I caught Edgar Winter at his high tech home studio in LA, where he’s lived for around ten years now. He was busily loading his keyboards and preparing to play in Japan and at Switzerland’s Montreaux Jazz Festival, in support of his newest release "Winter Blues." "It has most of the people I grew up with and love playing with. My brother Johnny, Rick Derringer, Leon Russell, Dr. John, the legendary White Trash horns. Willie Nelson was going to be on the song ‘Good Old Shoe’ but our touring schedules didn’t match up so Leon did it instead."

"I didn’t want to just record a typical collection of blues songs. People tend to think of blues as something old, that’s already happened. What I wanted to do was show the diversity and variety of blues styles, and to demonstrate how it really has a pervasive impact on virtually every form of contemporary music that exist today. The record starts with ‘Good Old Shoe’ because it’s the most primitive Delta gut-bucket back in the alley style blues, similar to what my brother Johnny plays. ‘New Orleans’ I wrote with Dr. John in mind [who plays on the track], more or less a tribute to Dixieland." The record also has examples of Texas guitar boogie shuffle, progressive jazz, snaky Stones style blues rock and even gospel. "I think gospel is one of the most overlooked influences in music. The whole screaming style of rock vocals, like call and response, is really derived from the charismatic black preacher singers."

Winter has been making all kinds of music since playing with his brother Johnny in the late sixties and then forming the prototypal hard rock band Edgar Winter’s White Trash in 1971 and The Edgar Winter Group (with Ronnie Montrose) in ‘72. Following was a string of FM radio staples like "Keep Playin’ That Rock ‘N’ Roll," "Free Ride," "I Can’t Turn You Loose" (an Otis Redding cover) and of course 1973’s #1 hit, produced by frequent Winter collaborator Rick Derringer, "Frankenstein" (originally the B-side of "Hangin’ Around" until DJs insisted on playing the flipside instead). The Edgar Winter Album (1979) and "Raisin’ Cain" (1980) retained all the fire and ingenuity of classics like "They Only Come Out At Night" (1973) and "Shock Treatment" (1974), although public attention hasn’t always matched the levels of critical acclaim. In the early eighties, he shifted his focus to session work with Meat Loaf, Bette Midler, Tina Turner and others. He collaborated with Rhino for the immensely satisfying "Edgar Winter Collection" in 1993 and subsequent overlooked solo gems like "The Real Deal" and "Not A Kid Anymore" have kept him touring practically year ‘round.

Winter reunited with Derringer in the early nineties for a well received tour. "It had been like ten years. That occurred more or less accidentally. We happened to be touring Japan at the same time and we thought, hey, why don’t we do it together? A ‘Live In Japan’ record and video came out in the States that was actually unauthorized. We’d made a deal in Japan and then a separate deal in the U.S. and the record company [Cypress/Goldcastle] put it out here and we ended up having to pull the record." Another unauthorized trespass occurred when DC comics, in a series called Jonah Hex, drew Winter and his brother Johnny (or at least two albino characters who suspiciously seemed like the Winters) into a comic strip sequence that the Winters found somewhat defamatory, causing a heavily publicized lawsuit. It wasn’t like Edgar Winter needed media press to boost his career. Though his recording output had slowed, his songs were popping up in more and more Hollywood films.

"The first one was ‘My Cousin Vinny.’ I wrote the opening song ‘Way Down South’ [recorded for the soundtrack by The Fabulous Thunderbirds] just for that. And then ‘Air America.’ "Wayne’s World II’ [a re-recording of the instrumental "Frankenstein"], the Tina Turner movie ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It.’ The newest one, ‘Wag The Dog,’ they needed a song immediately. Mark Knopfler [Dire Straits] was doing the score and they put out the word to literally hundreds of people to come up with a song called ‘Good Old Shoe.’ They wanted an old twenties style Robert Johnson blues song. I was going on the road the next day so I just put down some slide guitar and some vocals and sent it over, thinking nothing of it, and they said ‘This is it! We love it! We’re not even gonna listen to anything else!’ So I got to watch Willie Nelson and Pops Staple do the song and hang out with Robert Deniro and Dustin Hoffman." Winter’s own version of "Good Old Shoe" is the opening track on "Winter Blues."

Winter’s profile has been unusually high lately, as he lands frequent TV gigs like a recent Letterman appearance and, yes, even commercials. "Free Ride" is used for a recent Buick spot, but it’s his appearance with actor George Hamilton in a Miller Lite promo which landed the twosome in TV Guide’s Cheers And Jeers section (they got a Cheer). "I’m amazed at the attention that has drawn. Everywhere I go, people say ‘Aren’t you the guy from the beer commercial?’ It’s interesting to be recognized in that way."

So how did the unlikely pairing of the oh-so-white Albino and the prodigiously tanned Movie Star occur? "My wife Monique and I went to The Hamilton Club, an exclusive club near Beverly Hills. We met George one night and I sang a few songs at the piano. We sat around and swapped stories and he regaled us with inside Hollywood stories that were quite amazing and we talked until four in the morning. My wife commented on the chemistry between us, like the Odd Couple. Several weeks later, we got this call to do the beer commercial. We opened up the script and lo and behold there it was, ‘Edgar Winter - Rocker, George Hamilton - Tanner.’ The script was totally different from what the it ended up being. We did it a hundred different ways. We knew one another just well enough that it was comfortable and fun and I think that shows in the commercial."

The new tour is likely to enjoy an expanded audience due to his high visibility on the tube. He says the setlists will include several new songs, plus perhaps other recent vintage cuts like "Real Deal." "Plus we’ll go all the way back to ‘Tobacco Road,’ ‘Free Ride,’ things from White Trash and of course the indestructible monster ‘Frankenstein.’ I’ve had younger people come up to me that think I wrote that one for ‘Wayne’s World!’"