Thoughts and opinions on Stevie Ray Vaughan

[Mr. Jelly]

Originally Posted by TJE

This doesn’t answer any questions...but SRV was I thought most influenced by Albert King!🤔

Yes, yes, yes. The first time I heard Stevie on the radio, I didn't know who he was, I said out loud that the guy is just ripping off Albert King. And he admittedly was. It was hard for me to give Stevie the the credit others were giving him knowing what he was doing. Though there is nothing wrong in what he was doing. It's one of those problems when a person has knowledge of where things came from or evolved from.

[godfreydaniel]

I’m a big fan of both Stevie and Jimmy. I remember exactly where I was when I first heard The Fabulous Thunderbirds first album. (The Virginian in Charlottesville VA.)

[Gitfiddlemann]

...."When he played that night, he had all of us standing mere with our jaws dropped. I mean, Robert Cray and Jimmie Vaughan and Buddy Guy were just watching in awe. There was no one better than him on this planet. Really unbelievable."....
- Eric Clapton on Stevie Ray Vaughan.

[Denny B]

"I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed."

- B.B. King

[blue]

Originally Posted by godfreydaniel

Not sure why this guy (Jimmie D. Lane) came up. Sounds like he’s doing his best to sound like SRV.

Me neither! Hella weird! I copied directly from the URL of a Buddy Guy/SRV video, and this is what showed up!

Here's what I meant to post. SRV "playing with a band" like his big brother does most of the time. I actually listen to way more Jimmie Vaughan. I lke a band context more than a trio.

They looked like they were having fun

[Mr. Jelly]

I worked with a guy that was SRV's roadie in the early days. He said you'd pull up in front of his house and he'd be sitting on the front porch with a long cord that went to an amp inside the house. And the amp would be turned up to 10. I know with SRV's cousin also but that's a whole different story.

[Bikewer]

I remember walking in to a local record store back then, and they had this really intense blues playing on the store turntable (remember when that was common?)

“Who’s that?” My wife and I asked in unison....

“Stevie Ray Vaughn, Texas Flood.”

“We’ll take one....”

To this day, I see his influence all over the place. They just interviewed a blues player on the CBS Sunday Morning show, and the influence was certainly there...

I also remember going to a Fleetwood Mac concert when they’d replaced Buckingham with those two lads, and one had been severely bitten by the Vaughn bug....Even had the hat.

[airborne1]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

Yes, yes, yes. The first time I heard Stevie on the radio, I didn't know who he was, I said out loud that the guy is just ripping off Albert King. And he admittedly was. It was hard for me to give Stevie the the credit others were giving him knowing what he was doing. Though there is nothing wrong in what he was doing. It's one of those problems when a person has knowledge of where things came from or evolved from.

Couldn’t that possibly be said about any performer, in any genre? I wish I could rip someone off as well SRV.

[Mr. Jelly]

Originally Posted by airborne1

Couldn’t that possibly be said about any performer, in any genre? I wish I could rip someone off as well SRV.

You are correct, to a point. Where that point is is up to the individual. There are twelve notes so everyone uses them and learned to use them from others. With most artist you don't immediately know where they learned it from. When David Bowie had a radio hit and I heard Albert King licks it just didn't sit right with me. That's all I am saying. Later I learned it's some guy named SRV. I admit he over came my initial prejudice against him but to me he was like allot of early seventies bands and players. They didn't bring anything new or novel. But they were entertaining.

[Kevin G String]

Orange drum kits do look amazing, as per that Mary Had A Little Lamb video. If I was a drummer I would go for orange too.

I wonder if these people that develop styles as they do just play so much that they begin to play notes that sound different to what they're used to hearing just to hear something new. Although there are some amazing songs and instrumentals too which are completely diatonic, sometimes it's nice to hear something which shouldn't fit but kind of does. The Beatles would play the second degree chord from a major scale as a major. And then there is putting a diminished chord between two other chords, F#dim between F maj and G maj. What about chromaticism?

I suppose a jazzer could theorise to the endth degree and tell you that there is an altered scale for that "wrong" note, which would make it correct in that context. I heard someone say you can't know all of theory, especially once you get into the realms of jazz. I heard one jazzer recently, can't remember who it was, say: when you open one door there are another 10,000 doors in front of you to choose from. I wouldn't know, I'm not a jazzer. But I wonder how many of these amazing players, who took their own path, actually knew what they were doing from a theoretical perspective. You've only got to look at/listen to some of those psychedelic jams from the sixties and seventies. I've heard some call them atonal. A fellow guitarist once told me that EVH had no clue about theory, he just played what sounded good to him. Not sure if it's true, but I understand he was unconventional in his time.

I tend to think intuition plays a big part too. And trusting that. We all have what it takes to be who and what we want to be, some of us trust in that more than others. Some of us reject insight the instant it shows up. We are all very much products of our conditioning.

If you lose yourself in your art, whatever that is, you have the possibility of entering a realm which you just didn't know existed. So many of us do what we do as a means to an end when every note, phrase, lick, riff, chord, brush stroke, colour, texture can be an end in and of itself. Please yourself, your true self. ;o) Who's watching the watcher?