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| SRV style electric guitar |
Stevie Ray Vaughan was born in Dallas, Texas, on Oct. 3, 1954.
He began playing his older brother Jimmie’s guitars at the age of 7. With a prodigious knack for the instrument, Vaughan began performing in and around Dallas while Jimmie pursued his own musical career in Austin. Determined to follow in his brother’s footsteps, Stevie Ray dropped out of high school at 17 and moved to Austin with his band Blackbird.
Vaughan performed with several bands in the area, such as The Nightcrawlers, Paul Ray & the Cobras, and Triple Threat Revue – the band Vaughan formed with singer Lou Ann Barton that would eventually be streamlined into Double Trouble.
After a few years working the Austin music scene, Barton left Double Trouble, and Vaughan became the group’s frontman. During the early Eighties, the band secured a number of high profile gigs, playing a private party for the Rolling Stone’s in New York City, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
Vaughan’s playing at Montreux caught the attention of Jackson Browne and David Bowie. Bowie asked Vaughan to play lead guitar on his upcoming album Let’s Dance. After completing the album, Vaughan was set to appear with Bowie on the Serious Moonlight Tour, but pulled out, choosing to focus on Double Trouble instead. The band had recorded a demo at Jackson Browne’s studio over Thanksgiving in 1982.
The demo found its way into the hands of noted producer and talent scout John H. Hammond. Hammond had discovered Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, and convinced Epic Records to sign Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. He served as executive producer of their debut album, Texas Flood.
Texas Flood sold 500,000 copies in its first week, and was later nominated for two Grammies. Vaughan and Double Trouble followed up their success with Couldn’t Stand the Weather, which peaked at 31 on the Billboard 200. With his star rising, Vaughan entered into a period of heavy drug and alcohol abuse. Coupled with a strained marriage, Vaughan’s reckless drug dependency hindered the recording of Double Trouble’s third album, Soul to Soul. Released in September of 1985, Soul to Soul failed to match the success of Couldn’t Stand the Weather.
After finishing work on their first live compilation, Live Alive, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble embarked on a tour of Europe. While in Germany, Vaughan began repeatedly vomiting blood. Taken to a hospital in London, he was told the cocaine he dissolved in his whiskey each morning had crystallized in his stomach and was lacerating his intestines. Doctors informed Vaughan if he continued the practice he would die in a month.
Double Trouble cancelled 12 dates in Europe as Vaughan entered rehab back in the states. After successful completion of treatment, he and the band returned to performing and collaborating with artists such as Stevie Wonder and Dick Dale.
When Epic was acquired by Sony Music Entertainment in 1987, a deal was worked out to renew Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s contract. In early 1989 they began recording In Step. The album was released in June. The single “Crossfire” reached number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks, and In Step would go on to win the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
In 1990, Vaughan entered Ardent Studios in Memphis to begin recording Family Style with Jimmie. After recording the album, Vaughan and Double Trouble began a summer tour with Joe Cocker. On August 26, the band appeared as guests at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin on a bill with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and Jimmie Vaughan.
Four helicopters were booked to fly the performers back to Chicago. Shortly before 1 a.m. Aug. 27, 1990, Vaughan, flying with members of Clapton’s crew, took off in dense fog. They struck a ski slope when the helicopter moments later. All aboard died instantly.Vaughan’s aggressive, frenetic playing style set a new standard among blues guitarists. Modern guitarists such John Mayer, Mike McCready, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd, as well as contemporaries Steve Vai and Eric Johnson, have cited Vaughan as a prominent influence.
Vaughan was buried at Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas. The funeral was attended by more than 1,500 mourners, including Clapton, Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, and Stevie Wonder. A memorial statue stands at Auditorium Shores on Lady Bird Lake in Austin. In 1991, the governor of Texas proclaimed Oct. 3 Stevie Ray Vaughan Day.
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| Live concert audience |
As I write this, Stevie Ray Vaughan's final performance on this earth is playing through my headphones. Buddy Guy is singing "Sweet Home Chicago," and Stevie has just started his first solo. A few choruses ahead, Stevie will play a series of bends that give me goosebumps. It's as if he was ripping a tear in the heavens, preparing for his exit from one life into the next.
Today Stevie Ray Vaughan's legacy turns 20 years old.
Infected
I discovered the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan at the age of 18. As I listened to his music blast through the speakers at Clair Brothers Audio, I can still hear myself saying "Now THAT is how I want to play guitar".
Later that year, as a freshmen at Penn State University, my roommate played the "From The Cradle" tape by Eric Clapton. Like Peter Parker getting bit by the spider, the sounds on that tape infected me instantly. Nothing was the same after that.
For the next few days as I walked to class, in crowds of other students, my fingers twitched erratically. Blues guitar solos echoed in my head and my fingers moved as if they already knew what to do.
That same year I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble on a Saturday Night Live re-run. Hearing him was one thing, but nothing......nothing hit me like the sight of him destroying that stage with his wah pedal and beat-up sunburst strat.
Any possibility of giving up the guitar evaporated that day.
Expression
My emotions had been through the mill before I ever reached college. A massive need for acceptance and validation led me into mostly one-sided relationships that ended before I was ready. These circumstances were amplified by moodiness and occasional bouts of depression.
Imagine being mute, unable to speak, but with an overwhelming urge to scream. Nobody has their hand over your mouth, but you're unable to make a sound. Nothing truly allowed me to express what I felt before I discovered the guitar playing of Stevie Ray Vaughan.
When I saw him play "Texas Flood" from the El Mocambo show, it was as if my darkest moments were being played out in front of me. There's a section in that performance of where Stevie unknowingly looks with his eyes closed towards the camera, bending desperately on the high E string, like a man lifting a millstone from around his neck, his face reflecting a mixture of pain and relief.
Watching that performance cast my motivations for playing guitar in stone. This was not something I did for fun, money, or girls. This was something I did to survive. It was only thing that opened up a channel for me to express the hurt, anger, and bitterness trapped inside.
Influence
It is an understatement to say that I was influenced by Stevie's playing. Some people are moved more deeply than others by the same influence. I was moved at a foundational level. It's hard to put into words how deeply his playing affected me.
Stevie's playing seemed to rip emotions from such a deep place inside me, that it almost hurt to listen. I remember listened to a live bootleg performance of Texas Flood, when his playing got so heavy that I nearly had to stop walking.
It's not as simple as hearing something, liking it, and wanting to learn it. That's what I did with Led Zeppelin or Guns And Roses. No, with Stevie's playing it was much different. Learning his music was more like going to therapy than playing guitar.
What I'm trying to say is that although I never met him, or saw Stevie alive, his playing changed the direction of my life. It gave me an outlet that I desperately needed, and provided an efficiency of expression unmatched by anything I've found before or after.
Better Than Great
Stevie played for keeps. He was the hurricane of blues guitar players, a force of nature, a force beyond comprehension. It's not that he wasn't capable of playing gently, but even when he did, it was like being in the eye of the hurricane for a moment of calm, before the crushing winds knock the breath from your chest.
I am my own biggest critic. I hear ever missed note, every sloppy ending, every wrongly timed lick. In fact, my hearing is way, way better than my playing. Years of dissecting extremely fast licks, with no help from slow-down tools, have given me the ability to hear things in Stevie's playing that I suspect most players do not hear.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that Stevie was better than even his most vocal fans are aware. Once you get past the furious energy, the gut-wrenching tone, and dizzying speed, there is a cold, hard, and unwavering machine-like precision.
Sure he made mistakes, I've heard bootlegs where he played half a song in the wrong key, and he missed notes occasionally like anyone. Most of the time, he was like a machine.
The precision in his playing is mind-numbing. Taking into consideration the physical toll inflicted by playing with his level of intensity for even one song, it is absurdly difficult for someone to play that way for two or three hours without slowing down or getting sloppy.
When you get neck-deep into Stevie's playing, you quickly realize that about 80% of his playing is familiar territory, regardless of what song it is. The same core concepts, with some variation. The next 15% requires closer study because it's different enough that you won't be able to play it easily based on the first 80%.
But the last 5% is what most people can't hear or see. The finest, most intricate details of his playing are almost invisible to the naked ear. The true integrity of a precious stone is only fully realized when examined by a jeweler. Likewise, certain aspects of Stevie's playing only become visible after you've watched, studied, tried and failed to master them hundreds of times.
There are licks that I've only heard Stevie play once. Licks that did not 'fit' with the other 95% of his playing. Not only did he play them perfectly, he fit them into his playing as if he had played them 1000 times before.
Stepping Out
Stevie's legacy is still captivating guitar players all over the world 20 years after he passed away. Young guitar players all over this world are discovering his music as if it happened yesterday.
He didn't write books, pass laws, build orphanages or donate billions to charity. He played guitar and wrote songs. Lots of people do those things. Most of them only impact a few friends and family. Stevie reached millions.
The point is this. You don't get to choose how much impact you have on people. But you can choose how little. You can eliminate your impact on anyone else by walking through life with your head down, seeing yourself as tiny in the eyes of other people.
Stevie's music may have influenced a lot of people, but there was a life-changing level of influence that he could have withheld by simply keeping his mouth shut. When he got clean, he began speaking out at his concerts, encouraging people to love and take care of each other. Compare that to the shallow, immature, and ultimately dangerous 'advice' so carelessly passed down by successful musicians throughout the last 40 years. He opened up his life to critics and fans alike.
The choice to speak out, reveal his struggles, and encourage others, gave him an avenue of influence into the lives of thousands of people with similar demons. There are people who are still alive today because of his words and example.
In your life, there will be tremendous pressure to do what is normal, what is safe, and what rocks the boat the least. It is safe to keep to yourself, safe to keep your mouth shut, and safe to assume that no one cares about what you say.
But just as Stevie chose to be vulnerable, and to share his story with others, each one of us can have an impact on those around us. Who knows? Your life, your story may be just what someone needs to hear.
20 years ago today, this world lost a man with tremendous talent, and a powerful story. A story that he shared courageously before he left.
Don't leave your story untold.Now that you're familiar with most of Vaughan's back story, let's get into how he plays. Vaughan is great guitarist to use as a model for electric blues guitar. Vaughan's music is filled with killer guitar riffs as well, so let's take a look at one such riff here at http://adult-guitar-lessons.com/stevie-ray-vaughan-tightrope-blues-guitar-lessons-texas-blues-srv/.
There's a little taste of Vaughan's playing so you can start working on it. But how about his sound. I found a brief article that highlights Vaughan's amps over the years that I think you will enjoy. Check it out at http://www.guitarworld.com/stevie-ray-vaughans-sound-amps.
Throughout his career Stevie Ray Vaughan used a myriad of different amps, often in different configurations with each other. His primary amps were Marshalls and Fenders, though he also used Mesa Boogies and Dumbles.
Vaughan's on-stage amplification differed from his studio set-up. Early in his career, Vaughan used a Marshall 4140 Club & Country with JBL speakers for his clean tone, and two 1964 Fender Vibroverbs for distortion when performing. He eventually traded the Club & Country in and began using Fender Super Reverbs, 200-watt Marshall Plexis and Majors, and a Howard Dumble Steel String Singer.
In the studio, Vaughan's amp use became even more intricate. Still relying on Super Reverbs, Vibroverbs and Dumbles, Vaughan incorporated Marshall and Fender Bassman bass amps, with 4x15 "refrigerator" cabinets. During the 1989 recording for In Step, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble's final studio album, Vaughan became infatuated with a variety of amps, filling the band's rehearsal and studio spaces with 32 models.
Much like his guitars, Stevie Ray's amplifiers were often modified. Noted "amp doctor" Cesar Diaz met Vaughan in 1979 and worked as his amp technician for most of the guitarist's career. Diaz often swapped out transformers, filter caps and tubes, and occasionally reset the amp dials. Vaughan had a superstitious attraction to the number six and would set his amps to this level. Diaz would unscrew the amps and scale the knobs back so they would read six while actually at ten.
Vaughan typically played his amps in conjunction using splitter boxes. His unusual combinations matched with Diaz's modifications make emulating SRV's tone a challenge for the average guitar player, but a Super Reverb and Vibroverb split will get you closest.
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| Fender Stratocaster - SRV style guitar |
Here's our first interview with Stevie Ray Vaughan from the May 1984 issue of Guitar World. The original story by Bill Milkowski ran with the headline "Stevie Ray Vaughan: Hendrix' White Knight," and the story started on page 36.
In an age where musical tastes are being shaped by technological innovations, where sensibilities are being assaulted by arsenals of Linn drums and Fairlights and Mini Moogs, it's downright refreshing to see someone playing straight from the gut again.
With his stripped-down attack and electrifying prowess, Stevie Ray Vaughan has refocused attention back to the bare essentials -- guitar, bass and drums in a basic twelve-bar format.
He has no light show to speak of, no dry ice, no fog, no lasers. He doesn't go in for the leather-and-studs macho posturing of popular heavy metal bands and he's not particularly adept at crowd manipulation as many of the top rock bands are. Yet Stevie Ray Vaughan is a hot property, perhaps the hottest thing to come out of Dallas since J.R. Ewing.
A longtime local hero in juke joints throughout Austin, Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, Stevie Ray is now proudly waving the Texas flag all over the country in one sold-out concert venue after another. His formula hasn't changed much from his humbler days, but young concertgoers can't seem to get enough.
His secret? A soft-spoken, laconic man, Stevie Ray sums it up in three little words: "I just play."
Of course, there's more to it than that. Though he's not one to admit it, Stevie Ray is perhaps the most in-the-flesh exciting blues-based electric guitarist to come along since Jimi Hendrix passed.
Comparisons to Hendrix are inevitable. Listening to Stevie Ray's debut Epic album, Texas Flood, the similarities are all-too apparent. The title cut recalls the searing blues power of Jimi's "Red House," while the tender ballad "Lenny" is reminiscent of such lyrical Hendrix offerings as "Angel," " Little Wing" or "Wind Cries Mary."
The Hendrix influence looms large over Stevie Ray Vaughan. Yet, this is no clone act. The twenty-nine-year-old Texan is playing it sincere, offering up a heartfelt homage to someone who obviously touched his soul.
Says Stevie Ray of his alter ego: “I loved Jimi a lot. He was so much more than just a blues guitarist. He could do anything. I was about sixteen when he died. I could do some of his stuff by then but actually I’ve been trying to find out what he was doing moreso lately than I was then. Now I'm really learning how to do it and I'm trying to expand on it ... not that I can expand on it a whole bunch. But I try."
Like many of the young guitar enthusiasts who come to his shows, Stevie Ray never saw Hendrix perform live. Other than a few tips early on from his big brother Jimmie, he had no mentor to show him the way. He couldn't read music (still can't), so he didn't pick up any techniques from the various instruction books available on the market that dissect Jimi's technique.
Instead, he relied solely on his ears and an uncanny ability to capture the emotional essence of Jimi's playing just from listening to his records. He still relies on his keen ears to this day.
"I took music theory for one year in high school and flunked all but one six-week period," he confides. "That's because I couldn't read music and the rest of the class was already eight or nine years into it. The teacher would sit down and hit a ten-fingered chord on the piano and you had to write all the notes down in about ten seconds. I just couldn't do it. It was more like math to me.”
He adds, “A lot of the songs I write now … I don’t even know what key they're in. I have to ask somebody to find out. I can play it, I just can't name it. Jazz changes and all. But I don't know the names of what it is I’m doing.”
When asked how he communicates his musical ideas to the other members of Double Trouble (drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon), Stevie Ray again doesn't waste words: "With this," he explains, uncovering a recently purchased Fostex four-track cassette recorder. "Now I can just lay down tracks and play it back to the guys so they can hear just how I'd like it to sound. I did one the other day with two guitar tracks and a drum track. I played some drums before picking up the guitar and I still like to mess around with them. So now I can use this Fostex and get down pretty much what I want, then let the guys take it from there."
When asked if his current interest in the Fostex might eventually lead to some experiments in multiple-guitar parts, a la Hendrix' Rainbow Bridge rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Stevie Ray laughs and says, "I'll get there ... I gotta figure out how to run this thing first."
For the young crowds flocking to see this new Texas sensation, Stevie Ray is providing a vital link to something they missed out on. He's carrying on the Hendrix legacy. Maybe these kids have seen pictures of Jimi and they may have attended midnight screenings of Monterey Pop or Woodstock or Jimi Plays Berkeley.
They certainly have purchased his records. But they never saw the late guitar hero in the flesh. They never felt the sheer electricity that Jimi could generate. But now they can get those vicarious thrills through Stevie Ray. His reverence for Hendrix becomes all the more obvious when you see him in action. His renditions of "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" and his extended jam on Jimi's freaked-out classic, "Third Stone From the Sun," are so emotionally charged and infused with the raw spirit of Hendrix that it makes your pulse quicken.Here is a video performance from Austin City Limits in 1989. You can see for yourself the energy he had on stage. Check it out here at http://www.guitarworld.com/favorite-guitar-solos-stevie-ray-vaughan-leave-my-girl-alone-austin-city-limits-1989.
Stevie Ray Vaughan, the guitarist who has had the greatest influence on me as a player, died 21 years ago today on August 27, 1990.
Basically, everything changed for the very young version of me the first time I saw him play. It was March 1984 at Kean College in Union, New Jersey. After that night, I tore up, stomped on and burned the book on what I thought being a blues guitarist was all about -- and started all over again.
For me, that same excitement about Vaughan lasted until about five or six years ago, when I decided I wasn't letting enough new influences in, wasn't giving other -- living -- guitarists a chance to wow me or have that same, life-changing effect on me. Plus it started to feel odd telling people that my favorite guitarist was a guy who'd been gone for 15 or 16 years.
But I've been feeling a little guilty about that decision lately, and I've been intentionally going back for my daily shots of SRV, discovering things I might've missed as a spindly kid. It's been a bit like getting reacquainted with an old friend.
But as I re-evaluate Vaughan's work with a new eye, one thing has stayed the same -- what I've always considered my favorite SRV performance. It's his rendition of Buddy Guy's "Leave My Girl Alone" as performed at Austin City Limits in 1989.
As I used to say 20 years ago, it's got everything that was great about SRV -- the intensity, the passion, the timing, the speed -- did I mention the intensity? Check out how he literally growls his way into the ridiculously awesome solo at 2:06.
See you tomorrow, SRV!
Stevie Ray Vaughan did another interview in 1985 with Guitar World. It was pretty interesting to read about him a year later than the previous one. He discusses his fame and some other iconic guitar legends. Find it here at http://www.guitarworld.com/stevie-ray-vaughan-discusses-fame-hendrix-and-his-new-album-soul-soul-1985-guitar-world-interview.
Here's Guitar World's second interview with Stevie Ray Vaughan, from the November 1985 issue. The original story by Bruce Nixon started on page 28 and ran with the headline, "It's Star Time: Stevie's been in the spotlight so long now, he's just beginning to realize -- with the help of Clapton, Townshend and Albert King -- that everybody's eyes are on him."
Something was up. Stevie Ray Vaughan looked like the cat that swallowed the canary.
He had plenty of reason to be pleased, of course: A few weeks earlier, Vaughan and his band, Double Trouble, had received their first Grammy (in the ethnic music category, for some tunes on a Montreux Jazz Festival blues anthology), capping a year in which they'd won a number of other industry awards.
After seeing their first two albums climb into the upper reaches of the charts, they'd toured widely at home and abroad and were, at that moment, in the midst of finishing up work on their third record, Soul To Soul.
But something more than a year of new triumphs and successes was on Stevie Ray's mind, and he was being deliberately and playfully vague. Nothing arouses your curiosity faster than that. He positively seemed to glow.
Was he born again?
"Something like that." There was the faint wisp of a knowing smile le under the broad-brimmed hat. It was a white hat, too-not the black Man With No Name hat that's become a trademark of sorts.
Quit drinking and smoking?
He held up his glass. "No."
Make up with his wife and family over something?
"That's part of it."
Vaughan grinned mischievously, and talk moved in other directions. He was sitting in the dim corner of a lounge in a pleasant North Dallas hotel, waiting to leave for the studio where Soul To Soul was coming down the home stretch. A little later, the rest of the band came down -- drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon, an alumnus of the old Johnny Winter band of the sixties -- and they clearly possessed something of the same glow. Was this contagious?
"Yeah, some big changes have taken place. I haven't resolved all my problems," Vaughan finally explained, "but I'm working on it. I can see the problems, at least, and that takes a lot of the pressure off. I've been running from myself too long, and now I feel like I'm walking with myself."
During the course of a long conversation, there had been hints of friction in his organization, a sense of the many unpredictable pressures that had been placed on the band, but Vaughan was referring to something else entirely. There's sometimes been a feeling, yes, that Stevie Ray Vaughan was uncomfortable with his success, perhaps a bit bewildered by it -- why should fate tap him, a humble blues guitarist? -- or, at least, he was not totally prepared for its accompanying responsibilities. He was confused by the people who were drawn to him because of his success and not because of him or what is in his music.
Despite all that's happened to him during the past two years or so, Vaughan possesses not so much as the slightest aura of rock stardom. He seems very much the hard-working club player he used to be, friendly, modest, down-to- earth.
He chuckled at the memory of playing Austin clubs years ago, making a few dollars for the night and then borrowing money from the bartender to cover the bar tab -- he laughed remembering it that $1.36 was the least he'd ever earned on a paying gig. But now, the success is there just the same, and at some point, he finally began to reach an understanding of it all. He's getting used to the attention, the star-gazers and the paparazzi.
Vaughan remained vague about some of the particulars -- it was an element of privacy he seemed to be reserving for himself -- although he was quite amiable, and talked at great length about his current album and about some of his plans for the immediate future. He was very excited about the new Lonnie Mack album just about to hit the streets at the time of the interview, an album he co-produced in Austin last year, and on which he played.
He'd picked up a few important life lessons from the veteran guitarist: Mack, of course, has seen it all and done it all in his long career, and lived with success and without it, and he still plays up a storm.
"He's getting younger all the time, too," Stevie Ray chuckled. "I swear he is.' Look at him reeeal close." He smiled: "I sat down and talked to the man, and he's one of the men who will sit down and talk to you, too. And thank God for that. He's a wonderful cat. He opened my eyes to a lot of things."
While Double Trouble was touring in Australia recently, the band crossed paths with Eric Clapton, another player whose work reflects very personal, quest-like grapplings with the accouterments of success.
"He didn't tell me what to do," Vaughan said. "He told me how it'd been for him." Afterwards, Clapton and Vaughan had holed up in a hotel room for a few hours, talking about success and its pit falls. Vaughan didn't want to elaborate on exactly what was said, but it was clear that Clapton's wisdom involved star qualities Stevie had to acknowledge in order to deal with them.To close out this post, there's a great video interview with Stevie Ray Vaughan about his approach to the guitar. It's a great opportunity to see him playing up close an personal. Check it out here at http://guitar.about.com/b/2009/06/03/youtube-stevie-ray-vaughan-interview.htm.
This guitar legend had been through an intense life and his guitar playing reflects it. His intense approach to blues guitar has inspired guitarists around the globe.
Check out Mike's Guitar Talk for all the answers to your guitar questions.
Have fun and stay tuned!
Mike
Hi - a great feature and tribute to a true legend - SRV was the finest player I ever saw live and he continues to inspire - my son is 16 and already has been studying his playing techiques for 6 years, in my opinion he has come as close as anyone to his sound using just a strat, low powered tube anp and tubescreamer - please take a listen to Lenny http://youtu.be/Ybh52i7gQvA and Voodoo Chile http://youtu.be/EE6hRnFeIQ8
ReplyDeleteThanks