Post by Admin on May 27, 2015 14:08:53 GMT
"Texas Flood" (sometimes called "Stormin' in Texas" or "Flood Down in Texas") is a blues song recorded by Larry Davis in 1958. It is considered a blues standard and has been recorded by several artists, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, who made it part of his repertoire.
Original song:
"Texas Flood" is a slow-tempo twelve-bar blues notated in 12/8 time in the key of A♭. It was written by Davis in California in 1955 and is credited to Davis and Duke Records arranger/trumpeter Joe Scott. Nominally about a flood in Texas, Davis used it as a metaphor for his relationship problems:
"Well I'm leavin' you baby, Lord I'm goin' back home to stay (2×)
Well where there's no floods or tornadoes, baby the sun shines every day"
Although Davis later became a guitar player, for "Texas Flood" Fenton Robinson provided the distinctive guitar parts, with Davis on vocals and bass, James Booker on piano, David Dean on tenor saxophone, and an unknown drummer. The song was Davis' first single as a leader and became a regional hit.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Flood_(song)
Stevie Ray Vaughan version:
"Texas Flood"
Song by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble from the album Texas Flood
Released: June 13, 1983
Recorded: Down Town Studio, Los Angeles, November 22, 1982
Genre Texas blues, blues-rock
Length 5:21
Label Epic (Cat. no. EK 38734)
Writer Larry Davis, Joe Scott
Producer Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Richard Mullen
According to Clifford Antone, Stevie Ray Vaughan was introduced to "Texas Flood" by Angela Strehli at Antone's Austin, Texas club, where the three of them worked out the song. Vaughan drummer Chris Layton recalled that Albert King brought Larry Davis to the club several times, where Vaughan was attracted to the "intriguing guitar parts".
In 1983, Vaughan recorded "Texas Flood" for his debut album, also titled Texas Flood. He followed Davis' song, although he added several twelve-bar sections of improvised guitar soloing, which nearly doubled the length of the song and provided a showcase for his electric guitar style.
Although Vaughan performed it in the fingered key of G, he tuned his guitar one-half step lower resulting in a pitch of G♭.
Vaughan recorded several live versions of "Texas Flood" during his career, which appeared on such albums as Live Alive (1986), Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985 (released 2001), Live in Tokyo (1985, released 2006), and the videos Live at the El Mocambo (1983, released 1991) and Live from Austin, Texas (1983, released 1995).
Vaughan's version is listed as Rolling Stone's 66th Greatest Guitar Song, and Digital Dream Door's 6th Greatest Guitar Solo. A cover of Vaughan's version was featured in the music video game Guitar Hero.
Other versions:
Numerous blues and other artists have recorded "Texas Flood", including original guitarist Fenton Robinson on his album Somebody Loan Me a Dime (1974), Buddy Guy from Breaking Out (1980, released 1988), and Willie Nelson from Milk Cow Blues (2000). Albert King reworked the song as "Floodin' in California" for his album San Francisco '83, which was re-released as Crosscut Saw: Albert King in San Francisco (both 1983).
Stevie Ray Vaughn: Texas Flood, the Album:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Flood
Texas Flood is the debut album of American blues rock band Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, released on June 13, 1983 by Epic Records. The album was named after a cover featured on the album "Texas Flood", recorded by blues singer Larry Davis in 1958. Produced by the band and recording engineer Richard Mullen, it was recorded in only three days at Jackson Browne's personal recording studio in Los Angeles. Vaughan wrote six of the ten tracks on Texas Flood. Two singles were released from the album. A music video was made for "Love Struck Baby" and received regular rotation on MTV in 1983. In 1999, Texas Flood was reissued with five bonus tracks including an interview segment, studio outtake, and 3 live tracks recorded on September 23, 1983 at The Palace, Hollywood, California.
Montreux Jazz Festival:
Although popular in Texas at the time, Double Trouble failed to gain national attention. The group's luck progressed when record producer Jerry Wexler recommended them to Claude Nobs, organizer of the Montreux Jazz Festival. He insisted that 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 on July 17.
Vaughan opened 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 boos from the audience. People 's James McBride wrote:
"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 [had] 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 night, Double Trouble was booked in the lounge of the Montreux Casino, with Jackson Browne in attendance. 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 musician David Bowie, who 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.
Background
Vaughan and Double Trouble had performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1982 and caught the attention of musician Jackson Browne. He offered the band three days of free use in his Los Angeles recording studio. During Thanksgiving weekend, they accepted Browne's offer and recorded a demo. Since the first day of production largely involved setting up equipment, Texas Flood was recorded in two days. In early 1983, subsequent to the band's signing with Epic, they were given an advance of $65,000 to re-master the recordings. Vaughan's vocals were recorded at Riverside Sound in Austin, Texas. The album was mixed and mastered in New York City. The recordings were released as Texas Flood in June 1983.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Ray_Vaughan
Stephen Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990), known as Stevie Ray Vaughan, was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. In spite of a short-lived mainstream career spanning seven years, he is widely considered one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of blues music, and one of the most important figures in the revival of blues in the 1980s.
In 1961, for his seventh birthday, Vaughan received his first guitar, a toy with only three strings. Learning by ear, he diligently committed himself, following along to songs by the Nightcaps, particularly "Wine, Wine, Wine" and "Thunderbird". He listened to blues artists such as Albert King, Otis Rush, and Muddy Waters, and rock guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as jazz guitarists including Kenny Burrell. In 1963, he acquired his first electric guitar, a Gibson ES-125T, as a hand-me-down from his brother Jimmie.
In mid-March 1983, Gregg Geller, vice president of A&R at Epic Records, signed Double Trouble to the label at the recommendation of record producer John Hammond. Soon afterward, Epic financed a music video for "Love Struck Baby", which was filmed at the Cherry Tavern in New York City. Vaughan recalled: "We changed the name of the place in the video. Four years ago I got married in a club where we used to play all the time called the Rome Inn. When they closed it down, the owner gave me the sign, so in the video we put that up behind me on the stage."
With the success of Let's Dance, Bowie requested Vaughan as the featured instrumentalist for the upcoming Serious Moonlight Tour, realizing that he was an essential aspect of the album's groundbreaking success. In late April, Vaughan began rehearsals for the tour in Las Colinas, Texas. When contract renegotiations for his performance fee failed, Vaughan abandoned the tour days before its opening date, and he was replaced by Earl Slick.[65] Vaughan commented: "I couldn't gear everything on something I didn't really care a whole lot about. It was kind of risky, but I really didn't need all the headaches." Although contributing factors were widely disputed, Vaughan soon gained major publicity for quitting the tour.
On May 9, the band performed at The Bottom Line in New York City, where they opened for Bryan Adams, with Hammond, Mick Jagger, John McEnroe, Rick Nielsen, Billy Gibbons, and Johnny Winter in attendance. Brandenburg described the performance as "ungodly": "I think Stevie played every lick as loud and as hard and with as much intensity as I've ever heard him." The successful performance earned Vaughan a positive review published in the New York Post, asserting that Double Trouble outperformed Adams. "Fortunately, Bryan Adams, the Canadian rocker who is opening arena dates for Journey, doesn't headline too often", wrote Martin Porter, who claimed that after the band's performance, the stage had been "rendered to cinders by the most explosively original showmanship to grace the New York stage in some time."
The album, Texas Flood, opens with the track "Love Struck Baby", which was written for Lenny on their "love-struck day". He composed "Pride and Joy" and "I'm Cryin'" for one of his former girlfriends, Dee Davis-Oakley as they are both musically similar, but their lyrics are opposite perspectives of their prior relationship. Along with covers of Howlin' Wolf, The Isley Brothers, and Buddy Guy, the album included Vaughan's cover of Larry Davis' "Texas Flood", a song which he became strongly associated with.
While Rolling Stone editor Kurt Loder asserted that Vaughan did not possess a distinctive voice, according to AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the release was a "monumental impact".
On January 6, 1984, Double Trouble began recording their second studio album,
Couldn't Stand the Weather,
at the Power Station, with John Hammond as executive producer and engineer Richard Mullen.
As the sessions began, Vaughan's cover of Bob Geddins' "Tin Pan Alley" was recorded while audio levels were being checked. Layton remembers the performance: "... we did probably the quietest version we ever did up 'til that point. We ended it and [Hammond] said, 'That's the best that song will ever sound,' and we went, 'We haven't even got sounds, have we?' He goes, 'That doesn't matter. That's the best you'll ever do that song.' We tried it again five, six, seven times—I can't even remember. But it never quite sounded like it did that first time."
Couldn't Stand the Weather was released on May 15, 1984, and two weeks later it had rapidly outpaced the sales of Texas Flood.
On October 4, 1984, Vaughan headlined a performance at Carnegie Hall Introduced by Hammond as "one of the greatest guitar players of all time", Vaughan opened with "Scuttle Buttin'", wearing a custom-made mariachi suit he described as a "Mexican tuxedo". Double Trouble went on to perform renditions of The Isley Brothers' "Testify", The Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", "Tin Pan Alley", Elmore James' "The Sky Is Crying", and W. C. Clark's "Cold Shot", along with four original compositions including "Love Struck Baby", "Honey Bee", "Couldn't Stand the Weather", and "Rude Mood". Jimmie Vaughan commented: "We won't be limited to just the trio, although that doesn't mean we'll stop doing the trio. I'm planning on doing that too. I ain't gonna stay in one place. If I do, I'm stupid."
In late October 1984, the band toured Australia and New Zealand, which included one of their first appearances on Australian television—on Hey Hey It's Saturday—where they performed "Texas Flood", and an interview on Sounds.
In March 1985, recording for Double Trouble's third studio album, Soul to Soul, began at the Dallas Sound Lab. As the sessions progressed, Vaughan became increasingly frustrated with his own lack of inspiration. He was also allowed a relaxed pace of recording the album, which contributed to a lack of focus due to excesses in alcohol and other drugs.
Roadie Byron Barr later recalled: "The routine was to go to the studio, do dope, and play ping-pong."
During the album's production, Vaughan appeared at the Houston Astrodome on April 10, 1985, where he performed a slide guitar rendition of the US national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner"; his performance was met with booing.
On 17 and 18 July 1986, the band performed sold-out concerts at the Austin Opera House, and July 19 at the Dallas Starfest. They used recordings of these concerts to assemble the LP, which was produced by Vaughan. Shannon was backstage before the Austin concert and predicted to new manager Alex Hodges that both Vaughan and himself were "headed for a brick wall". Guitarist Denny Freeman attended the Austin performances; he called the shows a "musical mess, because they would go into these chaotic jams with no control. I didn't know what exactly was going on, but I was concerned." Both Layton and Shannon remarked that their work schedule and drugs were causing the band to lose focus. According to Wynans: "Things were getting illogical and crazy."
Vaughan later admitted that it was not one of his better efforts; he recalled: "I wasn't in very good shape when we recorded Live Alive. At the time, I didn't realize how bad a shape I was in. There were more fix-it jobs done on the album than I would have liked. Some of the work sounds like [it was] the work of half-dead people. There were some great notes that came out, but I just wasn't in control; nobody was."
Drugs and alcohol:
In 1960, when Vaughan was six years old, he began stealing his father's drinks. Drawn in by its effects, he started making his own drinks and this resulted in alcohol dependency. He explained: "That's when I first started stealing daddy's drinks. Or when my parents were gone, I'd find the bottle and make myself one. I thought it was cool...thought the kids down the street would think it was cool. That's where it began, and I had been depending on it ever since." According to the authors Joe Nick Patoski and Bill Crawford: "In the ensuing twenty-five years, he had worked his way through the Physicians' Desk Reference before finding his poisons of preference—alcohol and cocaine."
Stevie and I reached this point where we had to have the drugs and alcohol all the time. If the phone would ring in the morning and wake us up, we couldn't answer the phone before we had some alcohol.
—Tommy Shannon
While Vaughan asserted that he first experienced the effects of cocaine when a doctor prescribed him with a liquid solution of the stimulant as a nasal spray, according to Patoski and Crawford, the earliest that Vaughan is known to have ingested the drug is in 1975, while performing with the Cobras. Before that, Vaughan had briefly used other drugs such as cannabis, methamphetamine, and Quaaludes, the brand name for methaqualone. After 1975, he regularly drank whiskey and used cocaine, particularly mixing the two substances together. According to Hopkins, by the time of Double Trouble's European tour in September 1986, "his lifestyle of substance abuse had reached a peak, probably better characterized as the bottom of a deep chasm."
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 his usage of 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 observed Vaughan's substance 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."
During the final court date, which took place on April 17, 1980, Vaughan was sentenced with two years of 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 of the state. The incident later caused him to refuse maid service while staying in hotels during concert tours.
At the height of Vaughan's substance abuse, he drank a quart of whiskey and used a quarter ounce of cocaine each day. Personal assistant Tim Duckworth explained: "I would make sure he would eat breakfast instead of waking up drinking every morning, which was probably the worst thing he was doing." According to Vaughan: "It got to the point where if I'd try to say "Hi" to somebody, I would just fall apart crying. It was like solid doom."
Rolling Stones – Gloom And Doom Lyrics (Oct.11, 2012)
I had a dream last night
That I was piloting a plane
And all the passengers were drunk and insane
I crash landed in a Louisiana swamp
Shot up a horde of zombies
But I come out on top
What's it all about?
It just reflects my mood
Sitting in the dirt
Feeling kind of hurt
Aaaaall I hear is doooom and gloom
And aaaaall is darkness in my room
Through the light your face I see
Baby take a chance
Baby won't you dance with meeeeee
Lost all that treasure in an overseas war
It just goes to show you don't get what you paid for
Battle to the rich and you worry about the poor
Put my feet up on the couch
And lock all the doors
Hear a funky noise
That's the tightening of the screeeeews
I'm feeling kind of hurt
Sitting in the dirt
Aaaaall I hear is doooom and gloom
But when those drums go boom boom boom
Through the night your face I see
Baby take a chance
Baby won't you dance with meeee
Yeah
Baby won't you dance with meeee
Oh yeah
Fracking deep for...
But there's nothing in the sump
There's kids all picking
Ar the garbage dumb
I'm running out of water
So I better prime the pump
I'm trying to stay sober
But I end up drunk
We'll be eating dirt
Living on the side of the roooaaad
There's some food for thought
Kind of makes your head explode
Feeling kind of hurt
Yeah
But aaaall I hear is doooom and gloom
And aaaaall is darkness in my room
Through the night your face I see
Baby come on
Baby won't you dance with me
Yeah
Yeah
Baby won't you dance with me
I'm feeling kind of hurt
Baby won't you dance with meeeee
Yeah
Come on
Baby won't you dance with me
I'm sitting in the dirt
Baby won't you dance with me!
(mick's always been an asshole)
In September 1986, Double Trouble traveled to Denmark for a one-month tour of Europe. During the late night hours of September 28, Vaughan became ill after a performance in Ludwigshafen, Germany, suffering from near-death dehydration, for which he received medical treatment. The incident resulted in his check-in to The London Clinic under the care of Dr. Victor Bloom, who warned him that he was a month away from death. After staying in London for more than a week, he returned to the United States and entered Peachford Hospital in Atlanta, where he spent four weeks in rehabilitation; Shannon checked into rehab in Austin.
In November 1986, following his departure from rehab, Vaughan moved back into his mother's Glenfield Avenue house in Dallas, which is where he had spent much of his childhood. [(Somehow we all get placed right back into the conditions that will spin us right back into addiction dependence)]
Although Vaughan was nervous about performing after achieving sobriety, he received positive reassurance. Wynans later recalled: "Stevie was real worried about playing after he'd gotten sober...he didn't know if he had anything left to offer. Once we got back out on the road, he was very inspired and motivated."
As the tour progressed, Vaughan was longing to work on material for his next LP, but in January 1987, he filed for a divorce from Lenny, which restricted him of any projects until the proceedings were finalized. This prevented him from writing and recording songs for almost two years, but Double Trouble wrote the song "Crossfire" with Bill Carter and Ruth Ellsworth. Layton recalled: "Basically, we wrote the music, and they had to write the lyrics.
On August 6, 1987, Double Trouble appeared at the Austin Aqua Festival, where they played to one of the largest audiences of their career. According to biographer Craig Hopkins, as many as 20,000 people attended the concert. Following a month-long tour as the opening act for Robert Plant in May 1988, which included a concert at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, the band was booked for a European leg, which included 22 performances, and ended in Oulu, Finland on July 17. This would be Vaughan's last concert appearance in Europe.
After Vaughan's divorce proceedings became final, recording for Double Trouble's fourth and final studio album, In Step, began at Kiva Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, working with producer Jim Gaines and co-songwriter Doyle Bramhall. Initially, he had doubts about his musical and creative abilities after achieving sobriety, but he gained confidence as the sessions progressed. Shannon later recalled: "In Step was, for him, a big growing experience. In my opinion, it's our best studio album, and I think he felt that way, too." Bramhall, who had also entered rehab, wrote songs with Vaughan about addiction and redemption. According to Vaughan, the album was titled In Step because "I'm finally in step with life, in step with myself, in step with my music." The album's liner notes include the quote "Thank God the elevator's broken," a reference to the twelve-step program proposed by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
After the In Step recording sessions moved to Los Angeles, Vaughan added horn players Joe Sublett and Darrell Leonard, who played saxophone and trumpet respectively on both "Crossfire" and "Love Me Darlin'". Shortly before the album's production was complete, Vaughan and Double Trouble appeared at a presidential inaugural party in Washington, D.C. for George H. W. Bush.
"The album closes with the brow-soothing swoon of 'Riviera Paradise,' a slow, lengthy guitar and piano workout that proves just why Vaughan is to the guitar what Nureyev is to ballet." According to music journalist Robert Christgau, Vaughan was "writing blues for AA...he escapes the blues undamaged for the first time in his career." In October 1989, the Boca Raton News described Vaughan's guitar solos as "determined, clear-headed and downright stinging" and his lyrics as "tension-filled allegories".
On August 27, 1990, Vaughan had just performed with Eric Clapton at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin. All of the musicians boarded four helicopters bound for Chicago, which were waiting on a nearby golf course. According to a witness, there was haze and fog with patches of low clouds. Despite the conditions, the pilots were instructed to fly over a 1000-foot ski hill. Vaughan, along with three members
of Eric Clapton's entourage (agent Bobby Brooks, bodyguard Nigel Browne, and assistant tour manager Colin Smythe), boarded the
third of the four helicopters—a Bell 206B Jet Ranger—flying to Meigs Field.
At about 12:50 am (CDT), the helicopter departed from an elevation of about 850 feet, veered to the left and crashed into the hill, approximately fifty feet from the summit. All on board, including the pilot, Jeff Brown, were killed instantly. In Clapton: The Autobiography, Clapton explains that, contrary to rumors, his seat was not given to Vaughan but as indicated above, three members of Clapton's entourage were on board with Vaughan at the time of the crash.
At 4:30 am, Civil Air Patrol was notified of the accident, eventually locating the crash site almost three hours later.
Both Clapton and Jimmie Vaughan were asked to identify the bodies; a Coptic cross necklace, worn by Vaughan, was given to Jimmie Vaughan. The Walworth County coroner conducted an autopsy and found that Vaughan suffered from multiple internal and skull injuries. The cause of death was officially stated as "exsanguination due to transverse laceration of the aorta" and multiple depressed skull fractures. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a veteran pilot for Alpine Valley suspected that Brown attempted to fly around the ski hill, but misjudged the location. Clapton issued a statement the next day, saying that the victims "were my companions, my associates and my friends. This is a tragic loss of some very special people. I will miss all of them very much."
Vaughan's memorial was held on August 30, 1990, at Laurel Land Cemetery in Dallas, where he was buried next to his father, and was preceded by a private chapel service for close friends and family. Reverend Barry Bailey of the United Methodist Church in Fort Worth, who was Vaughan's AA sponsor, opened the service with personal thoughts: "We're here to thank God for this man's life. He was a genius, a superstar, a musician's musician. He captured the hearts of thousands and thousands of people. I am thankful for the impact of this man's influence on thousands of people in getting his own life together in the name of God." Kim Wilson, Jeff Healey, David Bowie, Charlie Sexton, ZZ Top, Colin James, and Buddy Guy attended the event. Stevie Wonder, Jackson Browne, and Bonnie Raitt sang "Amazing Grace" at the event. Nile Rodgers gave a eulogy, while a member of the Nightcrawlers read chapters five and eleven from The Big Book, the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1995, the Vaughan family received an undisclosed settlement for wrongful death.
Vaughan's music took root in blues, rock, and jazz. He was influenced by the work of artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert Collins, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Guitar Slim, Chuck Berry, and Muddy Waters. According to nightclub owner Clifford Antone, who opened Antone's in 1975, Vaughan jammed with Albert King at Antone's in July 1977 and almost "scared him to death", saying that "it was the best I've ever saw Albert or the best I ever saw Stevie". He was also influenced by jazz guitarists like Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and George Benson. While Albert King had a substantial influence on Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix was Vaughan's greatest inspiration. Vaughan declared: "I love Hendrix for so many reasons. He was so much more than just a blues guitarist–he played damn well any kind of guitar he wanted. In fact I'm not sure if he even played the guitar–he played music."
Vaughan owed his guitar technique in large part to Lonnie Mack, who Vaughan observed in live performance as "ahead of his time". In 1987, Vaughan listed Mack first among the guitarists he listened to, both as a youngster and as an adult. Mack recalled his first meeting with Vaughan in 1978: "We was in Texas looking for pickers, and we went out to see the Thunderbirds. Jimmie was saying, 'Man, you gotta hear my little brother. He plays all your [songs].' He was playing a little place called the Rome Inn, and we went over there and checked him out. As it would be, when I walked in the door, he was playing 'Wham!' And I said, 'Dadgum.' He was playing it right. I'd been playing it wrong for a long time and needed to go back and listen to my original record. That was in '78, I believe." Vaughan owed part of his enduring style—especially his use of tremolo picking and vibrato—to Mack. He acknowledged that Mack taught him to "play guitar from the heart". Vaughan's relationship with another Texas blues legend, Johnny Winter, was a little more complex. Although they met several times, and often played sessions with the same musicians or even performed the same material, as in the case of Boot Hill, Vaughan always refrained from acknowledging Winter in any form. In his biography, "Raisin' Cain", Winter says that he was unnerved after reading Vaughan stating in an interview that he never met or knew Johnny Winter. "We even played together over at Tommy Shannon's house one time." Vaughan settled the issue in 1988 on the occasion of a Blues Festival in Europe where both he and Winter were on the bill, explaining that he has been misquoted and that "Every musician in Texas knows Johnny and has learned something from him". Asked to compare their playing styles in an interview in 2010, Winter admitted that "mine's a little bit rawer, I think."
Discography
Main article: Stevie Ray Vaughan discography
Texas Flood (1983)
Couldn't Stand the Weather (1984)
Soul to Soul (1985)
In Step (1989)
Family Style (with Jimmie Vaughan) (1990), produced by Nile Rodgers
The Sky Is Crying (1991)