Blues legend Johnny Winter will release a new studio album, Step Back, September 2 via Megaforce Records. The album, the followup to 2011’s Roots, will find Winter exploring a more aggressive vintage-blues style. The album also will feature a host of special guests, including Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, Dr. John, Leslie West, Brian Setzer and Joe Bonnamassa.
Produced by Winter's guitarist, Paul Nelson, Step Back opens with “Unchain My Heart,” which features Winter and his band joined by the Blues Brothers horns. ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons is featured on “Where Can You Be.” “I never had the opportunity to jam with him [in the Sixties and Seventies],” Gibbons says. “I was content to remain in awe and admiration.”
“If it weren't for Johnny Winter, I would have never picked up the guitar,” adds Aerosmith's Joe Perry, who joins Winter on Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Mojo Hand.”
Other highlights include Winter's guitar and vocal trade-offs with Harper on Willie Dixon’s “Can’t Hold Out (Talk to Me Baby),” Winter and Clapton’s rendition of Bobby Bland’s “Don’t Want No Woman” and Winter and Dr. John honoring Fats Domino with “Blue Monday.”
“When you hear that sound come out of that Firebird guitar, you know it can be the one and only Johnny Winter,” says Setzer, who is featured on Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s “Okie Dokie Stomp.”