Raisin' Cain - The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter

Reviews, Interviews, and Kudos

About.com Blues: “Sullivan has delivered the ultimate biography of the enigmatic bluesman.... hard-hitting but easy-to-read prose.... Sullivan captures it all with humor, insight, and deference to her subject. Sullivan's writing style is to simply get out of the way and let those she's interviewing tell the story, and she has strung together the story of Winter's life and career masterfully. Raisin' Cain is highly recommended for any Johnny Winter fan, of course, or anybody interested in blues music.” The full review

LiveBluesWorld.com: Author Mary Lou Sullivan sat with Winter for hours of anything-goes interviews, and Winter obliged with a treasure trove of intriguing insights: memories of his earliest days in Texas; his fabled appearance at Woodstock; his affair with Janis Joplin; his days as an arena headliner; his sad descent into addiction; his renewed commitment to his blues roots; his role in the triumphant resurrection of Muddy Waters' career... and so much more. What emerges is the story of a true rock n' roll survivor, a legendary guitarist who has spent four decades on a seemingly endless rollercoaster ride -- and lived to tell the tale. Full article

Vintage Guitar: In this bio on bluesman Johnny Winter, author Mary Lou Sullivan gets close enough for Winter to feel comfortable recounting his sometimes-difficult past, but not so sympathetic that the difficult areas are glossed over. The story is well documented . . . Sullivan fills in details using information gathered from interviews with bandmates, producers, promoters and families."

Classic Rock (June 2010): "If anyone has earned the title ‘survivor,’ it’s Johnny Winter.... It’s a story that’s captured brilliantly in Raisin’ Cain, an amazing new biography of the guitarist written by American music writer and radio producer Mary Lou Sullivan, that’s been 25 years in the making.... Sullivan did a year’s worth of research before she started interviewing the guitarist, bringing 400 questions minmum (culled from research and interviews with his mother, brother, the musicians he played with) to each of their Saturday night interviews.

Aided by an unusually frank interviewee, Sullivan has written a classic rock biography that takes you from the barrooms of redneck Texas in the 50s and 60s to the stage of Woodstock and the back rooms of hip hangouts like New York’s The Scene club, as Winter drinks, drugs, and screws his way through the decades, alternately praised as a god and reviled as a freak, and encountering tragedy and scum-baggery at every turn.”(Editor Scott Rowley)

Classic Rock (July 2010): "Real rock and roll tales from a bruised, bloodied blues legend.... Johnny Winter was one of the most viscerally exciting performers the blues rock movement ever produced. Sullivan is a thorough and compassionate biographer, and she provides a smooth drive through the bumpy life of a fast-fingered, raw-throated streak of Texas white lightning perennially torn between deep blues and commercial hard rock.

It’s a saga of a dozen years of struggle—a veteran even before anyone outside of Texas had ever heard of him, Winter was getting ripped off by managers and record companies before The Beatles and Stones even had managers or record companies—followed by explosive success followed by a drugged-out crash-and-burn, musical redemption via his inspired revitalization of Muddy Waters’s career, perennial health problems (by no means all drug-related), battles with bad instincts and worse management, and a final, touching tribute to the healing power of the blues. Best line (from this or any other recent rock book): ‘I had forgotten about Salvador Dali wanting me to stick a microphone up my ass...that was ridiculous.’” (Noted music writer Charles Shaar Murray)

GuitarEdge: "In the foreword to Raisin’ Cain, blues guitar legend Johnny Winter says ‘I love this book. It has everything.... It’s excellent and very realistic--it’s exactly what happened.’ You really can’t ask for more than that when an icon agrees to let it all hang out, to make sure his story is told, and told honestly, and that’s exactly what you get in this first-ever biography of the legendary bluesman.... is truly a must-read for all blues fans.”  

Guitar & Bass Magazine (UK):  “Hours of face-to-face interviews with the albino guitar god have led to this, the candid, unapologetic story of Johnny Winter. Opening with his youth growing up in a religious household, Raisin’ Cain paints a vivid portrait of an outsider in a redneck town. From those humble beginnings, Winter quickly developed into more than just a misfit. He’s jammed with nigh-on all the guitar greats, he’s had a fling with Janis Joplin, he’s wowed Woodstock high on LSD, and somehow he’s lived to share his memories. A thoroughly absorbing tale of rock’n’roll excess, well told.”

Booklist: “Sullivan gives Johnny Winter, the Texas blues guitar link between Lightnin’ Hopkins and Stevie Ray Vaughan, an ebullient biography, tracing his passage from blues purist to rock star and back. Hailed early for his fast and tasty guitar, Winter moved into the 1960s hard-rock mainstream by teaming with the remnants of the McCoys (remember “Hang on Sloopy”?) and recording a live “Johnny B. Goode” that rivals Peter Tosh’s reggae take as a great recasting of the Chuck Berry classic.

After years of nearly Keith Richards-level drug-laced touring success, Winter returned to his blues roots in several acclaimed albums and engineered Muddy Waters’ mid-70s resurgence by producing and playing on several of the seminal Chicago bluesman’s later albums. Sullivan may go over the top in enthusiasm, but many of the tidbits she relays, such as the story of Winter, Muddy, and James Cotton jockeying for position on the Mike Douglas show, not to mention the skinny on the semi-forgotten Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin and Big Walter Horton, compensate pricelessly. What more could blues fans ask?”

Big City Rhythm & Blues: "Mary Lou Sullivan has prevailed through many years of work and obstacles . . .Raisin' Cain has some amazing photos from Mr. Winter's personal collection and stories that don't sugercoat the truth or avoid it. This book is a good read and hard to put down."   

Hippo Press: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter is a rarity — an authorized biography that pulls no punches, leaves no stone unturned or tale untold. Mary Lou Sullivan’s well-researched book chronicles the guitarist’s rise from the Texas roadhouse circuit to stadium headlining tours, and his subsequent decision to forego the big stage of rock stardom to focus on the blues music that inspired him to play in the first place.

Blues Blast Magazine: “Johnny himself gave his blessing, and in his foreward, credits Sullivan for painting an accurate picture. Movie rights should be bought to this book. Raisin' Cain covers the entire spectrum of Johnny's career. It's one wild ride and when the train stops, we are sad its over.”

Connecticut Magazine: “Johnny Winter has lived in Connecticut since 1998, and now his life story is being told by another state resident with the publication this month by Backbeat Books of Mary Lou Sullivan’s Raisin’ Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter.... Sullivan spent seven years interviewing everyone in Winter’s orbit, from his mother and brother Edgar to many of those who have played with him along the way. And when Winter saw the final product? ‘Johnny loved it and was so filled with emotion that his story was being told honestly that he cried,’ says Sullivan.”

Colorado Springs Gazette: “In Raisin’ Cain, Sullivan writes of Winter’s many troubles, which included heroin addiction, abuse of prescription medications, bad business deals, serial womanizing and severe depression. Since 2007, Winter has been slowly turning his life around.... And flashes of the old Johnny are starting to return.” Full article

 
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