Waterpup  

Just thought I’d share a couple pictures I took of Stevie Ray Vaughan back in (I think) 1983. To me Stevie is the best guitarist the world has ever seen or heard. His death on August 27th 1990 was a HUGE loss to the music community.

With his first “official” album being Texas Flood released in 1984 that makes him eligible for the Rock-n-Roll Hoall Of Fame in 2008 His sound was like that of no other and virtually anyone that has tried to mimic it has failed and will continue to do so for years to come. It wasn’t only the thickness of his strings, guitar, pickups etc, that gave him the tone he produced. It’s first and foremost his soul.

The 2nd time I witnessed the genius was in 1981 at Fitzgerald’s in Houston, TX I sat right in front of him and he borrowed my Bic Lighter to use a slide. Wish I had the fore site of what he would come to mean to me. Today I’d have that lighter on display here at home. At this same show he got so lost in whatever song was being played that he had to be tapped on the shoulder by band mate Tommy Shannon and brought back into reality. Back then I don’t believe it was drugs that spaced him out, it was something else magical from within his soul.

The following was stolen from www.legacyrecordings.com/

With his astonishingly accomplished guitar playing, Stevie Ray Vaughan ignited the blues revival of the ’80s. Vaughan drew equally from bluesmen like Albert King, Otis Rush, and Muddy Waters and rock & roll players like Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as the stray jazz guitarist like Kenny Burrell, developing a uniquely eclectic and fiery style that sounded like no other guitarist, regardless of genre. Vaughan bridged the gap between blues and rock like no other artist had since the late ’60s. For the next seven years, Stevie Ray was the leading light in American blues, consistently selling out concerts while his albums regularly went gold. His tragic death in 1990 only emphasized his influence in blues and American rock & roll.