![]() “Everyone saw the improvement in him including the fans who were watching him like a hawk. Had that not been the case, who knows if they would have succeeded? But Winter trusted Nelson, and their bond was deep. When Winter wanted proof that his efforts would yield results, Nelson guided him in ways where he experienced a real sense of accomplishment, and eventually it paid off. I knew something had to be done to make him catch up for lost time,” explains Nelson. When he was asked to do interviews, he couldn’t speak. He was there with Hendrix at Woodstock and just as good, if not better. “From working with him and trying to help him, I knew he wasn’t getting what he should have, credit-wise. In only six years, Nelson has taken a rock icon that had damaged himself to the brink of death with drugs and alcohol and rebuilt both the man and his career.” Jeb Wright, creator of the Classic Rock Revisited website, wrote this about Nelson and Winter: ”Johnny Winter found a guardian angel in his manager, producer, and second guitarist, Paul Nelson. But it was more than a friendship Nelson was instrumental in getting Winter off drugs. Would you be interested in playing those parts on my record?’ I said, ‘Sure, that would be great.’ After that he said, ‘Well, do you want to play all the other parts on all the other songs?’ I said, ‘That’d be great.’ He said, ‘Since you are on the record, you should come on tour.’ And it just developed until the point where he said he was having trouble with his management and asked if I’d like to help him with his career.”Ī friendship was formed that lasted until Winter’s death in July of last year. There is some other guitar playing on there. Do you have two more?’ So I went in the studio and recorded those. “We hit it off, and I recorded the song for him. He was one of my idols in the same way Johnny idolized Muddy Waters,” he recalls. Needless to say, Nelson was floored, but prepared. Winter overheard Nelson playing and was so impressed, he asked him to write a song for his album. Nelson was recording music for the XFL, a football league founded by the World Federation of Wrestling, while Johnny Winter was in the other room working on his Grammy-nominated album, “I’m A Bluesman” for Virgin Records. And through the session work I was doing at the Carriage House, one of the studios here in Connecticut, I met Johnny.” I became the guy to call, and it kept spreading,” Nelson says. “If you want to be a well-rounded musician you have to do everything, but then you have to make a living doing it. ![]() As a guitarist for hire, his phone never stops ringing and to prove it, he has 3 million frequent flyer miles on Continental Airlines alone. Nelson is being humble, but he is on the “A” List for 30 bands, meaning he is their first choice to call when they are seeking a guitar player for a recording session, live performance, or tour. I became versatile and learned all these different styles, and it widened my call list,” Nelson says. I had teachers who taught me I had to wear different hats: a rock hat, a blues hat, a jazz hat, a funk and county hat in order to work. “I knew I wanted to be a musician, but I knew I couldn’t be a one man, one band kind of thing. ![]() He has utilized all these skills at one time or another throughout his impressive career. Nelson understood early on that to be a full time, self-employed musician he would have to immerse himself in all aspects of the industry so once in college, he studied music production and engineering, lighting, sight reading, management, business, and song writing in addition to performance and craft. Then I got into jazz-fusion like Jeff Beck and that’s when I started thinking about going to Berklee College of Music in Boston so I could learn all types of music,” says Nelson. Nelson picked up his first guitar at age nine and started listening to the blues sounds of Johnny Winter, ZZ Top, and Jimi Hendrix before getting into rock. He’s satisfied because he has met his idol, bluesman Johnny Winter. And he has performed with, or recorded with, musical giants such as Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, Joe Perry, Mark Knofler, Brian Setzer, Los Lobos, Elvin Bishop, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, John Popper, Edgar Winter, and Dickey Betts, just to name a few. He’s played in orchestras for Broadway productions like Little Shop of Horrors, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Jesus Christ Superstar. His compositions and performances have been heard in numerous national and international television broadcasts and commercials. He’s been interviewed by every major guitar magazine and news publication from Guitar World to Rolling Stone. He’s traveled around the world on tour several times. Guitarist Paul Nelson will tell you he has done it all and if he had to stop tomorrow, he’d be satisfied.
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