Johnny Winter is a man of few words. After about a half century playing the blues, he lets his music do most of the talking. In that sense, he is currently speaking as loudly as ever. At the age of 63, Winter’s touring schedule has never really slowed down, and he will head to the studio this spring to record a new album. Now free of the drugs that addled his career and hampered his playing for years, Winter feels like a new man, and he believes his guitar work shows it.

A notoriously late sleeper, Winter conducts all his interviews at night—9 p.m. eastern time. He gave The Wire a buzz late last week, in advance of his upcoming gig at The Stone Church in Newmarket. The show on Friday, Jan. 18, will not be Winter’s first appearance at The Church. Although he has shared stages with Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Janis Joplin and countless other legends, and has played a number of massive concerts (including a certain 1969 festival held in a little town called Woodstock), Winter enjoys the intimacy of smaller venues.

“I do like the small places better, actually. I mean, it’s exciting to play for a whole lot of people, but it’s more fun to play for a small place,” he said.

With his toothpick arms laced with tattoos and his light white-blond hair hanging over his skinny frame, Winter has a strikingly frail appearance, and an ailing hip usually forces him to perform sitting down. But the guitarist feels rejuvenated, and touring the country and playing the blues is as fun now as it ever was.

“I love it,” he said in his soft, southern drawl. “I’m 63 now, and it’s not hard for me at all. I love it. I don’t like flying, but I love to play.” 

Winter’s backup guitarist and unofficial manager, Paul Nelson, believes the bluesman’s journey over the last several years represents one of the greatest comeback stories in the history of rock ’n’ roll. While locked in the grip of drug addiction, not only did Winter’s playing suffer, but he was allegedly swindled out of millions of dollars by his former manager, Teddy Slatus—while Johnny was too high to catch on.

But, all the bad times have only lent more drama to Winter’s recent resurgence as a living legend of blues and rock guitar.

“The lower you go, the higher you come back,” Nelson said.

Winter is reluctant to call his story a comeback, but he admits that his playing—and his health—have gotten better since he kicked his unhealthiest habits.

“I never went anyplace,” he said. “I’m a lot better than I was. I guess in some ways it’s kind of a comeback.”

Born in Beaumont, Texas, Winter’s interest in the blues developed early in life. Growing up in a town rife with racial tensions, it was almost unheard of for white kids to listen to the blues. But Johnny (who, as an albino, is whiter than most), never hesitated to stroll into black neighborhoods and immerse himself in the thrilling music he heard. Reflecting on his informal blues education, Winter said it was tough trying to find acceptance—not among the blacks, but among his white friends at home.

“Yeah, it was, because people didn’t even know about the blues,” he said.

Exposing more people to blues music became a lifelong mission that Winter continues to this day. He quickly rubbed off on his younger brother Edgar, who has also upheld the blues tradition as a singer, saxophonist and keyboardist. In 1962, when Johnny was still a teenager, he and Edgar waltzed into a Beaumont club called The Raven, where B.B. King was performing. King allowed the young guitarist to join him onstage, promoting the first of numerous collaborations between Winter and other blues greats.

The most memorable collaboration for Winter was his work with blues icon Muddy Waters. Winter produced and played guitar on four of Waters’ albums in the late 1970s and early ’80s, beginning with 1977’s Grammy-winning “Hard Again.” He helped one of his personal influences make a late-career comeback that earned Waters a much more expansive audience. Winter recalls his work with Waters as the most thrilling musical collaboration of his life.

“Muddy definitely was. I just love Muddy. He was a fine man and a great player,” he said.

Of course, Winter has also excelled as a solo artist. After signing a big contract with Columbia Records in 1969, Winter quickly released his first, self-titled album, which included covers of blues greats like King, Robert Johnson, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Sonny Boy Williamson. He also mixed in a couple of originals that received generous radio play, establishing Winter as one of the hot blues-based guitarists to emerge in the late ’60s. Several other successful albums followed throughout the ’70s, and Winter became known as one of the diehard torchbearers of blues music as his career progressed through the decades.

That career, however, has not been without its rocky spots. As his stardom swelled, Winter developed a hazardous taste for alcohol and heroin, and his guitar chops slid along a gradual decline. As he attempted to wean himself off heroin in the 1990s, he replaced the habit with anti-depressant pills, methadone and vodka, and things only got worse. Winter now realizes that there is no question his playing suffered.

“Oh, it did. Yes it did,” he said. “That’s one of the main reasons I stopped. I wasn’t playing as well as I should. I didn’t feel as good as I should. It was just a bad thing all the way around.”

Winter’s substance abuse also enabled former manager Teddy Slatus to take advantage of him. Today, he credits Paul Nelson with alerting him to his ex-manager’s cheating ways. Slatus died in 2005, but a legal battle regarding his estate dragged on into 2007. When the matter was finally settled, Winter came away with much less than the millions he felt he was owed.

“That’s all straightened out. Not as good as I hoped for, but I’m just glad it’s over,” he said. “I would have liked to have gotten a lot more, but we did the best we could.”

Winter said he still feels anger and resentment about what Slatus did, but he is attempting to put it behind him.

“Yeah, I do, but I’m just glad it’s over now. I don’t dwell on it,” he said.

Having now been drug free for several years, Winter said he can feel himself getting healthier and regaining his guitar skills. Although he was often inebriated, he clearly remembers the years of sub-par performance.

“I wasn’t very good there for a while. I’m really great now, though,” he said with a chuckle. “Everything is behind me, all the bad stuff.”

In 2004, Winter released the Grammy-nominated album “I’m a Bluesman.” He is in the process of releasing more archived live material, and he plans to return to the studio within the next few months to work on a new studio disc. Despite his vast accomplishments, there are still a few pieces of unfinished business in his career.

“I’d like to win a Grammy,” he said. What about getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? “I’d like that, too.”

Guitarists dedicated to a strict blues style seem increasingly rare in the new century, but Winter said he continues to “learn stuff” every time he picks up the guitar. He pointed to a number of other living guitarists who are carrying the torch. “Robert Cray’s real good. Derek Trucks is great. Buddy Guy’s still out there—he’s good.”

Most of the enduring stereotypes about the blues—that it is strictly a black music and is all about misery—are blatantly false. Winter points out that many blues tunes are about happiness and celebration. Does the blues still resonate with him like it did when he was a boy in Beaumont?

“Yes, it certainly does,” he said. “I love it just as much as I ever did. It’s just an emotional music.”