Ease My Pain

Recorded in a small Austin studio before his massive Columbia Records breakthrough, this track captures the ferocity of Winter's early Texas power trio. Winter took the traditional Texas shuffle and injected it with maximum volume and hyper-speed execution. The blues foundation is obvious (he's pulling directly from Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins) but he plays with a blistering, distorted aggression that bridged the gap between traditional blues and late-60s hard rock. His intricate thumb-picking technique, hidden beneath the distortion, reveals his deep acoustic roots.