Stevie Ray Vaughan - printer friendly version

Stephen ("Stevie") Ray Vaughan, born in Dallas, Texas (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990), was an American electric-blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Early Days

After playing in a series of bands,...[Stevie Ray] Vaughan formed the blues rock combo Double Trouble with drummer Chris Layton and bassist Jackie Newhouse in the late 1970s. A popular local draw, Vaughan soon attracted attention from David Bowie and Jackson Browne, and he played on albums with both. Bowie first caught Vaughan at the Montreux Jazz Festival where initially a few members of the audience who .disliked his hard blues sound booed Vaughan, though most of the crowd cheered him as can be witnessed in the Live at Montreux DVD. Bowie featured Vaughan on his Let's Dance album in the songs Let's Dance and China Girl.

Style

Stevie Ray Vaughan's blues playing style was strongly influenced by Albert King who dubbed himself Stevie's "Godfather." Stevie had a distinct sound of his own which was partly based on using heavy thirteen-gauge strings. Vaughan's sound and playing style, which often features simultaneous lead and rhythm parts, also draws frequent comparisons to that of Jimi Hendrix; Vaughan covered several Hendrix tunes on his studio albums and in performance.

Rise & Fall

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble's debut album released in 1983. The critically acclaimed Texas Flood (produced by John Hammond) featured the top-20 hit Pride and Joy and sold well in both blues and rock circles. Follow up albums, Couldn't Stand the Weather (1984) and Soul to Soul (1985), saw almost equal success as the debut album. Drug addiction and alcoholism took a toll on Vaughan in the mid-1980s, and he collapsed while on tour in 1986. He checked into rehab in Georgia later that year. He managed to recover from his addictions and became a teetotaler. Following his return, Vaughan recorded In Step (1989), another critically acclaimed album that won a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Blues Record.

Vaughan's comeback was cut short when, in the early morning of August 27, 1990, he died in a helicopter crash near East Troy, Wisconsin following a concert at the Alpine Valley Music Theater where earlier in the evening he appeared with Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and his older brother Jimmie Vaughan. It was Clapton who gave his seat on the helicopter to Stevie.

Stevie Ray Vaughan is interred in the Laurel Land Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas.

Tidbits

A duet album, Family Style, with his brother, Jimmie Vaughan (also a noted blues-rock guitarist and former member of The Fabulous Thunderbirds) was released in September 1990 after Stevie's death and was a popular hit. 1991's The Sky is Crying was the first of several posthumous Vaughan releases with chart success. Jimmie Vaughan later co-wrote and recorded a song in tribute to his brother and other late blues guitarists, entitled Six Strings Down. In 1991, Texas governor Ann Richards proclaimed October 3, Vaughan's birthday, to be "Stevie Ray Vaughan Day." This day is often celebrated by eating cotton candy, a favorite food of Stevie's.

In 1994, the Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial Statue was erected at Auditorium Shores on Town Lake in Austin, Texas.

In 2004, Fender released the Stevie Ray Vaughan Tribute Model "Number One" Stratocaster Guitar, a direct replica of Stevie Ray Vaughan's primary guitar, also called "First Wife." Constructed of a 1962 body and a 1962 neck, it possessed a deep, dark growl of a tone that was immediately identifiable. Even though it used all "stock" Fender Strat parts, about the only "original equipment" parts it possessed by 1990 were the body and the pickups. Over the years, Stevie and Rene Martinez, his guitar tech, replaced the pick guard, vibrato unit, saddles and neck. The neck was damaged during a stage accident, and a spare was used from another of Stevie's Stratocasters. After he died, the original neck was put back on and the guitar was given to his brother.[1]