The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is such crap, duh. It’s 35 guys and 6 women- almost all with ties to Bruce Springsteen or Jann Wenner- having a big, opulent hang to decide who gets nominated. Then 810 other people weigh Chic against Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and the like and vote for seven to get in. This article in Billboard shows just how arbitrary the selection process can be. (Spoiler alert: we can blame Tom Morello for the unsettling KISS induction.) But in sports- and now in music- the Hall of Fame is the hugest deal to the oldtimers. It’s a club that puts your career significance above all those losers like Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, the Sex Pistols and Edgar Martinez.
But this year the Hall got it right by inducting Stevie Ray Vaughan. (This Saturday night). What most-likely kept him back the first few years he was eligible was the rap that he was a white man co-opting a black musical form. Remember that time a few years ago when the SRV statue was defaced? The vandals expressed the same unfair sentiments. SRV was always upfront about his influences and heroes, as the interview that follows will show. Race was never a thing, so Albert King and Lonnie Mack had equal space in Stevie’s mental mantlepiece.
I think the emergence of Gary Clark Jr. as “the savior of the blues” is what turned favor SRV’s way. Gary’s primary influence, the guitarist he imitated at junior high talent shows, was Stevie Ray Vaughan. “Pride and Joy” was the first song this black 12-year-old learned. Before Clark Jr., the other sensational young African-American guitarist was Robert Randolph, who always acknowledged SRV as a main influence to take his sacred steel to new heights. I can see this coming up in the nominating bistro.
Stevie Vaughan was a blues guitar player who always nodded to the pioneers. That was the tradition he carried on. And he’s profoundly influenced those who keep it going. Saturday will be a nice ceremony, but SRV’s greatest honor was in holding the torch and then passing it on.
Photo by Tracy Anne Hart www.theheightsgallery.com.
Here’s an interview I did with Vaughan by phone in the summer of 1989. It was for the first issue of Request magazine and they’d started a feature where the artist gets the byline in an “as told to…” format. This was called “My Guitar Heroes by Stevie Ray Vaughan.” But years after the icon died, at age 35, in a 1990 helicopter crash, I found that interview tape and transcibed it.
Who was your earliest guitar hero?
SRV: My brother Jimmie. He had gotten hurt playing football, so he had gotten a guitar as a safer alternative. Part of the appeal was that he was my older brother (by 3 1/2 years) and you know how kids want to do whatever their older brother does. But the other part was that it looked like he was having so much fun.
When did you get your first guitar?
SRV: It was soon after Jimmie started playing. I guess I was about 10. It was a Masonite version of a Roy Rogers guitar — a copy of a copy — and it didn’t work. The only way you could tune it was to take three strings off and tune it like a bass. When Jimmie got his first electric guitar, I got his acoustic.
What kind of music did you guys start off playing?
SRV: When we were first startin’ off we had some friends of the family show us stuff, like one guy played with Ray Sharpe and the Razor Blades, so right off the bat we were playin’ “Linda Lu” (a Ray Sharpe hit), Jimmy Reed — really hip stuff for little kids. Jimmie came right out of the chute, bringing home records by everyone from Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Buddy Guy to the Beatles and Hendrix to Wes Montgomery and Miles Davis — all this stuff at the same time. I don’t know how he got the idea to be so hip so quick.
When did Jimmie start getting good on the guitar?
SRV: As soon as he picked it up.
How about you?
SRV: Well, it took me a little longer. I had a lot of people tell me, `Man, you’re faster than your brother,’ but I didn’t know what all they were talkin’ about. I knew the beginnings to a lot of songs and I knew the solo parts, but it was usually just half of the song that I knew. I remember the first time Jimmie and I played a talent show and we realized in the middle of a song we’d played dozens of times that we’d never ended it before. We knew we had a ways to go.
Who’s the first nationally-known guitarist you looked up to?
SRV: The first record I bought was the Lonnie Mack 45 with “Suzie Q” and “The Wham” on it. It was just the wildest thing I’d ever heard. Then when I got more of his stuff, I loved the way his slow tunes sounded like gospel and the blues at the same time. After Lonnie Mack, I remember Buddy Guy and Muddy — that was pretty heavy stuff for me. And then it wasn’t too long until I ran into Albert King. The album was King of the Blues Guitar. I was about 12 and I was working as a dishwasher in Oak Cliff somewhere and one day I was cleaning out the trash bin and I slipped and fell into a big barrel where they poured the hot grease. Luckily it was empty at the time, but if I had fell 30 minutes later I would’ve been fried. Well, anyway, the woman who owned the place came out yelling at me because I had broke the lid to the grease barrel. She didn’t even ask if I was all right. Well, I got so mad that I quit that day and told myself that I was going to be a guitar player like Albert King. I knew that’s what I wanted to do — no ifs, ands or buts. And I haven’t had another job since.
When did you get into Jimi Hendrix?
SRV: Most of the influences I got were because of my brother, and Hendrix was another big one. I was really into his music and a lot of stuff about his life, and the higher I got, the more obsessed I became. I wanted to open my mind enough so that I could feel the music, because that’s what he did. Yeah, (Hendrix) was high as a kite and that might’ve had something to do with that. It almost killed me. It did kill him.
When you look back at the history of Texas blues — T-Bone Walker, Johnny Winter, Lightnin’ Hopkins and on and on — there’s seems to be a quality that sets it apart from electric guitar blues from other areas.
SRV: It’s meaner. It’s instinctive. When it’s right, you can feel it. That’s why I like playing with these guys (Double Trouble). We get it sometimes. Sometimes we sound like a great band, and it’s not something you can rehearse. I can’t go to them and say `Try it this way’ — it’s just something that doesn’t need to be said. I think if you had to define Texas blues it would be `just go with the feeling.’ ”
Who are some underrated blues guitarists?
SRV: Denny Freeman. I know he’s got some recognition lately, but he’s still underrated. He’s just incredible. I guess the main thing I learned from him was how to really play rhythm, but he’s also a great example of a player who has a thread that runs through his solos. He’s always thinking ahead when he’s playing.
As far as newer guys, Doyle Bramhall (II) just kills me. He’ll pull it out of a hat and just scare you. Some of the things that I wish I could play the way I want to, he’ll just pull ‘em out. His style is kinda like the best parts of Johnny “Guitar” Watson. It could be only a couple notes, but it’s the timing that just gets you. Hosea Hargrove I like a lot: We’re talking real low-down blues. U.P. Wilson, from Fort Worth, is another guy. I’m not sure, but I think he taught Cornell Dupree how to play guitar. I saw Kenny Burrell a couple years ago and he just killed me. I don’t think I can play jazz. I can play jazz-y, but I don’t really know enough about it to take off. I can’t read music and if I write a song I have to ask someone what key it’s in. I don’t know what’s the wrong way to do something, but it’s really liberating to not know you can’t do something — if that makes sense.
I think your playing’s actually gotten better since you got sober.
SRV: That stuff that I’m reading and doing, you know, it’s really helpin’ me, man. I’m finally startin’ to feel like me and that’s something I never knew what it was. That may sound funny or weird to somebody, `oh, who cares?’ But to me . . . I’ve always been Stevie Ray Vaughan, the guy who plays guitar. I didn’t even know who I was. Now I’m starting to find out what I want, what I need, what I feel like, what I think. It feels a lot better.
Are you starting to get more interests besides the guitar?
SRV: Yeah, but now the guitar is getting more important as well. What I do with it is getting more important. What I do with what I write, what I do with what I think, what I feel and say. . . It’s gettin’ to where now it really means something. It’s always meant something, but it eluded me what it was. But now I’m finally comfortable being me. It’s a real neat deal.