Stevie Ray Vaughan was unknown when he premiered on the 1982 Montreux Jazz Competition. Born and bred in Dallas, he’d performed the Texas bar circuit as sideman in Blackbird, the Nightcrawlers, Cobras, and Triple Risk Revue earlier than changing into an area phenom as frontman of Double Hassle.

Shaped with bassist Jackie Newhouse and drummer Chris Layton in 1979, the definitive Double Hassle lineup was established when bassist Tommy Shannon joined in ’81. Producer Jerry Wexler, who’d coined the time period “Rhythm & Blues” in 1949, had a nostril for expertise (Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin), and sniffed greatness when he caught the trio in Austin; he really helpful SRV to Montreux promoter Claude Nobs, saying he’d be supreme for his or her blues evening. Concurrently, SRV supervisor Chesley Millikin despatched a Double Hassle reside video to Mick Jagger, who lamented there have been no competent bluesmen on the up to date scene.

Vaughan’s notoriety unfold amongst insiders when cognoscenti praised him following a Stones-arranged efficiency at NYC’s Danceteria. Although he acquired combined reactions at Montreux (boos from traditionalist attendees are irrefutable on the July 17 recording) SRV made two serendipitous connections – David Bowie and Jackson Browne.

Enamored with traditional R&B, Bowie employed Vaughan in December ’82 to lend his Texas-blues experience to Let’s Dance as he made a metamorphosis from glam and post-disco incarnations to trendy pop icon. SRV’s taking part in on the title observe and “Legal World” (touted as his best solo on the album) offered grit that contributed to its novelty and success. It stays Bowie’s greatest vendor. Browne heard Vaughan within the Montreux On line casino lounge, and, after jamming into the morning, supplied him free time at his Down City Studio, in L.A.

“Texas Flood” is definitive SRV – a simmering slow-blues lament that’s as reside because it will get. Recorded in a single take because the clock ran out on the ultimate day, it turned his private anthem and theme track. The opening recollects Fenton Robinson’s chordal intro, however given the SRV therapy with reinterpreted riffs in measures 1-2 resulting in incandescent double-timed strains over the turnaround in 3-4. Word the distinctive G-Ab-G mordent embellishing determine that’s an SRV identifier. In his solo strains of 5-8, a powerful Albert King affect is felt within the strangled string bends, snapped string assault, singing vibrato, and terse rhythmic phrasing.

The music that turned Texas Flood was recorded over three days through the studio’s Thanksgiving vacation, November 22-24. Day one was principally spent establishing, with minimal recording. Classes commenced the next day; Browne’s engineer, Greg Ladanyi, was disinterested and left engineering duties to Stevie’s cohort, co-producer/engineer Richard Mullen. SRV performed by two ’64 Fender Vibroverb 1×15 combos and Browne’s 150-watt Dumbleland Particular. Mullen used two Shure SM57 mics – one for a Vibroverb’s speaker, one other for the Dumble 4×12 cupboard with EVs. His solely impact was an Ibanez Tube Screamer. Stevie used three Stratocasters strung with heavy strings (.013-.058) and tuned down a half step. For many tracks, he favored “Quantity One” with its sunburst ’59 physique and ’62 rosewood-board slab neck (bearing Dunlop 6150 jumbo frets) and a left-handed vibrato. He purchased the guitar within the mid ’70s at Ray Hennig’s Coronary heart of Texas Music and thought of it inferior. Augmenting it was “Lenny,” a maple-board ’65 stripped to pure wooden that he’d bought at a pawn store for $350 in 1980, and “Yellow,” a refinished rosewood-board ’59 given to him by Charley’s Guitar Store (Dallas) proprietor Charley Wirz in ’81. Lenny was heard on its namesake tune and seen throughout Stevie’s Dwell at El Mocambo efficiency. Yellow, which was nearly a semi-hollow after having been routed to accommodate 4 humbuckers, was used for “Inform Me” and “Collins Shuffle” (at Montreux). Wirz put in a Strat neck pickup that accentuated its quasi-acoustic qualities.

Every observe was primarily a reside efficiency; musicians confronted one another in a circle and solely two overdubs (for string breakage) had been required. The impassioned, no-frills demo documenting the work of a real blues grasp impressed John Hammond, who’d found Benny Goodman, Charlie Christian, Billie Vacation, Depend Basie, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. He took the recording to Greg Geller at Epic, who shrewdly selected to launch it, and organize a file contract. The ten tracks, with minor additions at Austin’s Riverside Sound, had been tweaked, remixed, and remastered at Media Sound and CBS in NYC.

“Love Struck Child” was a super album opener. Stevie’s catchy altered-blues composition was devoted to future spouse, Lenora, and harkens to his Triple Risk days. The upbeat quantity is distinguished by a straight-four rock-and-roll really feel, repurposed I-IV-V adjustments in A, and quite a few Chuck Berry and T-Bone Walker jump-blues and rockabilly mannerisms, distinguished double-stop riffs, boogie comping, bent triads, and inserted jazz passing chords together with chromatically ascending 6/9 chords within the solo. SRV’s first single, it was backed with “Impolite Temper.”

“Delight and Pleasure” was the second single. A 12-bar Texas-blues shuffle with a trademark comping riff, it reconciled stride-piano-inspired boogie-woogie bass strains with guitar-centric open-chord figures, country-blues strumming textures and groove-conscious soloing. Allusions to Johnny Acey’s ’62 track, “I Go Into Orbit” (together with title lyric) are unmistakable, as are his turnaround figures that evoke Freddie King’s “Hideaway.” Each exemplify the residing blues custom of constructing on and transferring previous historic precedent. In SRV’s fingers, Acey’s harmonica-driven conventional blues quantity organically turned a heavier blues-rock guitar automobile.

“Impolite Temper,” Vaughan’s supercharged instrumental boogie, applies many parts heard in different E-blues items, however delivers them at most tempo with relentless pressure and agility. This excerpt is exemplary; examine the hints of rockabilly within the boogie-woogie bass strains (accompanied by his signature muted-string hits), notably in measures 3-6. Additionally notable is the lengthy string of eighth notes and its major-pentatonic melody in 9-12; these convey a swinging country-guitar perspective. The repeated-note fanfare in 7-8 is an attention-getting system of many guitar instrumentals, heard in B.B. King’s “Simply Like a Lady” and Chuck Berry’s “Guitar Boogie.”

“Texas Flood” could effectively have been the tune that prompted Bowie to recruit SRV. Its blues energy rivals Albert King’s grittiest moments for sheer ferocity and conviction – prime priorities within the blues world. The sluggish 12/8 blues in G was a canopy of Larry Davis’ 1955 model with guitarist Fenton Robinson. SRV quoted Robinson’s guitar intro earlier than remodeling the usual into his personal assertion, replete with excruciatingly soulful King licks. In accordance with Clifford Antone, “Texas Flood” got here to Stevie through Angela Strehli, queen of the Austin blues scene and then-manager of Antone’s. He was initially intrigued by Robinson’s elements, realized the track with Strehli (at Antone’s), jammed on it with King, and wound up proudly owning it. It has turn out to be synonymous together with his slow-blues model and has loved many reprises in his catalog.

“Inform Me” discovered Stevie reinterpreting Willie Dixon’s Howlin’ Wolf traditional. Choosing a distinct sound on the observe, he selected Yellow for the medium-tempo shuffle in C that bears reverential allusions to Hubert Sumlin, notably within the chromatic turnaround lick and Ab9-G9 cadence (from the unique). Notable are Stevie’s rhythm embellishments, backward-raked strums, staccato really feel, and barely overdriven tone. Its swinging solo brings Chicago-inspired triplet phrasing, serpentine blues-scale melodies, exaggerated vibrato, and tremolo-picked bent chords.

“Testify” is a resurrected soul quantity from the Isley Brothers, on which a pre-Expertise Jimi Hendrix performed guitar elements. It epitomized mid-’60s R&B with references to gospel “testifying” and acknowledgement of Ray Charles, James Brown, Stevie Marvel, Jackie Wilson, and the Beatles within the lyrics, although SRV rendered it as an instrumental vamping groove in E. His model incorporates unmistakable nods to Jimi’s funky lead/rhythm riff model, with emphasis on the prevalent E7#9, and his energetic blues-based soloing, but additionally stands as considered one of Stevie’s best prolonged improvisations.

“Impolite Temper” was Vaughan’s virtuoso showcase. Named for Joe Gracey’s Impolite Information label, it had been in his set for years and was initially recorded in ’79. Eternally related, the quick (264-plus bpm) shuffle with aggressive multi-textured guitar work served as a dynamic nearer to his famed 1984 Carnegie Corridor live performance. The ear-catching instrumental in E juxtaposed contrapuntal riffing and percussive string scrapes, like a hyperactive “Delight and Pleasure,” with white-knuckle lead licks. Tantamount to blues shredding, it presaged “Scuttle Buttin’” on the subsequent album. The emblematic chording and single-note runs recommend its origin as a supercharged tackle Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Hopkins’ Sky Hop”and certainly Stevie overtly admitted as a lot in a clinic clip. The piece was Grammy-nominated for Greatest Rock Instrumental Efficiency in ’84 and used as background within the trailer for Midnight Run.

“Lenny” epitomized the gentler, introspective (however no much less soulful) facet of Vaughan’s musical persona. Extra a meditation than typical slow-dance instrumental, it revolves round his distinctive utilization of jazz sonorities and single-note responses exemplified in measures 1-4, the place he performs colourful enriched voicings of E main and A significant, reinterpreting the I-IV of the blues as a vamp in a jazz vein. In 9-15, he topics major-6 chords to unpredictable modulating key facilities. The development – B-D-G-Bb, all in parallel sixth chords, strikes by the identical uncommon thirds-related sequence as John Coltrane’s “Large Steps,” although SRV was hardly a bebop maven. Coincidence or not?

“Mary Had a Little Lamb” was Vaughan’s undisguised homage to Buddy Man and the influential ’68 album A Man and the Blues. The R&B-inflected/altered-blues quantity in E performed off an identical mid-tempo groove, alternating low-register riffs and chord figures (emulating horn elements), and reaffirmed Man’s playful nursery-rhyme story line. For a lot of (together with Hendrix and Clapton), Man was the prototype Strat hero and preeminent second-generation Chicago-blues exponent, who exerted a strong impact on blues-rock musicians. SRV remained true to the unique model, preserving its call-and-response riffs and re-casting a lot of Man’s soloing concepts.

“Soiled Pool” was composed by SRV and Doyle Bramhall, a Nightcrawlers bandmate who’d identified Vaughan since he was 12. The slinking, sluggish blues in Dm discovered Stevie cultivating his glassy Strat tone and judiciously balancing tremolo-picked chord figures (a theme within the piece) and florid single-note runs. He maintained combined textures all through, mixing sonorities with improvised melodic gildings across the vocals, and exploited tremoloed triads and partials in his solo.

“I’m Cryin’” personified the unrequited-love angle of the blues and insinuated a slower model of “Delight and Pleasure” in SRV’s stockpile. Additionally rooted in E, it flaunted related open-chord riffs, comping patterns, improvisations, and turnaround figures. Hardly a retread, it had been a staple in Vaughan’s set for years and an earlier model had even been recorded with Triple Risk. The observe sported the one overdubbed vocal efficiency, recorded at Media Sound.

“Lenny” closed Texas Flood on a decisive-but-mellow tone. The haunting instrumental blended blues, jazz, soul and ethereal mood-music tangents. Carried out on Lenny, it was devoted to then-wife, Lenora, who’d scraped collectively funds for this birthday current and to whom it was composed in gratitude.

Distinguished by his crystalline clear Strat tone, it evoked a panoply of influences – Hendrix, Curtis Mayfield, Pops Staples, Steve Cropper, and even soul-jazz glimmers of position mannequin Kenny Burrell. Stevie diversified chord and single-note textures within the exposition; mixing pentatonic melody and R&B double stops with colourful prolonged chords and unusual shifting-major-6 sonorities. Furthermore, his vocalesque whammy-bar vibrato imparted an atmospheric quasi-Hawaiian impact at key factors within the biking development. His single-note guitar improvisations cut up the distinction between jazz sophistication and conventional pentatonic blues melody over the hypnotic vamping E-A adjustments.

Launched on June 13, 1983 – 4 months after Let’s Dance – Texas Flood launched a daring new participant whose genuine influences had been inescapable however not cloying. Within the period of new-wave synthesizer domination, drum computer systems, and pyrotechnical shredding, it ignited a blues renaissance nonetheless palpable in the present day. Strat-blues tones had been by no means extra pure, and blues-rock was by no means as suavely or persuasively delivered. The album garnered vital acclaim in blues and rock circles, reached #38 on Billboard, crossed over to rock radio, and finally surpassed Double Platinum standing. “Delight and Pleasure” peaked at #20 on Mainstream Rock charts and the album was Grammy-nominated for Greatest Conventional Blues Efficiency, “Impolite Temper” for Greatest Rock Instrumental Efficiency. The ten-track program tells the story authoritatively however is expanded on the 2013 Legacy Version by one outtake – “Tin Pan Alley” – and 9 reside cuts from the interval recorded at Ripley’s Music Corridor, in Philadelphia, on October 20, 1983.

Wolf Marshall is the founder and unique Editor-In-Chief of GuitarOne journal. A revered creator and columnist, he has been influential in up to date music schooling because the early Nineteen Eighties. His newest ebook is Jazz Guitar Course: Mastering the Jazz Language. Others embrace 101 Should-Know Rock Licks, B.B. King: the Definitive Assortment, and Better of Jazz Guitar. An inventory credit may be discovered at wolfmarshall.com.

This text initially appeared in VG’s October 2024 situation. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.