In 1977, he produced the Muddy Waters album Hard Again, and in 1980, Muddy's final effort, King Bee. Their partnership produced a number of Grammy-winning recordings throughout, and he recorded the album Nothing but the Blues with members from Muddy Waters' band.
In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame.
He was on the cover of the first Guitar World in 1980.
There are quite a few Johnny Winter albums that are considered "non-official." A majority of these albums were produced by the late Roy Ames, owner of Home Cooking Records/ Clarity Music Publishing. According to a Houston Press article dated Aug 28, 2003, Johnny Winter left town for the express purpose of getting away from him. Roy Ames died on August 14, 2003 of natural causes at age 66. As Ames left no obvious heirs, the ownership rights of the Ames master recordings remains unclear.
As Johnny stated in an interview when the subject of Roy Ames came up, "This guy has screwed so many people it makes me mad to even talk about him."
In a recent interview for North Bay Bohemian, a Northern California weekly, Johnny explained his current approach to music:
"Most of the stuff I do is fairly old," he says, which befits the lifelong bluesman. But don't expect to hear "Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Koo," even though that was one of his signature songs back in the day. On this tour, Winter says firmly, "we're not playing any rock and roll at all."
The Smashing Pumpkins paid homage to Winter by recording an instrumental song titled Tribute to Johnny, in which they try to emulate Winter's unique sound. The song was originally intended for their highly acclaimed 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness but was rejected and eventually turned as b-side on their Zero single and also was included in their box-set The Aeroplane Flies High.
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