Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Early life
Stephen Ray Vaughan was born on October 3, 1954 at Methodist Hospital in Dallas, Texas to Jim and Martha Vaughan. His brother, Jimmie Vaughan, is three years older. At age 7, Vaughan acquired his first guitar, a Sears toy guitar with only three strings. Among the first songs that he learned to play were hits by The Nightcaps, a Texas garage rock band that had a national hit in 1962 with “Wine, Wine, Wine.” In 1963, Vaughan got his first electric guitar, a hand-me-down from his brother.
Early career
Jimmie Vaughan’s friend, Doyle Bramhall, heard Stevie Ray Vaughan playing a song called “Jeff’s Boogie” by The Yardbirds, and was impressed. Bramhall would help Vaughan singing and songwriting development. In 1967, Vaughan first band, The Chantones, played an outdoor show at Robert E. Lee Park in Dallas and began to advance beyond school dances and private parties. During the summer of 1970, after falling into a barrel of grease while working for a fast food restaurant, Vaughan quit his job, formed his first relatively long-lasting band, Blackbird, and devoted his working life to music.
In 1971, Vaughan made his first studio recording, sitting in with a high school band called A Cast of Thousands for a compilation album named A New Hi. The two songs that were on the album showcased Vaughan’s early burgeoning talent. During Christmas vacation, he dropped out of high school and moved to Austin, Texas with Blackbird. Their home base was a nightclub on the outskirts of town called the Soap Creek Saloon. In late 1972, he joined a rock band called Krackerjack, but quit a few months later when the lead singer decided that the band should wear theatrical makeup on stage.
In March 1973, Marc Benno added Vaughan to his band the Nightcrawlers, which was recording an album in Hollywood for A&M Records. The recording featured Doyle Bramhall on the drums, along with the beginning of a songwriting partnership with Vaughan. The album was not released, however, and the band traveled back to Texas. A year later, he found a battered 1963 Fender Stratocaster at a music store in Austin. It would remain as his favorite guitar for the rest of his life.
In late December 1974, Vaughan joined a popular Austin band Paul Ray & the Cobras, averaging approximately five shows a week. The Cobras released a record and won “Band of the Year” in an Austin music poll. Three years later, Vaughan left the Cobras and formed Triple Threat Revue with vocalist Lou Ann Barton, W. C. Clark on bass guitar, Mike Kindred on keyboards, and Fredde “Pharoah” Walden on drums. Later, Jackie Newhouse replaced W. C. Clark on bass and Chris Layton replaced Walden on drums. Vaughan and Lou Ann renamed the band Double Trouble, though Barton left in 1980 to sing for Roomful of Blues. On December 23, 1979, Vaughan and Lenora “Lenny” Bailey were married between sets at the Rome Inn nightclub in Austin.
Double Trouble
Tommy Shannon, the former bassist in Krackerjack, replaced Jackie Newhouse in 1981. In July, the band played a music festival in Manor, Texas and a videotape of the performance was given to Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts. Double Trouble then played a private party for The Rolling Stones at New York’s Danceteria nightclub. On July 17, 1982, Vaughan and Double Trouble played the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the first unsigned act to perform at the event. A few in the audience started booing the loud band throughout their performance since the event was predominately acoustical music. Vaughan later met David Bowie and jammed with Jackson Browne after the show, during an after party which lasted for hours into the morning.
Bowie asked Vaughan to play lead guitar on his new album Let’s Dance. The album became Bowie’s best-selling album of his career. Bowie also invited Vaughan to go on his Serious Moonlight Tour. During the rehearsal period, Vaughan decided to attend the funeral of Muddy Waters and, thus, could not be found for 5 days. When David Bowie expressed to Stevie that he wanted him to come down a flight of stairs with a liitle dance routine while playing his guitar, Stevie realized that this was not his gig. He was not a “pop” artist and refused to rehearse dance numbers like one, soon after he quit the tour with David Bowie, and went back to focus on his music and career with Double Trouble.
Browne offered Vaughan time in his recording studio in Los Angeles free of charge, and the band accepted the offer in November 1982. In the spring of the following year, music producer John Hammond heard a tape of the band’s Montreux performance, and got the band a recording contract with Epic Records. Hammond is credited with discovering Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, among others. On June 13, 1983, the recordings in Browne’s studio morphed into Texas Flood, Vaughan and Double Trouble’s debut album, and was released to glowing reviews, selling over half