We Miss You, Stevie Ray Vaughn

Texas Blues/rock guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughn in six takes.

Prologue

It’s been over 35 years since Stevie Ray Vaughn boarded that helicopter in the early morning Wisconsin fog that would crash into a ski mountain and extinguish the lives of Stevie Ray and four other passengers. The night before, Vaughn played guitar in what would be his final performance at the Alpine Valley Music Theater, sharing the stage with the likes of Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, and his brother Jimmie Vaughn.

The guitar greats ended the show with a rousing blues jam that would have been talked about for years but for the tragedy that followed.

After years of drug and alcohol abuse, Stevie Ray Vaughn entered recovery in 1986 and was making good on his promise to be a serious musician. Four years later, he was dead. Oh, life can be so cruel.

Here is Stevie Ray Vaughn in six takes.

Take one: Austin, Texas

Born in 1954 in the Dallas area to sharecropping parents, Stevie Ray Vaughn got his first guitar when he was seven years old. He moved to Austin as a teenager and soon gained a following based on his uncanny feel for the blues.

By 1978, Stevie Ray joined forces with bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton to form the band Double Trouble. Led by Stevie Ray’s blues-infused “shuffling rhythm” on his Fender Stratocaster, Double Trouble became one of the most popular acts in Texas.

Take two: Jimmie Vaughn’s baby brother

Jimmie Vaughn, a founding member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, remembers a childhood filled with music that he shared with his younger brother Stevie Ray. Wikipedia:

Ever since we were little kids, my dad would say, ‘Okay, boys, go get your guitars and play something in the living room for our guests.’ And someone would always say, ‘That’s really great, boys, maybe someday you can make a record together.’ It was a long time coming.

–Jimmie Vaughn

Long time coming indeed. After a decade of fame and fortune that culminated in Stevie Ray’s sobriety, the Vaughn boys finally fulfilled promises made in the Vaughn family living room. In the summer of 1990, the brothers toured together and released the album Family Style. In what began as a celebration of the Vaughn family reunion ended tragically on a Wisconsin ski mountain.

Here is a cut titled “Tick Tock” from Family Style, video published by Stevie Ray Vaughn, with superb family photographs, via YouTube:

Take Three: Montreux and Bowie

By 1982, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble were a popular Texas band who had yet to gain a national following. That would begin to change when Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler used his influence to secure the band a spot at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. On July 17, 1982, the unknown Double Trouble took the stage and, well, we’ll let People magazine’s James McBride chronicle Stevie Ray’s ascent:

He seemed to come out of nowhere, a Zorro-type figure in a riverboat gambler’s hat, roaring…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 afterwards, everyone wanted to know who he was.

Lucky Guy

In the audience was David Bowie, who said in a 1983 interview, “He completely floored me.” That fall, the two met in New York, where Bowie invited Stevie Ray to a recording session for Bowie’s fifteenth studio album, Let’s Dance. Months later, Vaughn played guitar on six of the album’s eight tracks, including the title track and “China Girl.” Let’s Dance remains David Bowie’s best-selling album.

Take 4: Recording success with Texas Flood

Another high-profile musician taking in Stevie Ray Vaughn in Montreux was Jackson Browne, who offered the Texas bluesman time in Browne’s Los Angeles recording studio. Those sessions over Thanksgiving weekend in 1982 became the basis for Double Trouble’s debut studio album, Texas Flood.

Meanwhile, based on the recommendation of legendary producer and talent scout John Hammond, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble signed a recording contract with Epic Records, then a unit of Columbia Records. Epic released Texas Flood in June 1983, and it went double-platinum in the US and earned the band a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Blues Performance.

During a time when rock guitar was synonymous with classic rock shredders like Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughn was reintroducing the blues to a mainstream rock audience. Suddenly, the blues was cool again. And Stevie Ray Vaughn was at the controls.

Texas Flood yielded two singles, “Love Struck Baby” and “Pride and Joy.” Here is a video of the song “Pride and Joy,” recorded live in Montreux in 1982, with an astonishing guitar performance, published by Stevie Ray Vaughn via YouTube:

Take 5: Addiction

In 1960, when Stevie Ray Vaughn was six years old, he took his first drink. “That’s when I started stealing daddy’s drinks,” recalled Stevie Ray  in 1988. “That’s where it began, and I had been depending on it ever since.” At the height of Vaughn’s addiction, he drank a quart of whiskey and used one-quarter ounce of cocaine each day. Vaughn would sprinkle cocaine into his drinks to make the buzz last longer, but soon discovered that the powder would crystallize in his stomach and “make cuts inside there.”

The stomach issues and a fall off a London stage were perhaps the last straw. “I was really messed up and I had a breakdown,” he remembered. “I mean, everything fell apart. I didn’t know how to go without the stuff…I was in a losing battle.” The year was 1986.

Take 6: Recovery

In September 1986, Stevie Ray Vaughn entered the Marietta treatment facility in London, England, under the care of Dr. Victor Bloom. But getting to London would be Stevie Ray’s first challenge. “To show you how crazy this disease of alcoholism is,” he told Guitar World, “On the way to the treatment center, I borrowed $10 from my mom. I told her I was going to buy some duty-free cigarettes. Instead, I went straight to the bar and spent all the money on double shots of Crown [whiskey] ’cause I realized I had never been on a plane sober before.”

Stevie Ray Vaughn made it to London intact. During his month-long stay at Matietta, he was visited by Jackson Browne, Eric Clapton, Albert King, and other recovering musicians. All offered him hard-won words of encouragement. “These people saved my life,” Stevie Ray reflected.

Stevie Ray Vaughn added with a smile, “Man, sobering up really screws up your drinking. And for that I am really grateful.”