Was Stevie Ray Vaughan the greatest blues guitarist who ever
\nlived?<\/p>\n
The question is impossible to answer, in part because Vaughan,
\nsurely the finest blues guitarist of the 1980s, died in an August
\n1990 helicopter crash. He was 35 then, at the height of his skills
\n— and a young pup by the standards of the blues. How much better
\nmight he have become? You might as well ask how high the sky
\nis.<\/p>\n
The die-hard blues fan probably needs all of Vaughan’s albums.
\nHis skill as an interpreter of anything from traditional electric
\nblues to the work of his idol, Jimi Hendrix, is incredible to hear.
\nBut for the new fan,
\nGreatest Hits<\/i> makes an excellent starting point.<\/p>\n
The one — and only — fault I can find with this album is
\nsequencing. Starting off with the familiar — but in Vaughan’s
\nhands, utterly transformed — “Taxman” is bound to lead the casual
\nlistener astray in terms of expectations. The song is the only
\ncover of a mainstream pop-rock song on the whole album, and
\nVaughan’s rumbly barroom-shouter vocals here are a far cry from
\nGeorge Harrison’s sweet tenor.<\/p>\n
Still, the guitar, as you might expect, is fairly spectacular.
\nVaughan punctuates the beat with gunshot riffs that positively leap
\nout of the mix. The one thing the song certainly accomplishes is to
\nintroduce his remarkable ability to play both rhythm and lead at
\nthe same time. There is only one guitarist playing here, and no
\noverdubs, and yet there isn’t an empty beat to be found as Vaughan
\nleaps seamlessly from holding up the rhythm to banging out tight
\nlittle lead riffs.<\/p>\n
“Texas Flood” might have made a more logical opener. Taken from
\nVaughan’s debut album of the same name, it’s a classic “hard blues”
\ntrack, the rhythm section slumbering along behind Vaughan’s raw,
\nsteamy vocals, interrupted mid-song by a slow-burning solo that
\nwarms your ears up for what’s to come.<\/p>\n
“The House is Rockin'” picks up the pace with a tight, fun
\nlittle roadhouse blues romp that pretty much forces you to tap your
\nfeet. “Pride and Joy,” next up, introduces Vaughan’s
\nbread-and-butter genre, a mid-tempo blues that spotlights his
\nrhythm-to-lead abilities, chugging along fervently from chorus to
\nchorus and tearing through the solos between. Toward the end of the
\ndisc, “Change It,” “Cold Shot” and “Couldn’t Stand The Weather”
\nfall in this same potent vein.<\/p>\n
Among the best of Vaughan’s originals is “Tightrope,” a topical
\nnumber addressing his battle with alcohol and substance abuse.
\nWritten and recorded just after he successfully completed a 12-step
\nprogram, the lyric addresses how delicate sobriety is to maintain
\nonce you’ve had to battle to achieve it. That said, there’s no
\nmistaking the glorious relief Vaughan invests in the minute-long
\nmid-song solo here. It is a total emotional release that just goes
\nand goes, building and swerving and building once again until
\nyou’re left standing there in your living room shaking your head
\nwith your jaw halfway to the floor.<\/p>\n
And then, 60 seconds later, over the fade, he rips out another,
\ncompletely different but in every way equal solo.<\/p>\n
The only appropriate response is “DAMN.”<\/p>\n
But — and this is where you just have to laugh, because, I
\nmean, if you’re a player yourself, what the hell else can you do?
\n— this is just part one of the trilogy that lies at the heart of
\nthis album.<\/p>\n
No player that I’ve heard has ever come closer than Vaughan to
\nmatching both Jimi Hendrix’s unique tonal style and his astonishing
\npassion with his instrument. On this disc, Vaughan is heard
\ncovering Hendrix’s “Little Wing” as an instrumental and investing
\nhimself 110% in every note. The movements in the song range from
\ndeathly quiet picking down low and up high on the frets to a pair
\nof searing solos that sound like he’s channeling Hendrix
\nhimself.<\/p>\n
This tune’s quiet finish leads directly into the one Vaughan cut
\nthat received substantial play on AOR stations. “Crossfire” was
\nactually written by Vaughan’s band, Double Trouble, and as you
\nmight expect it’s very strong rhythmically, building off a driving
\nbass line and muscular organ, and allowing Vaughan to concentrate
\non playing pure lead guitar. Vaughan produces one of his strongest
\nvocals, a high, sweet, mid-song solo, and a closing solo that,
\nwell, DAMN. “Awesome” might cover the first ten seconds of it. It
\nlasts thirty.<\/p>\n
The answer to whether Stevie Ray Vaughan was the greatest blues
\nguitarist of all time is that there isn’t really an answer. There
\nnever can be; questions like this are inherently subjective. But
\nthere is a story, retold plainly and without false modesty in the
\nexcellent liner notes included on
\nGreatest Hits<\/i> (thank you, Dan Forte), that is worth
\nrepeating.<\/p>\n
Vaughan’s final concert was an all-star jam including sets from
\nblues luminaries Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and Eric Clapton. Vaughan
\nripped it up that night, leaving the crowd breathlessly cheering
\nhis departure from the stage, and leaving Clapton with the
\nunenviable task of following him. Clapton, whose prodigious playing
\nwas once hailed with the immortal phrase “Clapton is God,”
\nremembers his state of mind stepping onto the stage that night very
\nclearly. “It had gone past the point of being envious or
\ndepressed,” he recalls with an ironic laugh, “because no one could
\npossibly expect me to be
\nthat<\/i> good.”<\/p>\n
Was Vaughan the greatest? Who knows? But for one night at least,
\nhe was better than God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":24968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5991],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-36173","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stevie-ray-vaughan-double-trouble","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36173"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36173"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}