Weekly Album: Week of 10/15 - 10/21 - The Progressive Blues Experiment

This week I listened to The Progressive Blues Experiment by Johnny Winter. I first came about this album by watching a video Johnny Winter perform the song, "Mean Town Blues", which is on this album, at Woodstock due to his use of a Fender Electric XII guitar which he only strung with 6 strings (Normally there are 12 for those that don't know guitar stuff). I was quite enamored by the song as well as Johnny Winter's guitar playing, so I put it in the calendar for my Album Everyday project that I was doing at the time. I became quite burnt out of that project quite fast and didn't make it to the date I was supposed to listen to The Progressive Blues Experiment, and one day recently the memory of this album came back to me, and I realized then that I had to listen to it for the weekly album. This album is quite the departure for my genre wise, as I cannot say I listen to very much Blues. The Blues has certainly found its way into a lot of music I listen to, but I never really listen to the Blues itself. I came to a conclusion some years ago that most Blues music sounds the same, especially the more and more modern you get. I still agree with that sentiment for the most part, so I was in quite for the surprise when this album sounded quite fresh to me. Johnny Winter is a fantastic guitarist, and the album is somewhat of a vehicle for him to showcase that. His playing is what makes it feel so fresh; It is steeped in the tropes of Blues guitar but Winter puts his own twist on it that makes it not feel cliched like so many others. The aforementioned, "Mean Town Blues" has a killer riff and a fantastic solo that gives the song a bouncy energy. He plays a killer slide guitar on, "Rollin' And Tumblin'", "Bad Luck And Trouble", and, "Broke Down Engine" which is quite fun to listen to, especially in the first as he opens the album with his raucous slide playing. The album is at its best when it either has high energy or makes you sit and appreciate the guitar wizardry going on, which is to say the album is always at its best. 8/10