Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan had a short professional career of only seven years, but he is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of blues music and one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Vaughan began playing guitar at the age of seven, inspired by his older brother Jimmie. He dropped out of school in 1972, moved to Austin and began to gain notice, playing the club circuit. His first band was called Paul Ray and the Cobras. He joined Tommy Shannon on bass and Chris Layton on drums to form Double Trouble in 1978. In 1985, Reese Wynans joined Double Trouble on keyboard. David Bowie saw Vaughan play at a jazz festival and hired him to play blues guitar on Bowie’s album Let’s Dance. In 1984, Vaughan was the first white performer to win the W.C. Handy Blues Foundation’s Blues Entertainer of the Year Award.

In October and November of 1983, Stevie and Double Trouble opened for the Moody Blues. It was a unique pairing, but Stevie said that it was fantastic. They were playing for gigantic venues full of people who didn’t know who they were, but the audience would just rock out with them, and the band had so much fun.

Vaughan struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. It is said he drank one fifth of whiskey and did a quarter ounce of cocaine every day and his assistant struggled to get him to eat breakfast before he started another day. He collapsed while on tour in Europe in September 1986 from dehydration. A doctor told him he had about a month to live if he stayed on his course of alcohol and cocaine abuse. So he returned to the States and completed rehab and started touring again in 1986. Following his path to sobriety, he said, “I just want to thank God that I’m alive. And I want to thank all the people that loved me back to life so that I could be here with you today.”

In 1989 he recorded his final studio album, In Step, which included his only number one hit, “Crossfire.” On August 27, 1990 Vaughan and Double Trouble played at the Alpine Music Festival with Eric Clapton and his touring entourage. During the concert, Vaughan played a 15 minute jam of “Sweet Home Chicago” with Clapton, Jimmie Vaughan, Buddy Guy and Robert Cray. That night, on their way to Chicago, Vaughan and four others were killed in a helicopter crash. It is said that Vaughan took Clapton’s place on that helicopter trip.

The Sky Is Crying is the fifth and final studio album by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, compiling songs recorded throughout most of their career. Released 14 months after Vaughan’s death in 1990, the album features ten previously unreleased tracks recorded between 1984 and 1989. Only one title, “Empty Arms” (complete reprisal), appeared on any of the group’s previous albums. The tracks were compiled by Vaughan’s brother, Jimmie Vaughan, and was Vaughan’s highest charting album at number 10. The album went platinum 4 months after its release.

I have chosen the song “Little Wing” from this album, written by Jimi Hendrix, one of the artists that was Vaughan’s inspiration. Stevie Ray Vaughan recorded an instrumental version of the song in 1984, but it was not released until 1991, when it appeared on Vaughan’s posthumously released album. Vaughan’s interpretation of the song won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

Jimi Hendrix said “Little Wing” came from an idea he had originally developed while playing in Greenwich Village, when he was fronting his band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in the summer of 1966. He later explained that he was further inspired during the Experience’s performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Hendrix said:

I got the idea like, when we were in Monterey and I was just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, somethin’ like that, you know, and call it ‘Little Wing’, and then it will just fly away. Everybody’s really flyin’ and they’re really in a nice mood, like the police and everybody was really, really great out there. So I just took all these things and put them in one very, very small little matchbox, you know, into a girl and then do it. It was very simple, but I like it though.

I love Stevie Ray Vaughan, his talent is incredible and his music just speaks to my heart. When I first heard “Crossfire,” I fell in love. I love the blues to begin with, but his music is so much more than blues, it is rock/blues/jazz perfection.

Turn Me On, Dead Man