by Alan Paul
One night in ’84, Stevie met Prince in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on the opening night of Bruce Springsteen’s Born In the U.S.A. tour. Prince was sitting backstage with his bodyguard, Chick, a big ol’ bald guy wearing a leopard-skin leotard thing. Stevie tried to lean around the guy, and he said to Prince, “Hey, man! My name is Stevie Ray!” Prince wouldn’t look at him, but he leans over to his bodyguard and says, “What did he say, Chick? Is he speaking to me?” So Stevie goes, louder, “I said, my name is Stevie Ray!” Prince goes, “I didn’t hear him, Chick. What did he say?” Stevie got pissed and said, “You might be the Prince, motherfucker, but I’m the King Bee! Deal with it!”
Stevie and Double Trouble capped the Couldn’t Stand the Weather tour in August with a run of sold-out arena dates opening for Huey Lewis and the News, who were riding high with the seven-times-platinum album Sports, which featured the hit songs “The Heart of Rock & Roll,” “I Want a New Drug,” and “If This Is It.”
LAYTON: Right after CSTW had come out, we were back at New York’s Mayflower Hotel doing press, and I stepped into the elevator and there was Huey Lewis and [News member] Johnny Colla. I said, “Huey!” And he goes, “Yeah, man—‘Cold Shot’!” He starts singing the song, then says, “That’s a rockin’ record, man. I love you guys! We gotta do some playing together.”
LEWIS: My agent said, “The Sports tour is all sold out. Who do you want to open? It doesn’t matter.” I said, “Get Stevie Ray Vaughan!” He called back and said, “The manager is crazy. He wants ten times what they’re worth.” I said, “Forget about it. Book them.”
LAYTON: That tour was huge for us. It was all sold-out arenas, and that’s when things really started taking off. We were still playing some smaller venues, but that tour pushed us to another level. While we were on tour with them, we started to get some really, really good offers.
LEWIS: The first night they were with us, I got there early to see them and walked right up to the edge of the stage, mesmerized by this long slow blues. I was just knocked out, and when it ended, the crowd just went … zip, nothing! Chants of “Huey! Huey! Huey!” I felt awful. It was one of those moments where you really hate your audience. I knocked on their bus door, walked to the back lounge where the whole band was sitting, despondent, and said, “Guys, you are fantastic. People are going to go home and say, ‘Who the hell was that band that opened for Huey Lewis?’ Then look you up and be blown away. That’s all you’re going to do here, but have fun doing it. Just play, be yourselves, and trust me. It’s gonna be great.” Stevie came out and jammed with us almost every night, and it was incredibly exciting for us and I’m sure for the audience. We were basically inseparable for two months.
JIMMY STRATTON, photographer: I saw Stevie and Double Trouble opening for Huey Lewis and the News and have often compared it to Jimi Hendrix opening for the Monkees.
On October 4, 1984, the day after his thirtieth birthday, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble played New York’s Carnegie Hall in a benefit for the T. J. Martell Foundation dedicated to using music to help find a cure for cancer. In his introduction, John Hammond called Vaughan “one of the great guitar players of all time.”
They played a scorching set that included “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return),” after which Vaughan said with amazement and a slight snicker, “It’s fun playing Hendrix in Carnegie Hall!” The second set featured an expanded ten-piece band featuring Jimmie Vaughan, the Roomful of Blues horn section, Dr. John, Angela Strehli, and drummer George Rains.
SHANNON: Stevie pushed hard to make that show happen. It was a dream for him to play Carnegie Hall. We went out and had special clothes made just for the gig, and we got all the guests. We were going to film it, but CBS backed out.
LAYTON: We went to all kinds of lengths for that show, partly in anticipation of it being filmed. Jimmie had the idea to have mariachi suits made, and we went to Nelda’s Tailors and talked to the Mexican women there. We looked at all this material and their cool silver buttons and buckles hardware and picked out what we wanted for our pants and jackets, and Stevie decided to have two suits made, one blue and one red. We all rehearsed for three days on an Austin soundstage and had everybody fitted for their clothes.
EDI JOHNSON: They did an incredible rehearsal show at Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth [on September 29]. I thought it was even better than the final show in New York.
BENSON: I went to the studio to watch them rehearse for the shows. Dr. John arrived, and Stevie was thrilled because he loved him. They start back up, and Stevie’s playing everything he knows, as he often did, and all of a sudden Dr. John goes, “Hold on, hold on,” and waves it all to a stop—like flagging down a train chugging down the tracks at seventy-five miles per hour, and Doc goes, “Stevie, what we need here is some dynamicals.” Stevie goes, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and they restart and he pulled back—he understood what Doc was saying—and it just sounded so great.
LAYTON: We had an elaborate stage set built and painted lapis-blue enamel with gold lamé striping. It was like a set for a television show. They shipped it to New York and set it up in a warehouse, where we did a dress rehearsal. The next day, it was broken down and reconstructed in Carnegie Hall. There was a horn riser and levels for the two drummers. At the very last minute, CBS pulled the plug on filming for budgetary reasons. Years later, I learned it was only $15,000. And it’s a shame because it looked great, Stevie played his ass off, and the big band stuff is so special.
BENSON: Pulling that money from recording is so stupid, shortsighted, and shameful, because that was a fantastic performance.
JIMMIE VAUGHAN: I knew that was going to be a great record—we were at Carnegie Hall and all of our friends were there. On “Dirty Pool,” I tried to come up with parts that would fit into the sound of the big band but also add something cool. Find a spot to throw some of your stuff in there. I approached it sort of like an organ player, which is something I have always enjoyed doing. It’s all about how all of the parts fit together.
SHANNON: I don’t think enough people have caught on to what a great performance that was. That’s some of my favorite playing from him, ever. It was such a special event: it was his birthday, his mother was there, along with all of our families. It was a great, great night.
LAYTON: We had a bunch of stuff flown up from Sam’s Barb-B-Que in Austin.
STREHLI: Even the rehearsal was joyous. It was just a ball seeing everybody together in one spot as was the amazing fact that we would be playing a blues concert at Carnegie Hall. Just walking onto that stage for a sound check fills you with humility and gratitude. Pulling that off was typical Stevie, as was sharing the spotlight. The T-Birds had taken blues to a wider audience after a very down period where even the all-time greats didn’t have much work or interest. Stevie took it to the next level where the music got worldwide attention from people who had never cared: rock and rollers and guitar guys. His music just grabbed you, and Carnegie Hall was one of those new milestones he kept setting.
Another milestone happened six weeks later, on November 18, when Stevie won two W. C. Handy Awards, for Blues Instrumentalist of the Year and Entertainer of the Year. He was the first white artist to be awarded the latter, and it meant so much to him that he flew twenty-four hours back from a tour of New Zealand to Memphis to attend and perform “Cold Shot” and “Texas Flood.” The concert at the Orpheum Theatre included three of Stevie’s biggest heroes: Albert King, B. B. King, and Hubert Sumlin.
“Stevie was so honored by that because it was coming from the blues society,” says Shannon. “On the big jam with B. B., Albert, and Hubert, we played ‘Cold Shot’ and ‘Every Day I Have the Blues,’ and it was an incredible night for us.”
The next month, Stevie leapt at another opportunity to work with an idol, producing a comeback record for Lonnie Mack, whose “Wham!” was the first record he ever bought. Mack had signed with Alligator Records, the same label that four years earlier had rejected Stevie Ray as too white, too loud, and too derivativ
e of Albert King.
It was a great opportunity for Mack, who had not released an album in seven years and who had at times drifted toward country music. Stevie and Alligator shared a passion for returning Mack to his hard-hitting early guitar sound, which included a Vaughan-Mack duet remake of “Wham!” renamed “Double Whammy.”
IGLAUER: Stevie and I were united by our mutual admiration of Lonnie Mack, and Stevie volunteered to serve as producer of our Strike Like Lightning album, which we cut in Austin. Stevie really wanted to do something to bring his hero to the fore of the public eye. He was very conscious of using his budding good name to shine a light on Lonnie and his other heroes. Anytime someone told Stevie he was great, he would immediately say, “Have you heard Lonnie Mack? Have you heard Albert Collins? Have you heard Albert King?” He was constantly mentioning other musicians and pushing them on people and seemed very sincere in his love of those guys. It wasn’t about him.
Lonnie Mack and Stevie, during the Strike Like Lightning sessions, 1985. (Andrew Long)
SHANNON: Stevie was so glad to work with Lonnie on that record.
IGLAUER: Stevie arrived at the studio straight off the road, went to Lonnie, and said, “So what do you want me to do?” At no time did he act like a producer; he left all the important decisions up to Lonnie—and a little bit to me. Calling himself producer was to put the SRV seal of approval on the album. He ended up playing on four or five songs. His rig was set up in a booth right next to the control room, and he was so loud that he kept leaking through, which made it very hard to monitor the performances in the control room, but he played fantastically.
LONG: During those Lonnie Mack sessions, I was sitting on a couch next to Stevie, who was out of it on a few intoxicants, playing an acoustic guitar with super high action. He was just killing time between takes, and he was astounding. I was convinced at that moment you could string baling wire on the wall and he’d still be better than 99.9 percent of guitarists out there.
IGLAUER: The talent he showed in this era was not apparent to me a few years earlier. Whether it was his growth or mine, I now understood what made him so special.
EDI JOHNSON: Stevie was so happy to be working with Lonnie, but Chesley didn’t approve of the project, probably because he hadn’t thought of it. So I went out to the studio as our representative.
IGLAUER: I was walking pretty cautiously around Stevie. We didn’t know each other well at all, and of course, I was the record company guy, and all artists are suspicious of the record company guy. He was in a heavy drug period, doing a lot of coke and drinking Crown Royal, but he was very intense and focused in the studio, and he did a great job. He stayed up all night playing alternate takes of his solo on “Double Whammy.” When Lonnie and I arrived in the morning, Stevie was sure that he didn’t have one good enough to please Lonnie. He had saved two or three choices. They were all thrilling, and Lonnie picked the one that appeared on the album.
17
SOUL STIRRERS
By the time Double Trouble entered Dallas Sound Lab to begin recording their third album in March 1985, the band was feeling and showing the strains of drugs and alcohol abuse and a few years of relentless touring.
Soul to Soul marked the return of Vaughan’s old friend, bandmate, and vocal inspiration Doyle Bramhall as a collaborator. The group recorded two of his songs, “Change It” and “Lookin’ Out the Window.”
“Doyle started trying to get sober way before any of us,” says saxophonist Joe Sublett, who also played on the sessions. “He pulled off the whole scene and was gone for a while because he was serious about his sobriety. He was always sipping from a large cup with crushed ice and soda. He quit being in bars, then got slowly back into playing music on his own terms. Stevie needed songs and knew that Doyle had them. And he didn’t just send them over; he was in the studio.”
Bramhall’s sobriety was very much still a work in progress at this time, and his son, Doyle Bramhall II, notes that participating in the Soul to Soul sessions was a setback. “I don’t think that studio at that time was a place for sobriety,” Bramhall II says.
The sessions also marked the addition of keyboardist Reese Wynans, a Jacksonville, Florida, native who had played keys in the 1968 jam sessions that led to the formation of the Allman Brothers Band; he was replaced by Gregg Allman. Wynans had played in the Jacksonville band Second Coming with future ABB members Berry Oakley and Dickey Betts and by 1985 had been an active, touring musician and well-respected sideman for almost two decades.
Stevie Ray’s decision to bring in old friends Bramhall and Sublett and to add Wynans were unspoken acknowledgments that Double Trouble needed some reinforcements.
LAYTON: There was a lot of stretching on that record, but it was getting more difficult. It was like trying to run a race when you’re really tired. You might make it and even get a good time, but it feels like it’s gonna kill you.
SHANNON: Things were getting pretty bad. We were paying for studio time and spending hours playing Ping-Pong waiting for cocaine to arrive before we’d play. You can kind of tell that we’re a little out of sorts.
LAYTON: In the studio, you have to confront what you really sound like. You can’t just walk off the stage. You’re under a microscope. We were in a bit of a drug-and-alcohol frenzy, and Soul to Soul was difficult to make, which had a lot to do with inviting Reese to play. It was like, “We need some help here.”
SUBLETT: They asked me to play on some tracks, and I came in late at night a couple of times. We cut “Look at Little Sister,” then Stevie said, “I’d really like to have a keyboard on some of this stuff.” I recommended Reese, who was in Delbert McClinton’s band with me, and said, “As a matter of fact, he just gave his two-week notice.”
REESE WYNANS, Double Trouble keyboardist, 1985–1990: Stevie called and said they wanted to add some keyboards. They wanted acoustic piano on “Look at Little Sister,” but it didn’t really work because the studio was set up like a live performance, with an entire PA, and it was screaming loud.
SUBLETT: Boy, was it loud in there. It was painful, and the loudness came from Stevie, who had a Frankenstein wall of amps. I was there with a little microphone, thinking, “This is all going to bleed.” I played live for a few days, because that’s what Stevie wanted, but Richard Mullen suggested he get me on a clean track separately. He had a lot of common sense.
WYNANS: You could not hear a piano, so I suggested that we try a Hammond organ, where I could isolate the cabinet. We played “Change It” and the instrumentals [“Say What” and “Gone Home”], and it went great. My organ playing surprised them a little, that I could bring that kind of energy to their material, and I think the way the B3 sounded with their songs is what cemented me in there. We recorded till seven in the morning, and they asked me to come back the next night.
SHANNON: “Say What!” had been a jam we’d been doing for a while, kind of like Hendrix’s “Rainy Day, Dream Away.” Stevie had the idea of breaking it down and singing, “Soul to soul!” Stevie uses a wah that had belonged to Jimi Hendrix on that track. [This was the wah pedal Jimmie got from Jimi Hendrix in 1968.]
Doyle came down to the studio and played “Lookin’ Out the Window” and “Change It” for us, and we immediately decided to work them up and record them. “Ain’t Gone ’n’ Give Up on Love” was a new tune. Reese came up with that great walk-up part that we played on the bridge, which I thought was one of the coolest things about the song. He was clearly adding more than just keyboard parts. We were all hanging out one night, high and drinking, and Stevie said to Reese, “Hey, man, want to join the band?” We never sat down and discussed it. It was just “Okay, that’s settled.”
“Soul to Soul”—Tommy and Stevie, 6-7-85, Chicago Blues Festival. (Kirk West)
WYNANS: I was as surprised as anyone. I was just happy to be a part of it. Being a Texas bluesman, getting to play with one of the best power trios ever was like a bucket list thing. The guys told me they were glad I came over becaus
e they had been having a hard time getting the project off the ground.
LAYTON: A lot of people were urging us to keep the trio thing, but we really needed a new perspective, which Stevie understood on some level when he tried to bring Derek in. We had been on an endless three-year tour punctuated by time in the studio, and we were getting burnt. We needed somebody else to help carry everything.
WYNANS: We kept some wild hours on those sessions; we’d get to the studio at about 8:00 p.m., start playing at 11:00 or 12:00, play till 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, go home when the sun was coming up, sleep till about 3:00 in the afternoon, and start over.
With Wynans suddenly a member of Double Trouble, recording sessions continued, sometimes in fits and starts. Sessions could be delayed not only by the members waiting for drugs to arrive but by Vaughan’s incessant search for new sounds.
MULLEN: As Stevie learned more about recording, he got more particular and wanted to try different things, which was sometimes more of a detriment than a help. During these sessions, he had me open up a snare drum and fill it with packing peanuts because he thought it would sound good. It didn’t!
LAYTON: We called him “Modern Man” because he loved to fool around with electronics, take things apart and put them back together, and just try crazy stuff. For instance, on “Ain’t Gone ’n’ Give Up on Love,” Stevie put paper matches under the bridge saddle of a six-string bass to muffle the sound, which is what you hear on the little strum on the downbeat. We would get crazy ideas after we had been up too long and our minds were racing. “I wonder what I would get if I put a half-cut Coke can under my bass drum pedal.” Sometimes those things would actually work.
BRAMHALL II: Stevie secretly wanted to be an inventor. He showed me sketches and drafts of spaceships he wanted to build. He always had side hobbies like amplifiers with one knob that just read “Turn up or fuck off” or another that just had a plug and no knobs so when people running sound would ask him to turn it down, he could honestly say, “Sorry, I can’t. It doesn’t have any knobs.”
