Stevie Ray Vaughan -- gone by never forgotten
The Mag's music writer pays tribute to a blues guitar genius.
The recent anniversary of Stevie Ray Vaughan's death served as a bittersweet reminder of the Texas guitarslinger. He came out of nowhere, single-handedly revitalizing and restyling blues in the '80s.
Ironically, his tragic demise elevated him from hero to legend.
Stevie's sound, a fervid Southern-fried mixture of Albert King and Jimi Hendrix, was simultaneously traditional and groundbreaking. The music poured out of him, a raging torrent of quicksilver chord changes and white-hot licks. In his hands, guitars howled, moaned and screamed -- truly an extension of his soul.
He laid it all out there. Equally, he could turn around in an instant, killing you softly with his nimble touch, reining in the horses for a whisper-soft ballad or a smoldering-slow blues.
Amazingly, he only released four studio albums with his band, Double Trouble -- Tommy Shannon, bass, and Chris Layton, drums. 1983's "Texas Flood" remains one of the great debut albums -- a bold statement by a confident, fully developed artist.
Its companion piece, 1984's "Couldn't Stand the Weather," was composed mostly of songs recorded for the "Flood" sessions, though they could hardly be referred to as leftovers.
These two albums contain Stevie's fundamental musical vocabulary, a lexicon of breadth and vision. Most of his best-known material comes from here, although the songs were merely blueprints for anything-goes live improvisation.
I was lucky enough to see him twice in concert, at the bookends of his short career. The first time, in 1984, he opened for Huey Lewis and the News at Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Mo. Stevie opening for Huey! He was barely known at the time but won the crowd over with a blistering performance, partially fueled by a toxic blend of cocaine and whiskey.
Stevie was famous for his socially unacceptable habits and party-'til-dawn lifestyle. 1985's "Soul to Soul" and the in-concert follow-up "Live Alive" document the tragic elements of his descent into addiction. These works find him at the end of his creative rope, and are executed with an almost palpable shrug of the shoulders.
Unlike so many before him, Stevie managed to successfully rehab, eventually making a triumphant return to the music he left behind. His final album, 1989's "In Step," has newfound fire in the belly, and Stevie sounds ready to take on the world.
The second time I saw Stevie was in the summer of 1990, a few months before he passed away, at an all-day blues festival. The bill included Robert Cray, Joe Cocker, John Lee Hooker and B.B. King, but Vaughan was easily the crowd's favorite. He was sober by then, putting in a joyful, heartfelt set of classics and new material. He sounded happy to be there, happy to be alive.
Stevie died Aug. 27, 1990, in a helicopter crash following a performance in Alpine Valley, Wis. He was 35 years old. Like Hendrix before him, he burned brightly but was gone too soon. Unlike Hendrix, Stevie ultimately conquered the demons that raged within him. Thus, his untimely death serves as a reminder of the fragility of humans, legendary or not.
There will never be another Stevie Ray Vaughan. Though a cavalcade of up-and-coming guitar heroes attempt to fill the void created by his death, no one has come close to matching the fiery intensity or the majestic beauty of his playing. For this and more, he is fondly remembered and sorely missed.
-- Geoff Harkness is the music writer for The Mag.
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