Award winning guitarist Paul Nelson has toured with countless worldwide acts and performed live and on recordings alongside a list of today’s top artists such as Johnny Winter, Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, Mark Knofler, Slash, Vince Gill, Warren Haynes, Sonny Landreth, Los Lobos, Pat Travers, Jimmy Vivino and La Bamba of Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Paul Schaefer’s CBS Orchestra and many others. Paul has appeared as both guitarist and songwriter on Rock/Blues legend Johnny Winter’s Grammy-nominated Virgin/EMI release “I’m A Bluesman” as well as producer/performer on his releases “Roots” and the Grammy winning “Step Back” on Megaforce/Sony. He performed as a musical guest with Johnny Winter on the Late Night with David Letterman Show to promote the “Roots” Album and on Jimmy Kimmel on ABC TV to promote the Step Back CD and Johnny Winter’s “Down and Dirty Movie”, which he also appeared in and was the Executive Producer. I got to speak to Paul about his life and relationship with Johnny.
I am very honored to get to talk to you and very excited. I almost thought, “where can I start? I” am going to ask you a little bit about Johnny Winters and then about you and all your projects because you have so many lives and wear so many hats! My first question is, since 2014, since the passing of Johnny, how has life changed for you?
Actually, it just kept going full steam ahead. I have recorded my own record, Johnny’s movie came out – I am still working with Johnny’s family taking care of his career and his legacy…I work with a lot of artists – I have a lot of friends in the industry who invited me to play with them – Warren Haynes was one of Gov’t Mule, and a lot of guest appearances on albums…J.T. Taylor from Kool and the Gang, James Montgomery, Sonny Landreth, with Jimmy Vivino, there is a lot of stuff – everybody really invited me to their camps – it is really nice it is a good music community that does that and I really appreciate it. I am working with a lot of people and a lot of projects.
So you kept busy? I would imagine losing a lifelong friend and someone who you had influence on and had influenced you must be a hard thing to deal with. I just wanted to ask about that first because I didn’t see much in previous interviews I had read about that and what it felt like.
No one has really asked that. Of course it was rough. He was like a father to me. He was my mentor. He took me under his wing and he showed me music and his life. We toured the world together. We did Japan many, many times, we did China, and we did T.V. shows like Late Night with David Letterman (2015) (with CBS) and Jimmy Kimmel Live (on ABC televised broadcasts). I knew all his family, played with Edgar (his brother) and we went to his home in Texas when we did the movie and before that as well – we went everywhere together and we did everything together – yes it was quite a loss but like the family said he did leave us on such a high note and the comeback he had was amazing the changes in his life when we got together were something to really see and in that new movie Jonny Winter: Down and Dirty (available on Amazon.com) – it really shows the life we had together – his life as an iconic figure and the history of blues and rock, yeah it was a loss but he really enjoyed the last part of his life – he wasn’t doing all the bad stuff – he was really having a good time.
I was going to ask you when did you actually decide on making a movie – how far back was that?
I think it was 2011, I knew it was time – Johnny was healthy enough to do something about him – there was nothing about him because he was in such bad shape and at the time when everyone was getting on the retro gravy train…. Like B.B. King teaming up with U2. ( When Love Comes to Town” was the 12th song on U2’s 1988 album, Rattle and Hum, where it was recorded at the historic Sun Studio in Memphis as a duet between U2 and B.B. King.) All these artists were bringing themselves to a whole new set of fans and Johnny was in such bad shape was writing himself out of history…he wasn’t in any of the documentaries, or any of the movies – he wasn’t in great shape and so around 2011 he started getting healthier after he and I worked together to get him off all the bad stuff and I said it was time to document Johnny. I put the feelers out and let the record company Megaforce know that I was actively looking to do a documentary on Johnny and lo and behold someone was looking to do one on him and it was Greg Oliver who had just done the Lemmy video. (“Lemmy”, Greg Oliver and Wes Orshoskis’ portrait of Motorhead founder Lemmy Kilmister premiered in March 2010 at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas).
Greg Oliver is also a very interesting person in his own right– I wish you all lived around the block for me, it would be fascinating!
Oh yeah I saw that documentary…and I thought okay I understand who Lemmy, I know who he is – – I didn’t look at it from a musical standpoint how would Johnny fit in there and I saw the intimacy, the style of the footage, the closeness and I said this is the perfect guy so I contacted Greg and said would you like to do this, and he said absolutely and I said but you have to come on the road with us. So he followed us around for two or three years everywhere.
That’s amazing, did he bring a crew with him or did he come documentary style?
Documentary style – I mean in certain places we had the whole live crew for the live shows and TV. He captured everything. He was a director and his camera. He followed us everywhere, to my home to Johnny’s home – I got hold of Billy Gibbons and so there are cameos by him, Warren Haynes…Joe Perry, and even Johnny’s original guitar teacher.
I think the fact that you captured that is so amazing because I always thought that he had so much more. I do think he was sort of a mystery figure – I think that people now are only going to appreciate him more.
Yes there was a mystique about him and no one knew and this is so in depth and he is so open and it gets into his OCD, his lineage, his childhood – it is about friendship, excessiveness, elderly statesmen of the blues, there were three stories going on at once and it all came to a head at the end and when we showed it at SXSW..I was so interested to see how he would piece it together and he did a fantastic job.
Did you have the feeling when you were making this movie that Johnny was unwell or in bad health?
No, you can see in the movie him working with a therapist – but because of his emphysema, we were always concerned in case he got any kind of cold.
I think that people, after all the activities, and him coming back this was sort of a swan song, in retrospect having caught his past life and memoires, that he would be on tour in Europe (Texas blues legend Johnny Winter was in Zurich, Switzerland, when he passed away aged 70 in July 2014) and have a sudden passing away – it was all sort of meant to be.
Yes, then he and I got the Grammy for Step Back, (which won him a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Blues Album) but then he did see the final movie – he came down to SXSW – he saw the movie – and he did hear the completed album. People in the audience laughed and cried through the movie.
What did it feel like when you accepted the Grammy?
I looked out and a rush of all we had done together and the recording in the studio it hit me and I couldn’t speak I said thank you but everything I thought about saying just went out the window…and the fact that I was talking in front of 5 million people didn’t help me – I mean your heart is on your sleeve at that moment and it is like oh my God I don’t want to do a Barbara Walters moment! On the plane back people were applauding it was rather comforting to see all the passengers say hey Paul great job.
I am sure that anyone in that situation would have to be genuine.
It was some moment because I kinda promised to him I would get it for him. He said “I am at the point in my life where I went to get awards”. I was like alright – so he was really happy at the end – his home life was great – the shape he was in when I first met him was just a disaster.
In retrospect do you think that he regretted the loss of time where he had been during that time?
No in the movie they asked him what would he have done differently and he said nothing but I would not have done the heroin – it is a very good anti-drug film as well – a good message.
Yes for future blues stars I am sure.
It is part of my memories – I will always be one of Johnny Winters guitar players – there were only two others.
Now you are without him, but even without him you are a guitarist with your own career, tell me about your work.
Well, I signed with Sony and I put out the album, Bad Ass Generation (Find a copy of the new CD “Badass Generation”on Amazon)with the Paul Nelson Band – the album was named because while we were recording this album everyone was saying. “This is badass, this song is badass” and a light went off and I thought was is this, some badass generation? And that was retro song writing wise, production wise we studied before we went into the studio – Boston, Bad Company Free, Led Zeppelin, southern rock – all the classics and that was the style we wanted to do – I think we are at a time now where I think the audiences are being exposed to everything – you don’t have to pigeon yourself in one genre…I got some really great players together and at first it was going to be a blues record but all this stuff started pouring out of me and it was time – I had the backing of the record label and they really loved it – it came out in Japan recently and is now out here. It is doing really well and that is what happens when you have a really great singer.
Who is the great singer?
Morton Fredheim, (who was number two on “The Voice” in Europe) and he has an amazing voice!
Are you going to go on tour and when?
We have a lot of stuff coming on. There are other projects coming up. I am also part of the Real SideMen and the Johnny Winter All Star Band, so lots of shows!
So plenty of opportunities for folks to watch you play! Thank you for the time you spent with me today!
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Interview by Carox Rox, RockRevolt Photojournalist
