The Texas-born guitarist combined rough-edged blues with the sonic fire of his Jimi Hendrix influences, melding the sound with his own musical drive to produce a hybrid form of electric blues rock which hinted at more than a stereotypical retro rehash.
Vaughan generously tipped his hat to the blues predecessors he admired (Albert King and Buddy Guy among others) but he also invested intense personal feelings into his music, insuring its reception as an original art form.
At his best, Vaughan was carrying on a musical tradition followed years earlier by numerous other guitarists who understood the intricacies and emotions of the past masters but who, like Stevie (and Jimi), injected their own life experiences into the music they performed with passion, night after night, regardless of the number of people who might be listening. Rather than copy his heroes, Vaughan absorbed them.
After a seemingly endless stream of emotionally vapid 1980s bands, foppish groups churning out plastic ditties on synthesizers; featured prominently on the newborn MTV, the future suddenly seemed bright for garage band guitar slingers and pros alike. The newbie television network put "Pride and Joy" from Vaughan's debut album into video rotation. For many listeners and professional musicians, Vaughan reignited a passion for electric guitar (he played and bonded with a beat-up 1959 Fender Stratocaster) while ushering blues back into the mainstream limelight of popularity.
Blues had more or less followed predictably cyclical patterns of public acceptance and rejection since the 1920s but Vaughan should be credited for his contributions which kept blues music alive and well between 1983 and 1990 (and beyond).
A case could be argued, suggesting Stevie Ray's rise to fame permanently dissolved the pattern of gradual decline which blues succumbed to following its last zenith during the 1960s. Blues today is solidly entrenched amidst the variety of the popular music culture and shows no signs of sinking again. Texas Flood earned Vaughan a gold record award. His second release, Couldn't Stand The Weather sold over one million copies in 1984, garnering a platinum record award for Vaughan and Double Trouble. Vaughan, and his older brother and mentor Jimmie Vaughan, loved the music of Jimi Hendrix.
Jimmie prefered to hone a different guitar style quite distinct from his appreciation for Jimi Hendrix. Jimmie's economical riffing and strong chord building are best heard in the early Fabulous Thunderbird recordings and his solo recordings. Stevie Ray, to borrow a well-worn cliche, let it all hang out. He had been playing Jimi Hendrix tunes around the small bars and roadhouses in Texas for years. He loved "Manic Depression," "Third Stone From The Sun" "Little Wing" and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." And, he could play them with authority and fire.
Stevie Ray's studio version of "Voodoo Child" featured on Couldn't Stand The Weather may have irked some critics and diehard keepers of the sanctity of Jimi's music flame but anyone with "ears and any kind of heart" knew right away that Stevie Ray Vaughan wasn't foisting a con job on anyone. He was plugged into the same sky church music plane Jimi was coming from. In the midst of increasing drug and alcohol dependence, Stevie Ray recorded Soul To Soul in 1985. He added keyboardist Reece Wynans to Double Trouble.
Wynans keyboard work added a new dimension to the sound but Soul To Soul lacked the focus of the two previous recordings and did not equal the sales of the platinum status of Couldn't Stand The Weather. By the time the double album, Live Alive was released in 1986, Stevie Ray was lucky to be alive. His habits had viciously caught up to him. After a collapse in London, the guitarist checked himself into a rehab center and eventually gave up drugs and alcohol. In Step, released in 1989 proved that a musician didn't need drugs or alcoholic hazes to to fuel honest, heavy-hitting music. Stevie Ray, 35, seemed to be on the verge of greater, worldwide popularity when he died in a helicopter crash on August 27, 1990.
The charismatic guitarist was flying to Chicago from Alpine Valley, an outdoor concert venue in Wisconsin. Eric Clapton, the headliner of the concert, called Stevie Ray, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and Robert Cray to the stage for the last song of the evening: "Sweet Home Chicago." After the impromptu jam, Stevie boarded the helicopter which never made it to Chicago.
Experience Hendrix: When did you meet SRV?
Tommy Shannon: I met Stevie when he was 14 years old. Right before I was playing with Johnny Winter I was living in Dallas Texas, playing in a soul band there, making good money and one night Johnny Winter came in and sat in, we just jammed and he asked me if I wanted to join his band and I said, "Yes." I moved down to Houston and we starved our butts off for awhile. I went through the whole Johnny Winter experience and I went back to Dallas, to the same club, it was called The Fog and I remember there was this skinny little kid up there playin, just a real bad ass, I mean realy great. He was really humble and shy, lookin' up to all these big guys around him. I think I said something to him like, "Man you're already better than these guys." That's when I first met Stevie and we first played together in a band, about two years later, called Blackbird. We played off and on together right up until we got back together in 1981 with Double Trouble.
EH: As the years passed, what was your growing impression of his talents?
Shannon: I knew that the very first time I saw Stevie, there was something special there, something very unique and different and I've always been real good at spotting that. That was my first impression of him and I just watched him grow. He went through the whole paying his dues part, playing in the funky bars for tips and sleeping on couches and pool tables, doing all that stuff.
EH: What impressed me when I saw Stevie Ray live was that he was someone who could say it all in one note if he wanted to. When they do it in that one note, you just know...
Shannon: You got it, that's exactly right. Albert Collins is another great example of that. I've played with him before and he'd come out on stage and we'd be doing a shuffle and he'd hit one note and every hair on my body would stand straight up. Stevie was that way too. It would take days to tell you all I remembered about Stevie. We developed a close friendship right away. He said in interviews years later that the night I first met him, I was the only person who had ever talked to him. Everybody else just kind of blew him off as a little kid.
Layton: I remember the first time I heard Stevie, it was like he was talking to me. Something was being said there besides playing notes on the guitar which is really cool. He didn't just take the guitar and play all these licks. By playing even simple things he kind of crafted it like some kind of language.
EH: You made the connection because you could feel that emotion he had. He had the ability to channel that emotion into his music.
Shannon: You know what it is to me. What I've noticed about people like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie and a lot of the really great musicians, is that they are tuned into, I don't want to sound all mystical here but I don't know how else to say it, but it's like they are tuned into a higher realm of consciousness in their playing. It's like the music comes through them.
I've heard Stevie say this himself and if you watched him play you could see it on his face. It's almost like he's in prayer and it's just pouring through him. It happens to me every now and then but I don't live there like those people did. I wish I did but it's a wonderful feeling when it's like it's not even you playing anymore, like a higher inspiration comes through. You totally get out of the way, there is no effort, no thinking or trying, it just comes through.
EH: That's a great feeling inside an individual on stage but when the whole band is locked into that space...
Shannon: We had that with Stevie a lot. That was one of the most wonderful things about playin' with Stevie. When we got on stage we weren't organized in any way. That's the last thing we wanted to do. We didn't discuss how we were going to play each song or have set lists, we just got up on stage and played. And sometimes Stevie would just take off like a shooting star and expect us to be there and we always were. It was very instinctive. It was just an incredible feeling to do that because it was so natural. It's really hard to put into words...
EH: And when the whole band is locked in on that musical/spiritual high, sometimes the entire audience is locked in on it too.
Shannon: Oh yeah, it's amazing just how sensitive people are about it, they may not be able to put their finger on exactly what's happening up there (on stage)...
EH: Jimi Hendrix talked about Sky Church music. You mentioned the word mystical and it really is, there's no way around it. Music can generate an almost out of the body experience.
Shannon: It can. I'd seen Jimi Hendrix play several times. I would have to honestly say that I met many famous musicians and realized they're cool, they're human. But when I met Jimi Hendrix, it was like I was meeting an angel or something. There was something about him like he was less than a god and more than a man. I remember the first time I met him. I was playing with Johnny Winter at the time. It was in New York at a little club our manager Steve Paul had called the Scene. He was sitting at a table, all by himself, with his head kind of down. Someone I knew introduced me. He was polite, shook hands, kind of smiled and sat back down. I was speechless. I have to tell you this, Jimi Hendrix is my favorite musician of all time. He changed my life forever. I remember when "Are You Experienced?" came out. I had never heard anything like that, it shocked me. It was like, "Wait a minute what's going on here?" I put it back on again and it was even more unbelievable and I sat there and listened to it over and over. I'm sure you know what mean when I say it changes you internally as a human being. He did that to me. A lot of people don't realize now-a-days about Jimi Hendrix, a lot of people now are using effects but before him nobody was doing it like him. He started it, he was so revolutionary and no one has caught up with him yet.
EH: In 1967 when I first heard his music all the other music changed. None of the music up to that point and even after has come up to his music's level yet.
Shannon: That's right. It's like I listened to stuff I was listening to a few days before and thought, "Man this is weak." It's like he lifted me up into something that both confused me and at the same time introduced me to a whole new realm of music. He is by far, in my opinion, the greatest musician that's ever lived, period. It doesn't matter what instrument you play. If you're really tuned into him, it's gonna change you, it's gonna influence you in some way. It's not like I'm gonna play bass like him, but my whole approach to music was changed. So, indirectly my bass playin' was influenced by him.
EH: Did you ever have a chance to jam with Jimi.
Shannon: No, I've got to play with all the other great guitar players, just about everyone of them except Jimi. But he did sit in and what I was amazed about was, I have an old '62 Jazz bass, the one I played with Johnny Winter at Woodstock and all those big pop festivals, he set in when we were playing at the Scene with Johnny Winter. And I still can't figure out how he did it. He just flipped it (Shannon's bass) upside down and played it. He didn't sound like a guitar player playing bass, he sounded like a bass player playing bass. And there's a big difference. I saw him when we were playing little clubs around Houston, starving our butts off. Me and Uncle John (Turner), our drummer and Johnny Winter went to see him. I can't remember where it was but it was the most incredible show I'd ever seen in my life. He was so graceful on stage, the way his hands moved, it was almost like slow-motion. You know all that stuff he did on the albums, like the backwards guitar--he was doing that stuff live. And Johnny was sitting there going, "Nobody can be this good, nobody can be this good." We were just totally speechless, it was incredible.
EH: Do you have any favorite Jimi Hendrix songs?
Shannon: Oh man, just name any one. Everything on his first two albums. "All Along The Watchtower," "Voodoo Child." Really just everything he ever did. About two weeks ago I got out all my Hendrix cds and played in the car while driving around. A song would come up and I'd say to myself, Man this is the best song. Then another one would start to play. I finally realized, they're all the best songs.
Layton: We did "Drivin' South" and I really liked doin' that a lot, that was one of my favorites. Also "Voodoo Child" because Stevie played it so powerfully.
EH: How about Stevie's favorite Hendrix songs?
Shannon: We did "Manic Depression" for awhile. We dabbled around with alot of his songs. Stevie liked Jimi Hendrix so much we would have played a bunch of his songs but there would have been a lot of pressure to do other things. Stevie felt the same way I did about Jimi Hendrix. We just spent hours talking about Jimi. He just loved everything Jimi Hendrix done. He thought he was the best guitar player ever. He never got to see him. I remember on the bus one night, Stevie came running to the back of the bus, this was after he had become very successful; somebody had given him a Jimi Hendrix autograph. He was ecstatic to have Jimi Hendrix's autograph and he carried it in his wallet to show people.
The way Stevie felt about Hendrix; I really feel they were kindred spirits in a way, they both had something of the same nature. Stevie understood Jimi Hendrix, and I'm not saying this because I played with Stevie, but I think he understood Jimi Hendrix better than anyone else.
EH: Jimi and Stevie had that soulful connection. They weren't born into the same family but they were from the same family.
Shannon: Exactly, it's almost like they knew each other. We did the Jimi Hendrix songs we did because Stevie did them out of love for Jimi Hendrix, out of respect for Jimi Hendrix and his awe of Jimi Hendrix. A lot of critics... well you know how critics are...the truth of the matter was that Stevie loved Jimi Hendrix and his music and another reason was that Stevie could do it, he could play it.
Layton: Stevie was the only guitar player I had met who could actually copy Hendrix but probably more importantly, and I never played with Hendrix, but having seen him (on film) and then played with Stevie, they had a similar kind of intensity and strength. Stevie has a lot of emotion and passion in his music and that was their biggest connection. Stuff just kind of came through him.
Shannon: I don't know if you ever noticed (in the 1960s) but it was blasphemy for another guitarist to play a Jimi Hendrix song. You could play any other song but it was like you don't touch Hendrix songs unless you could really do it otherwise you were coming off as a fool. I remember a band I played with in Dallas around 1967. The club owner came to us with a list of songs he wanted us to play and one of them was a Hendrix song: "Manic Depression." We all backed away. We said, "We can't do that, there's no way we can do that." That's sacred ground. You only walk on there when you have the right shoes.
EH: What was Stevie like as a person?
Shannon: He's the best friend I've ever had in my life. I loved Stevie as much as a brother could love a brother and he felt the same way about me. We went through our years of drug abuse and alcoholism and we both quit at the same time. I have been clean a little over 11 years now. And when he died he was clean and sober. And even back when we were drinking and getting high and doin' all that stuff, Stevie was always a sincere person. He did not want to hurt anybody, he always wanted to do the right thing and serve a higher purpose.
There was something very unselfish about him. There was a lot of humility in him but also a lot of strength. I've said this before, everybody who's heard him play know how beautiful his playin' was but I wish they could have known his spirit. It was even more beautiful. He was just a beautiful human being in every way.
EH: Did Stevie ever describe his own style of playing the guitar or describe his music?
Layton: No, he was always more of a person who wanted to let the music do all the talking. I can tell you this; most everything he ever listened to came from black music. He would say that he felt like a black man trapped in a white man's body. John Hammond said he was totally abosrbed with the black spirit of the music.
EH: When you were playing with him, at any point in time, what were your favorite songs?
Shannon: Well, (laughs) "Voodoo Child" would have to be one of them. It's real hard to answer because we would never play the songs the same way every night.
Layton: At this point, escpecially since he's not with us any longer, all of them are treasured songs.
EH: Did Stevie play a lot of acoustic guitar at home or did he just sit around and jam on electric?
Shannon: He played a lot of acoustic guitar. I was living with Stevie and his wife, about 1984, and we'd been up all night. We were sittin on the back deck, lookin out over the lake. It was really peaceful and he had an acoustic guitar. He was playing the most beautiful stuff I'd ever heard, like he wasn't even thinkin' about it, he was just playin' and you could see the wonder in his eyes, the spirit in him. I really that it should have been on tape. He just spontaneously sat there and played some of the most beautiful, melodic chords, kind of like "Riviera Paradise," but they were a lot different...
EH: Jimi taped a lot of his home jams, was Stevie the same way?
Shannon: No he never really did that. I think he was a little paranoid about stuff like that.
Layton: We didn't tend to do that an awful lot. Maybe some innocent recording, like let's just throw the tape machine on. But recording became pretty ceremonious to him. I wish that there had been more. We recorded an awful lot of shows but in a studio, we didn't really do a lot of that.
EH: Do you have a road story where something happened which had the effect of making the world come to a complete stop?
Shannon: I'll name one night though there were many nights like this. The instrumental song we did "Say What" where we would step up to the microphone and sing "soul to soul." One night I walked up to Stevie's microphone and went to sing that with him, "soul to soul" and I swear to God, it's like I walked into an energy field, a circle around him or something. It was electrical, it was like that was his place. He was totally by himself and at the same time it was a part of everything goin' on. It's hard, there are so many things about Stevie that are hard to put into words. You could just feel this tremendous power going on there, just something you walk into and you're a part of it. I've always said, I never got used to playing with Stevie and what I meant by that was I never took it for granted. Every night he would do something that would just blow my mind, something so great.
Layton: I remember a couple, well more than a couple but there was one night when we were doing "Third Stone From The Sun" and he was getting all this feedback and he would have the body of the guitar on the stage, the guitar facing him and he would jump up on the horns of the guitar and grab the headstock and somehow he was balancing and it was a real wild looking thing. It almost looked like a circus act and all these really wild sounds were coming out of the guitar while he just balanced there. Then he kicked one foot off and the other and he jumped back onto the stage and the guitar went spinning like a top. All these wild sounds came out that I'd never heard come out before. It was almost like trick stuff but it was also so spur of the moment, so inspirational and nonrehearsed. Energy of the moment.
EH: Would you say that Stevie was not a bandleader in the traditional sense but rather was someone who was flowing along in a certain current and would just invite you in there with him?
Shannon: Exactly, that's exactly what he was. He didn't sit around and tell us what parts to play. That was one of the beautiful things about being in that band. We just played, it was really that basic and simple. It was like you said, he was in this current and we just all jumped in that current and it all happened by itself.
Layton: He was a leader by vision. He was one of the keenest people I ever worked with. By having a real clear vision, he would reject things that he felt weren't him. So in that way his position of being a leader was formulated. Things were revealed by demonstration and were unspoken.
Shannon: In the beginning when Double Trouble got together, we weren't one of those bands who said we got to do this, this and this so we can get a real good record deal and sell millions of records. We gotta dress like this and play this kind of music...you know that stuff never entered our mind because we just loved what we were doing.
All the success we had was a byproduct of that. Everyone loves to be successful but the music was always first for us. I still really believe that. If you're really locked in as a band and you're all on the same wavelength and you're just playing because you love the music and what you're doing everything else will just fall in place.
EH: Just believe in what you're doing seems to be such a simple philosophy but it's the hardest path to follow. It could be drugs, or alcohol or love of money, or any number of things which appear like flashing neon signs to pull you away from that simple path of believing in yourself.
Shannon: Exactly. Here's a great example of the kind of person Stevie was and the kind of band we were. When he got the opportunity to play on David Bowie's record ("Let's Dance"), they were going to go on tour for a year and everybody was pressuring him, his management was pressuring him saying, " You got to take this tour, it will be great for you." So he got all confused and said, "OK, I'll do it." Stevie rehearsed with David Bowie but his heart wasn't in it. They were good friends and all that but his heart just wasn't into it. That was before we had a record out or anything. We were driving around the country in a milk truck. (laughs) And Stevie had the opportunity to travel around in big limousines, airplanes and everything he'd never had in his life. But the night before he was supposed to leave to go on that tour he had to come to terms with himself and he couldn't do it. He believed in what he was doing and what we were doing as a band so much that nothing could lure him away from that.
EH: Music is like a religion, it can be such a powerful force in people's lives.
Shannon: Music is the greatest gift from God that we have. It touches you like nothing else can.
EH: Are there any other thoughts you'd like to share with readers?
Shannon: I would say for music lovers, especially young people listen to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie too, but especially Jimi Hendrix because in my opinion (his music) was one of the greatest things that ever happened in the evolution of music. Pay attention, listen real close because there is something so incredible, so overwhelming there, well, I've never got over it.
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DOUBLE TROUBLE: Soul To SoulBy Bruce Madden |
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© 1995-2008 Experience Hendrix, L.L.C. All Rights Reserved. |
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