Johnny Winter had a stack of finished songs and a problem no amount of guitar skill could solve. The Texas blues guitarist had recorded more music than a single vinyl record could hold, and the obvious fixes all felt wrong. On October 27, 1969, he answered the problem with one of the strangest packaging decisions in rock: a double album with nothing on the fourth side.
Recording Second Winter in Nashville
The album was Second Winter, his third studio record, released on Columbia Records. Winter produced the sessions himself, recording in Nashville, Tennessee, during July and August of 1969. The original plan was simple enough: pick the best songs from the sessions and release one album. That plan did not survive contact with the material.
Winter and his team decided that all the recorded tracks deserved to be heard. Eleven songs made the cut. But eleven tracks would not fit on a single disc without lowering the volume, and Winter refused to sacrifice the sound. So Second Winter became a double album with three sides of music: three songs on side one, four on side two, and four on side three. The fourth side was left completely blank.
So Second Winter became a double album with three sides of music: three songs on side one, four on side two, and four on side three.
The cost of a blank side
The format looked like a mistake to anyone who had never heard the music. A double album with a blank side meant more vinyl, more packaging, and a higher price, all for eleven tracks that ran about 47 minutes in total. But Winter had already shown he would not compromise his sound for convenience. When the album later appeared on CD, all the tracks fit on a single disc, which made the original vinyl format look even stranger in hindsight.
The music itself drew on the blues and rock that Winter loved. He wrote five of the songs himself, including "I Love Everybody" and "I Hate Everybody," two titles that suggested a man with a complicated relationship to his audience. He also covered Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" and Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," pulling from both rock and roll's past and its present.
Edgar Winter and the session players
Winter did not work alone. His brother Edgar Winter played piano, organ, harpsichord, alto saxophone, and sang on the record. The rhythm section included bassist Tommy Shannon and percussionist "Uncle" John Turner. The cover photograph came from Richard Avedon, one of the most famous portrait photographers of the era, which gave the album a visual weight to match its unusual size.
Rolling Stone published a favorable review by Lester Bangs in December 1969. In the United States, Second Winter did not reach the top 40 of the Billboard chart, falling short of Winter's previous album. But the album did chart in the United Kingdom, where it reached number 59.
The blank fourth side became part of the album's legend. It was not a gimmick added after the fact; it was a direct result of Winter's refusal to let technical limits dictate how his music sounded. The format was chosen because all 11 tracks did not fit on one disc without lowering the volume. Second Winter remains a document of an artist choosing sound over convention. In 2004, the album was reissued as a Legacy Edition with two previously unreleased songs, "Tell the Truth" and "Early in the Morning." The bonus disc, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was recorded on April 17, 1970, and includes an early version of "Frankenstein," a piece Edgar Winter later released with his own group.