Tag: 35

Stevie Ray Vaughan 8/1990 (35) (known as SRV) was born October 3, 1954 in Dallas Texas and playing music gave an almost instant meaning to his life. He was real close to brother Jimmie, possibly as a result of his father’s alcohol induced mood swings and him being the primary recipient of his father’s violence.

For his seventh birthday, Vaughan received his first guitar, a 3 string toy guitar from Sears with a Western motif. After short dabbles in drums and the saxophone, initially inspired by his elder brother, Jimmie, Stevie took up guitar playing. Learning by ear he diligently committed himself, following along to songs by the Nightcaps, particularly “Wine, Wine, Wine” and “Thunderbird”. Later he listened to blues artists such as Albert King, Otis Rush, and Muddy Waters, and rock guitarists including Lonnie Mack, as well as jazz guitarists such as Kenny Burrell. In 1963, he received his first electric guitar, a Gibson ES-125T, as a hand-me-down from brother Jimmie and subsequently turned into a force of nature on the instrument.

He honed his chops starting in 1965 at the age of 12 with the Chantones. Their first show was at a talent contest held in Dallas’ Hill Theatre, but after realizing that they could not perform a Jimmy Reed song in its entirety, Vaughan left the band and briefly joined the Eclectic Marshmellows. When his bother Jimmy left home in 1967, Stevie found little support from his parents for his guitar obsession and decided to take a job out of the home at a burger joint where he cleaned dishes and threw out the garbage for $.70 an hour. When he landed in a barrel of grease one day, he quit and decided to commit his life to music and the guitar.

Here is a possibly shortened version of his apprentice years in the music business.  In 1967, only 14 years old he joined the Brooklyn Underground, playing professionally at local bars and clubs. Then in May 1969 he joined the Southern Distributors for an 8 months period after which he moved on to Texas Storm, which also featured his brother Jimmy and Doyle Bramhall. This turned out to be only 2 months. By the spring of 1970 he joined Liberation, a 12 piece band. But by fall that same year he moved on to Lincoln while also doing session gigs for an outfit called Cast of Thousands. In late January 1971, feeling confined by playing pop hits with Liberation, Vaughan formed his own band, Blackbird. After growing tired of the Dallas music scene, he dropped out of school and moved with the band to Austin, Texas, which had more liberal and tolerant audiences. There, Vaughan initially took residence at the Rolling Hills Club, a local blues venue that would later become the Soap Creek Saloon. Blackbird played at several clubs in Austin and opened shows for bands such as Sugarloaf, Wishbone Ash, and Zephyr, but could not maintain a consistent lineup. Late in the fall of that year it was time to move on to join a band called Pecos. But by the time the summer came along he had moved on to Deryk Jones Party. The summer of 1972 was set aside for another Blackbird episode while occasionally guesting for an outfit called Orchrist. Blackbird #3 crossed his road for the first time with later bass player of Double Trouble, Tommy Shannon. Krackerjack was the next outfit on his roster for the fall of 1972. Stump lasted only about a month, before Stevie Ray joined Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers. Marc Benno left and Stevie Ray gave the band another shot through parts of 1974. A band called Doug Sahm honed Stevie’s technique until the spring of 1975, when Paul Ray and the Cobras got a chance to enjoy his guitar playing. A bit more challenged Stevie Ray stayed until September 1977. In addition to playing with the Cobras, Vaughan jammed with many of his influences at Antone’s, including Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Jimmy Rogers, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Albert King. In the fall of 78, when  he formed Triple Threat Revue, which became his “home” until spring 1978. Southern blues sensation Lou Ann Barton fronted the outfit on vocals. In June 1978 the time had arrived for Stevie Ray Vaughan to rename the band to Double Trouble from an Otis Rush song, later to become Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.

Stevie played with over 20 bands during his career, starting as early as 11 years old. The first known live recording of him was in 1969, when he sat in with Marc Benno’s band “Jomo”. His first studio recording came with Cast of Thousands,in 1971, when they recorded 2 tracks for the A New-Hi compilation album.

In early October 1978, Vaughan and Double Trouble earned a frequent residency performing at one of Austin’s most popular nightspots, the Rome Inn.

During a performance, Edi Johnson, an accountant at Manor Downs, noticed Vaughan. She remembered: “I’m not an authority on music—it’s whatever turns me on—but this did.” She recommended him to Manor Downs owner Frances Carr and GM Chesley Millikin, who was interested in managing artists and saw Vaughan’s musical potential. After Barton quit Double Trouble in mid-November 1979, Millikin signed Vaughan to a management contract. Vaughan also hired Robert “Cutter” Brandenburg as road manager, whom he had met in 1969. Addressing him as “Stevie Ray”, Brandenburg convinced Vaughan to use his middle name on stage.

On December 5, 1979, while Vaughan was in a dressing room before a performance in Houston, an off-duty police officer arrested him after witnessing him using cocaine near an open window. He was formally charged with cocaine possession and subsequently released on $1,000 bail. Double Trouble was the opening act for Muddy Waters, who said about Vaughan’s drug abuse: “Stevie could perhaps be the greatest guitar player that ever lived, but he won’t live to get 40 years old if he doesn’t leave that white powder alone.” Vaughan was sentenced with two years’ probation and was prohibited from leaving Texas. Along with a stipulation of entering treatment for drug abuse, he was required to “avoid persons or places of known disreputable or harmful character”; he refused to comply with both of these orders. After  a lawyer was hired, his probation officer had the sentence revised to allow him to work outside the state. But the incident later caused him to refuse maid service while staying in hotels during concert tours.

In October 1980, bassist Tommy Shannon attended a Double Trouble performance at Rockefeller’s in Houston. Shannon, who had played with Stevie Ray in Blackbird, was playing with Alan Haynes at the time, participated in a jam session with Vaughan and Layton halfway through their set. Shannon later commented: “I went down there that night, and I’ll never forget this: it was like, when I walked in the door and I heard them playing, it was like a revelation. ‘That’s where I want to be; that’s where I belong, right there.’ During the break, I went up to Stevie and told him that. I didn’t try to sneak around and hide it from the bass player Jackie Newhouse—I didn’t know if he was listening or not. I just really wanted to be in that band. I sat in that night and it sounded great.”  Almost three months later, when Vaughan offered Shannon the position, he readily accepted.

Although popular in Texas at the time, Double Trouble failed to gain national attention, partly because of Vaughan’s inability to travel beyond Texas at that time. The group’s visibility improved when record producer Jerry Wexler recommended them to Claude Nobs, organizer of the Montreux Jazz Festival. He insisted the festival’s blues night would be great with Vaughan, whom he called “a jewel, one of those rarities who comes along once in a lifetime”, and Nobs agreed to book Double Trouble.

Vaughan opened his first day performance with a medley arrangement of Freddie King’s song “Hide Away” and his own fast instrumental composition, “Rude Mood”. Double Trouble went on to perform renditions of Larry Davis’ “Texas Flood”, Hound Dog Taylor’s “Give Me Back My Wig”, and Albert Collins‘ “Collins Shuffle”, as well as three original compositions: “Pride and Joy”, “Love Struck Baby”, and “Dirty Pool”. The set ended with a mixture of boos and  from the audience.

People‘s James McBride wrote about his performance:

He seemed to come out of nowhere, a Zorro-type figure in a riverboat gambler’s hat, roaring into the ’82 Montreux festival with a ’59 Stratocaster at his hip and two flame-throwing sidekicks he called Double Trouble. He had no album, no record contract, no name, but he reduced the stage to a pile of smoking cinders and, afterward, everyone wanted to know who he was.”

According to road manager Don Opperman: “the way I remember it, the ‘ooos’ and the ‘boos’ were mixed together, but Stevie was pretty disappointed. Stevie just handed me his guitar and walked off stage, and I’m like, ‘are you coming back?’ There was a doorway back there; the audience couldn’t see the guys, but I could. He went back to the dressing room with his head in his hands. I went back there finally, and that was the end of the show.” According to Vaughan: “it wasn’t the whole crowd [that booed]. It was just a few people sitting right up front. The room there was built for acoustic jazz. When five or six people boo, wow, it sounds like the whole world hates you. They thought we were too loud, but shoot, I had four army blankets folded over my amp, and the volume level was on 2. I’m used to playin’ on 10!” The performance was filmed and later released on DVD in September 2004.

On the following 2 nights, Double Trouble was booked in the lounge of the Montreux Casino, with David Bowie in attendance on the first night and Jackson Browne on the second. Browne jammed with Double Trouble until the early morning hours and offered them free use of his personal recording studio in downtown Los Angeles. In late November the band accepted his offer and recorded ten songs in two days. While they were in the studio, Vaughan received a telephone call from David Bowie, who had met him after the Montreux performance, and he invited him to participate in a recording session for his next studio album, Let’s Dance. In January 1983, Vaughan recorded guitar on six of the album’s eight songs, including the title track and “China Girl”. The album was released on April 14, 1983, and sold over three times as many copies as Bowie’s previous album. Double Trouble did an encore at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1985, this time as headliners.

Now that Europe had experienced Stevie Ray Vaughan, just like with Jimi Hendrix (England), Joe Bonamassa (NorthSea Jazz Festival) and several other guitar slingers, the doors also opened in America.  After Montreux Epic Records signed the band to a record contract and Bowie asked Stevie Ray to join him for his Serious Moonlight Tour, as he realized how essential Stevie Ray’s contribution to the album was. After some back and forth, Stevie Ray however turned the proposition down and said: “I couldn’t gear everything on something I didn’t really care a whole lot about. It was kind of risky (reputation-wise, but I really didn’t need all the headaches. Besides, they only offered union rates.” Although contributing factors were widely disputed, Vaughan soon gained major publicity for quitting the tour. The following May he demolished the stage of the Bottom Line in New York City, opening for Canadian rocker Brian Adams. The New York Post claimed that the stage had been “rendered to cinders by the most explosively original showmanship to grace the New York stage in some time.”

Still as Double Trouble, the band recorded its debut album in less than a week at Jackson Browne’s studio. Texas Flood, was released in the summer of 1983, a few months after Bowie’s Let’s Dance appeared. On its own, Let’s Dance earned Stevie quite a bit of attention, but Texas Flood was a blockbuster blues success; receiving positive reviews in both blues and rock publications, reaching number 38 on the charts and crossing over to album rock radio stations. Stevie and Double Trouble set off on a successful tour and quickly recorded their second album, Couldn’t Stand the Weather, which was released in May of 1984. The album was more successful than its predecessor, reaching number 31 on the charts; by the end of 1985, the album went gold. Double Trouble added keyboardist Reese Wynans in 1985, before they recorded their third album, Soul to Soul. The record was released in August 1985 and was also quite successful, reaching number 34 on the charts.

Although his professional career was soaring, Stevie was sinking deep into alcoholism and drug addiction. Despite his declining health, he continued to push himself, releasing the double live album Live Alive in October of 1986 and touring extensively.

Late in 1986 Stevie collapsed whilst on tour in Germany and was rushed to hospital, where he was warned, that if he didn’t clean up, he would be dead very soon. The rest of the tour was cancelled and then followed time in rehab, before emerging clean and sober, and ready to work again.

The band undertook a US tour in 1987, completing 65 gigs, a somewhat mediocre total by his normal standards.

Stevie performed a number of concerts in 1988, including a headlining gig at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and wrote his fourth album. The resulting record, In Step, appeared in June of 1989 and became his most successful album, peaking at number 33 on the charts, earning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Recording, and going gold just over six months after its release.

In the spring of 1990, Stevie recorded the album Family Style with his brother Jimmie, which was scheduled for release in the autumn of that year.

In the late summer of 1990, Stevie and Double Trouble set out on an American headlining tour, with Joe Cocker. The highlight of the tour was two nights with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Vaughan, Buddy Guy and Robert Cray at Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wisconsin on 25th and 26th August 1990.

After the second show, which climaxed with an encore of Sweet Home Chicago, with everybody on stage, most of the entourage headed to board four chartered helicopters to take them back to the Windy City and a good night’s rest. Clapton later recalled how foggy the early morning of August 27 was.
“I didn’t want to fly at all. I was wiping condensation off the windows and thinking: ‘We’re all gonna die.’ Then they took off and above the weather was clear sky and starlight.”

Stevie was on a flight with three of Clapton’s crew. In the early hours it was reported they never landed in Chicago. In fact their pilot had taken off and crashed into a ski run on the side of a mountain after 42 seconds. Stevie Ray Vaughan was dead at 35.

When his brother Jimmie went to identify Stevie’s body, he had to so by recognizing his distinctive silver jewelry.” Shannon and Layton sat in their hotel room and wept. They’d gone into Stevie’s room hoping he’d be there, but the bed was still made with chocolates on the counterpane and the alarm radio was playing The Eagles’ Peaceful, Easy Feeling.

At Stevie’s funeral the mourners included Stevie Wonder and Dr. John, who sang “Amazing Grace” and “Ave Maria” while Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Nile Rodgers, Eric Clapton and ZZ Top wept in the Laurel Land Memorial chapel. Stevie’s marble and bronze headstone simply gave his dates, his name and the inscription that says ‘Thank you… For all the love you passed our way.’  

But a strange thing happened at that last gig. Those who knew Stevie said he played with a halo of light around him. His guitar tech Rene Martinez remembered him giving everyone a huge hug and telling them how much he loved them. He had an aura about him, like a premonition.

Stevie Ray Vaughan brought physicality and soul to guitar playing, and he brought it in spades. The soul came through the speaker. The physicality was there for all to see. To watch him play, there were occasions in which SRV would throttle the guitar as though it were an arm wrestling contest at last orders in a Nantucket alehouse. His strings were the stuff of legend – Gauge 13s? No, 14s; 17s! Heck, some might argue he used piano wire. Either way, he went down the heavy-gauge route and had the dexterity to manipulate them as though they were dental floss. This, the fire in his belly, and the tone-gussying Tube Screamer playing mediator between Fender Strat and amp give him a range of dynamics that few, if any, players could match.

And yet, there was a tenderness to his playing. There are many who argue that his cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing eclipses the original. Opinions like that are always up for debate. What is not-up-to-debate is that Vaughan, left an over-sized impression on guitar culture in a short space of time. Just like Hendrix. – Total Guitar, chosing Stevie Ray Vaughan as the Number 1 Blues guitarist of all time

As a guitarist myself I feel that Stevie Ray brought more to the table than virtuosity. His whole being was music, which resulted in an endless flow of ideas, executed to perfection on his guitar. He could go on and on creating tasty licks, riff, melodies and raw mind blowing arpeggios, while seemingly never having to think about it. Ask any good or great guitarist about their fear of soloing and you’ll get always the same answer: Running out of ideas! Stevie Ray never ran out of ideas. they just floated into each other, channeled by his charismatic persona and fingers that instinctively knew where to go on the fretboard, far beyond just muscle memory.