anywhere."
Nelson avoids the c-word, but he likes to refer to Winter as "bulletproof." Winter doesn't seem to like that word, either. "I've been real lucky," he says. "And now I want to play as long as I live. I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't playing."
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