Julian "Winnie" Winston is seen in the photograph above playing banjo (extreme left) with the New York Ramblers (which, incidentally is also the name of the very first organized openly gay soccer club and with which there are no connections) Also shown are such worthies as Gene Lowinger (fiddle), David Grisman (mandolin), Jim Field (guitar) and Fred Weisz (bass) at the Newport Folk Festival, 1964. (Photo courtesy of Gene Lowinger) "Winnie" also served a short term with Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys.
He first came to my attention as co-author (with Bill Keith) of a book on how to play the Pedal Steel Guitar, subsequently got married and moved to New Zealand (not necessarily in that order). I was surprised when Paul Graham invited me to a jam at his apartment telling me that Winnie was in Jerusalem for a Homeothapy Conference (nothing to do with the football team) and would also be in attendance.
Well I took along my Steel Guitar book (which was duly autographed) together with a MIDI transcription of one of the more advanced tunes in that book (dubiously entitled "Nobody knows about my cares and nobody cares about my nose .... rag") which was pronounced "not too bad - particularly the deliberate mistakes which give it a humanized feel". Oh well back to the drawing board!
As a result of this page which Winnie managed to find on the internet, we now have a link to his own site which, hopefully, will provide us with the rest of "everything we ever wanted to know" about him. Click on the signature below:
