By Darragh Doiron

The News staff writer

Uncle John Turner died Thursday, as musicians in his home town joined other Texans in staging benefits for his medical expenses.

The original Johnny Winter drummer, whose early ’70s Austin band Krackerjack featured Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar, died early Thursday from complications of hepatitis C. He was 62, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

Paul Orta says he’ll keep planning a September concert to benefit Turner, a Port Arthur native. Turner, who also lived in Groves for a time, played the drums and sang.

“He was originally with Johnny Winter and that’s how I really got to know him He’s played all over the world with everybody from B.B. King to Jimi Hendrix … the list goes on,” Orta said. “He’s toured with me the last 20 years on and off. He’s gone with me all over the country.”

Harmonica great Orta said Turner also played global gigs with him and the two worked on each other’s recordings. Orta said he just helped produce Turner’s last work, “Hurricane Blues,” with Great Blues Recordings of Port Arthur.

“I just remember him. We go way back. He was my roommate when we were touring. Everyone loved Uncle John because he was a musician. They all respected him. He got respect everywhere,” Orta said. “He was just really a good-natured guy.”

Orta said that when he called to book dates and mentioned that Turner would be there, calendars opened up.

“He ended up playing with musicians all over Texas,” Orta said.

Orta said he just played a Houston benefit concert and others are planned in Austin and San Antonio. Antone’s in Austin is scheduled to host a benefit concert on Wednesday, Aug. 1. Winter is scheduled to play with blues acts such as Mike Keller, Carolyn Wonderland and Eve Monsees, who fell under Turner’s influence.

The Austin American Statesman reports Turner met Winter as a teen. When the albino guitarist with the quick, wiry fingers formed a blues band in 1968, he tapped Turner to play drums. The red-headed Uncle John suggested his friend Tommy Shannon as bassist and the trio went on to set the blues rock scene afire with 1969’s “Johnny Winter” on Columbia. Winter and band redefined Texas blues for the flower power generation at the Woodstock festival in August of 1969.

Turner later performed with such artists as Hendrix, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters and B.B. King.

“Man, I can set my watch to your time,” King is said to have once exclaimed after a jam with Uncle John, who played Woodstock with Winter.

In later years, Turner backed Houston bluesman Alan Haynes and formed the Blues Power project. The classic Winter trio reunited last year at a Johnny Winter concert at La Zona Rosa in Austin.