NZGuitars.com

I love the Texas Flood..the song. The bass is great too.

The one thing that really sticks in my memory is back in about 88 he was on RWP with Karen, I think, and he was ripped up to the eyeballs. Near gone.

I went and seen The Allstars. I think thats what they were called at the Gluepot. Anyway they had a special guest come on stage SRV. What a treat. Another one of their gigs (I was not at "bummer) their guest was Wilco Jonston ex Dr Feelgood.

Those were the days...yep hmm

BG, for the record I'm way more of a Jimmie Vaughan fan too (his playing with the Fabulous Thunderbirds prior to 1986 anyway.) But I miss Stevie for sure . . . I saw him play three times (and one time was just SCARY, REAL BLUES guitar time!) and talked with him a couple of times too. After also meeting Jimmie in '91 I can tell you which one you'd rather have a smoke outside the pub with, and it wouldn't be Jimmie - he was one of the most arrogant blues guys I've ever met. A total plonker.

Hot Grits, I don't think anyone can really say because Family Style sucked (and, boy howdy, did it EVER!) that sobriety didn't suit Stevie. That was just a throwaway 'fun' album that only took on bigger proportions when he died... all it proves is that (producer) Nile Rogers should stay well away from blues.

I'm sure Stevie could have gone in a number of different directions with his music - the guy could play just about anything - and his untimely death robbed us all of the opportunity of finding out.

I prefer to only to speak of good stuff and remember in this way, travelin' on...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REZ55oM7HfI[/youtube]

crowbgood1 wrote:I love the Texas Flood..the song. The bass is great too.

Yeah the bass always hooks me too, if ever I get round to brushing up on my bass skills I'll be throwing that disc on.

calling card wrote:I prefer to only to speak of good stuff and remember in this way, travelin' on...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REZ55oM7HfI[/youtube]

That's awesome! I knew he had a Kiwi girlfriend, but I've never seen that before.

My line of thinking on SRV is that he was better live in the early days than on record (El Mocambo DVD and In The Beginning CD kills Texas Flood for example). Once he got sober, the situation was reversed. The songs he wrote with Doyle Bramhall on In Step and Brothers were streets ahead of his earlier stuff (eg Crossfire, Tightrope, Long Way from Home), the soloing amazing too, but some of the bootlegs around that time just don't do it for me.

The thing that amazes me about SRV is that he was blues, but every song had a new, unique groove.

Never got to see him live unfortunately.

Hot_Grits wrote:

otisredding wrote:I think the saddest thing about this is that Stevie's best work was probably in front of him, after he had recently cleaned up . . .

There have been some truly horrible SRV wannabes since his passing but none of that is Stevie's fault.

The man had SOUL and tone in buckets, "... he played every note like he was breaking out of jail . . ", even if the same couldn't be said for his dress sense.

You think? -in step and the Vaughan bros album suggested to me he'd lost something in sobriety. Not so much the playing but the tones, the songs and production. Of those three, one is much harder to fix than the other two.

I agree with otisredding - In Step was his most consistent album (not his greatest blues album, but consistently good and most appealing to a wide audience) and Riviera Paradise his highest point IMHO. I've seen live footage of him playing in that later sober period that is also pretty amazing - his playing was still soulful but joyful too... it's sad we never got to see what he would have done next. I always thought of family style as just the brothers vaughan mucking around in the studio so never read too much into it.

I remember the day well. I shed a tear (and i'm not the crying type).

+1 on his fashion sense btw...blue silk kimono (shudder!)...might have been a bit of getting back at Dad though - I remember him saying in an interview once that he used to dress up like his favourite bluesmen when he played the guitar and his father would smash him across the face and tell him to "take those f***in' nigger clothes off!"...Sounds like things were tough in the Vaughan household.

Haha! -imagine the day he came home with that peacock tattoo...

I agree that Stevie could have gone on to make some amazing music. But for me 'In Step' was weak on a few levels: most of the tones (multiple amp confusion), the post-12 step lyrics, the songs, that drum sound...

It's interesting: when a great talent dies, we do tend to think that they would have scaled new heights if they lived to record and perform again, whether it's jimi or randy or stevie or whomever. But going on the evidence of careers of great players that don't die there really is no guarantee that they won't go on to stink up the place. I'm not saying that would have happened with Stevie, but we'll never know...

That's one hell of a fancy garden gnome.

Hey, isn't that Antony?

pretty sure it's not BG

Darren did you see SRV here with an impromptu horn section?

foal30 wrote:pretty sure it's not BG

I wouldn't be seen dead in that scarf, completely the wrong colour....

Can anyone fine a pic of Stevie without a hat? Was he bald?