Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406030088
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JOEL STASHENKO ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ALBANY, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
The tragedy effectively derailed the career, too, of Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray's older brother, music teacher, mentor and guitar player extraordinaire, late of the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Vaughan ably served his brother's memory by overseeing Stevie Ray's first two posthumous releases, including the poignant ``The Sky Is Crying.'' Then he went into a retreat so complete that it seemed for a time he had all but abandoned his own career.
Only now has he returned with a new album, ``Strange Pleasure,'' his first solo release.
``When somebody close to you dies, everything changes. Your values change,'' Vaughan said. ``There were some people saying, `You should do this for your career.' I said, `Career? Are you kidding? What career?'
``After Stevie got killed, I didn't want to play for the public. I didn't want to deal with it. I just wanted to take care of my mother and my father and stay home and be with my family.''
Vaughan reconditioned classic cars back home in Austin, Texas. He experimented with the Hawaiian guitar. He painted. He confined his music-playing to a few dates with pals, mostly in the South.
Then Eric Clapton broke the spell by inviting Vaughan to open for a dozen Clapton shows at Royal Albert Hall in London in 1993.
``I had him to thank for giving me that kick in the butt,'' Vaughan said. ``I really just didn't have the guts to say no. I guess that guitar player-gunslinger thing came out. In his wisdom he knew I wouldn't be able to say no to that.''
It was a kindness on Clapton's part that is reminiscent of the call Clapton got 20 years earlier from Pete Townshend, coaxing him out of a retreat for a show that became known as the Rainbow Concert.
Clapton was the headliner in the Aug. 26, 1990, show in East Troy, Wis., that was Stevie Ray Vaughan's last. Jimmie Vaughan was also on the bill - he had just finished the acclaimed ``Family Style'' album with Stevie Ray - and he gave up his seat on the ill-fated helicopter to Stevie Ray, who was in a hurry to get back to Chicago that foggy night.
``So we played the London shows and really had a good time,'' Jimmie Vaughan said. ``Toward the end we started to get good. Then it was like, what now? We've got to make a record.''
``Strange Pleasure'' is dedicated to Stevie Ray and to the late blues guitarist Albert Collins.
Such songs as ``Boom-Bapa-Boom,'' ``Don't Cha Know'' and ``Tilt a Whirl'' will not disappoint fans of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and its blues- and swing-driven sound.
But there is a contemplative tone to the disc, too. At 43, Vaughan sounds not so much world-weary as worldly wise, affirming in ``Just Like Putty'' and other songs that love is the key to life. ``Love the World,'' co-written with Dr. John, is a spiritual.
Vaughan added a verse to the Neville Brothers' ``Six Strings Down,'' a tribute to his brother, and turned it into an ode to Collins, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters and other bluesmen as well: ``T-Bone Walker, Guitar Slim/Little Son Jackson and Frankie Lee Sims/Heaven done called another blues stringer back home.''
Vaughan has begun touring in the United States and Europe with his new band, featuring Junior Brantley on piano, George Rains on drums and Bill Willis on organ and bass.
Vaughan is not quite sure what to expect as a front man, not after 15 years of hard touring and hard living with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. The band, whose best moments came with its platinum 1986 album ``Tuff Enuff,'' disintegrated in 1990.
``A lot of the doors that I might have been used to being open, you don't know if they're still open,'' he said. ``You have to get the big ball rolling again. The ball was stopped and it felt good being stopped. Now it's starting to roll again.''
Vaughan conceded he probably always will operate in his brother's long shadow, though he does not downplay his own accomplishments.
``There was a time before he had records out when I had records out,'' he said. ``I started playing before him. He learned how to play watching me learn how to play.
``There's no way anybody's ever going to talk to me again without saying something about him. But that was the case even before he died. I have accepted that and am comfortable with it.''
by CNB