- Johnny Winter and Band, Centennial Theatre, Thursday, Sept. 16, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $48.50 available at the box office 604-984-4484.

- Raisin' Cain -- The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter by Mary Lou Sullivan. Published by Backbeat Books (366 pages).

Raisin' Cain, a new book about Johnny Winter pulls no punches in examining the life and times of the American blues legend.

Author Mary Lou Sullivan spent seven years researching and writing the biography which includes interviews with most of the important players in Winter's life as well as many rare photographs.

Nothing was left out of the story. In fact Sullivan says it is because Winter was involved with the project that the book is as raw and honest as it is. Just like the man himself. "That was one of the reasons I wanted to do Johnny's biography because when I met him he was just so honest. It was that honesty that kind of appealed to me in the beginning. There is some stuff he said that I would have never said in a book but he just wanted to get it all out. He's painfully honest."

Sullivan first met Winter back in 1984 while working as a music journalist at the Hartford Advocate. She talked to him over the phone for a preview piece and then met the musician at the concert for a follow-up story. "I interviewed him in the back of his tour bus," she says. "He was just great. He told me about screaming into a pillow to perfect his scream and he actually did that for me. He also showed me a slide from a plumbing store in Colorado that he had made out of a pipe. He kept that in a little velvet sack. He was just really delightful."

A year later Sullivan talked to Winter again for the Advocate and approached his manager about writing a full biography. It would be many years before her offer was considered but Sullivan kept in touch and eventually got Winter's management to agree to the project.

Sullivan went to Winter's house in Connecticut every Saturday night for a year in 2003 to interview him. "When we first started talking he had forgotten a lot over the years," she says. "One of the first times I went over there I had a bunch of questions and he was really nervous. A lot of his anwers were 'I don't remember.' That sort of freaked me out but once he got going he wanted to tell it all."

Winter would smoke cigarettes and drink vodka during the sessions. "We couldn't start the interview before 9 p.m.," she says. "He had this rule about it. His wife Susan would have this little coffee table set up with an ice water for me and in the summer she would have flowers from her garden."

The 66-year-old musician held nothing back in his talks with Sullivan and treated his life like an open book. He discussed growing up with albinism in the redneck south in the 1950s, the health-destroying heroin addiction that laid him low for years as well as many other trials and tribulations that affected his personal and professional life over the years.

Winter's mother Edwina, brother Edgar and wife Susan all provided information about the bluesman's personal life and many musicians that he played with during his career also contributed stories. Some people were harder to find than others but Sullivan tracked down almost everybody she wanted to talk to. "Tommy Shannon and Uncle John Turner, Johnny's first rhythm section, were great. It took them awhile -- I went down to Austin to interview them. I had to tell them my story before they were going to open up. After they got over the fact that I was a Yankee they decided to talk."

Being a fan, Sullivan assumed she knew a thing or two about Winter's background but something which surprised her no end was the fact that the musician's family was decidely well-off. "I figured shotgun shack but he talked about going to camp and having diction lessons and dancing lessons. When I interviewed his mother she told me both his grandfather and his great-grandfather were lawyers. His grandparents had servants and they would listen to the black stations on the radio. That's how he found out about the blues. He heard that music and didn't want to listen to any of the stuff his parents played."

Mad about music, Winter began performing on stage at a very young age. At 15 he recorded his first 45, "School Day Blues," with his high school band Johnny and the Jammers featuring Edgar, 13, on sax. Blues music was his first love but early on he occasionally veered off into rock'n'roll territory to keep managers happy. And that ability to rock out gave his music a unique vibe.

Winter toured throughout the Deep South, releasing several singles, and at one point moved to Chicago to get closer to that city's blues scene. Back in Texas he formed a trio with Shannon and Turner and recorded a brilliant album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, live off the floor in an empty Austin club, the Vulcan Gas Company. A Rolling Stone magazine article on the Texas music scene described Winter as "the hottest item outside of Janis Joplin" drawing the attention of New York City entrepreneur Steve Paul. A week after signing a management deal with Paul he was playing the Fillmore East with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield.

Winter, who had been working for many years on the local scene, literally became an overnight sensation with the major labels fighting over his music. His brilliant early records (The Progressive Blues Experiment from 1968 and his self-titled 1969 Columbia Records debut) made him an international star. They document his band at their best and are essential links between primeval blues and contemporary rock. Playing something old in a new way Winter's early recordings are timeless and stand up as well today as when they were recorded.

Despite many hardships, both personally and professionally, Sullivan says Winter is philosophical about it all. "Johnny's not a bitter guy. As long as he's got a taco to eat and he's got his music to play he's happy. He's had a phenomenal life."

Go to www.nsnews.com/entertainment for more on Winter and Raisin' Cain.