Artist: Vaughan, Stevie Ray
Label: Legacy Recordings
Release: 1989
Rating: 4.6/5
What do you get if you cross Hendrix with Albert King? Stevie Ray Vaughan. The new blues messiah from Texas introduced himself to the world in 1982 at the Montreux Jazz Festival, then conquered it a year later with the album “Texas Flood”, which he recorded with his band at Jackson Browne’s studio in a mere three days. It’s a minimalist masterpiece, with Stevie’s Strat front and center, his almost “black” vocals (as people used to say), and, much like with Hendrix, a rock-solid rhythm section of bass and drums behind him. After the early success, the collaboration with Bowie (the solo on Let’s Dance) and a pile of awards, two more acclaimed studio albums and plenty of touring followed, and then Stevie sank into deep addiction to drugs and alcohol. His favorite poison became cocaine dissolved in a glass of Crown Royal whisky (which Dimebag Darrell loved too), and it badly wrecked his liver and stomach and eventually brought him to the brink of death. On a European tour in November ’86, when he collapsed on stage in London, Vaughan finally hit bottom, and soon he had to agree to long, strict rehab.
Against that backdrop, his fourth album “In Step” came out at the end of the eighties. Around its release Stevie told Guitar World that it was the first record he’d made sober, and that he felt incredibly strange in the studio without his usual crutch. Of course, you’d never guess that uncertainty from the album. You could even say the enlightened Stevie climbed to a whole new level as a songwriter and, with the help of Doyle Bramhall, with whom he’d worked mainly on “Soul To Soul”, polished his lyrics in every way. The wide-ranging “In Step” serves up everything from the straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll of The House Is Rockin’ and Scratch-n-Sniff, to personal confessions like Wall of denial and Tightrope, to sensual minor-key instrumentals like Riviera paradise, which shows that Stevie had outgrown the plain old “12 bar blues”. There are also three covers: Let Me Love You Baby by Willie Dixon, the Chicago “shuffle” Love Me Darling by Howlin’ Wolf, and Leave My Girl Alone, which Buddy Guy recorded in 1967 for his album “Left My Blues In San Francisco”. So Vaughan managed to keep the vibe and sound of his earlier albums, marked by unusually fat string sets (11-16) tuned down a half step, plus Fender and Dumble tube amps, and to build on them with new, more mature and all-around more sensitive songwriting. The result earned him a second Grammy, for Best Contemporary Blues Album, and an American tour with Jeff Beck.
Stevie lived for the guitar. His wife often watched him at night, a pained look on his face, clenching his left hand in his sleep, and later listened as he told her how he’d met Hendrix in his dreams, who supposedly showed him a few secret chords. Besides Jimi, he worshipped Albert King too, and caught him every time the blues master from Mississippi came through Austin with his “flying” Gibson. After the success of “Texas Flood”, the two officially met for the first time in ’83 at the CHCH Canadian TV studios and recorded a loose jam session, after which King ceremonially named him his successor. “The better you get, the harder you work” was King’s first piece of advice, and Vaughan stuck to it his whole life. And despite the fast fingers, his music, unlike that of many guitarists of the day, wasn’t built on technique but on refined feel and unerring instinct. He himself said he never wrote music with his head, but like Hendrix, who couldn’t read music either, always with his heart. And for a guitarist, the heart is what matters most.
“In Step” was Vaughan’s last studio album with Double Trouble. In 1990 he made one more record, “Family Style”, with his brother Jimmie, and then set off on his final tour. On August 26 of that year he shared the stage at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin with Clapton, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy and his brother, and after a solo set with Double Trouble he played Robert Johnson’s classic Sweet Home Chicago in that excellent company. Guy later remarked that it was Stevie’s best performance. After the show he faced a two-hour drive to Chicago, so he was overjoyed to hear there was one free seat on the helicopter chartered by Clapton’s crew. Shortly before one in the morning the helicopter took off with five people on board and, for reasons unknown, crashed on a nearby ski slope moments later. There were no survivors.
In 1999, remasters of all of Vaughan’s albums with Double Trouble saw the light of day. The new edition of “In Step” offers, besides the original tracks and a short conversation with Stevie, “live” versions of The House Is Rockin’, Let Me Love You Baby, Texas Flood and Life Whitout You.
Lineup
Stevie Ray Vaughan – guitar, vocals
Reese Wynans – keyboards
Tommy Shannon – bass
Chris Layton – drums
Production
Jim Gaines & Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double trouble
Tracklist
1. House Is Rockin’
2. Tightrope
3. Leave My Girl Alone
4. Wall Of Denial
5. Love Me Darling
6. Crossfire
7. Let Me Love You Baby
8. Travis Walk
9. Scratch ‘n’ Sniff
10. Riviera Paradise
BONUS TRACKS:
11. SRV Speaks
12. The House Is Rockin’ (live)
13. Let Me Love You Baby (live)
14. Texas Flood (live)
15. Life Whitout You (live)
Album length: 70.11
