Sunset Blvd. Records has announced a new vinyl release of the late Johnny Winter’s work, titled Texas ‘63-‘68, collecting 14 tracks showcasing the Blues guitarist during his early days. It arrives on April 11th, 2025.

The album is pressed on white vinyl and limited to 1000 units. An expanded two-CD version of the compilation is also available on Sunset Blvd. Records.

As he said once:

If you make a great record, it lives after you die. That’s always meant a lot to me. Even back there when I was 15, I had that feeling–when it was on tape, you’re playing for eternity. You’re not making just one record. I really felt like, you’re playing for everybody–God and everybody. It’s gonna last forever.

 Some of the songs that he created during the time of this album include: “Eternally,” “You’ll Be The Death Of Me,” “The Guy You Left Behind,” and “Gone For Bad”, playing with bands, and sometimes incorporating horns that usually incorporated his younger brother Edgar on piano and saxophone. 

He also played Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Gangster Of Love” as well as “Voodoo Twist” and the Blues of “Ease My Pain,” during this period. As the decade progressed, Winter emphasized his fretwork more, as the album shows on Chuck Berry’s “Reeling & Rocking” that was issued in 1964 under the alias of Neal and the Newcomers. During the mid-‘60s, Johnny Winter edged into various contrasting styles of Rock, occasionally bordering on psychedelia.

 Ultimately, Winter found his commercial groove in 1969 by signing with the major Columbia label and fully embracing his Blues-Rock approach, including both guitar and vocals, and he achieved the wider acclaim he’d been seeking, while those in Texas had long realized his potential.