STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN

The pride of Texas was the ultimate screamer of tubes

Stevie Ray Vaughan brought physicality and soul to guitar playing, and he brought it in spades. The soul came through the speaker. The physicality was there for all to see. To watch him play, there were occasions in which SRV would throttle the guitar as though it were an arm wrestling contest at last orders in a Nantucket alehouse. His strings were the stuff of legend – 13s? No, 14s; 17s! Heck, some might argue he used piano wire. Either way, he went down the heavy-gauge route and had the dexterity to manipulate them as though they were dental floss. This, the fire in his belly, and the tonegussying Tube Screamer playing mediator between Fender Strat and amp give him a range of dynamics that few, if any, players could match.

And yet, there was a tenderness to his playing. There are many who argue that his cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Little

Wing eclipses the original. That’s for debate. What is not is that Vaughan, who was only 35 years old when he died in a helicopter crash, he left an over-sized impression on guitar culture in a short space of time.

Just like Hendrix.

His debut studio album with backing band Double Trouble, TexasFlood, remains a blue-chip classic of the genre, and showcases the range of those dynamics. That title track – a cover of the 1958 Larry Davis number – could convince you that the sun never shines on Texas, least not while Vaughan was in it. The likes of Pride

AndJoy and Tell Me demonstrate what he could do with a groove behind him. Sadly, generations won’t get to see him onstage, but so long as sets such as those at Montreux in 1982 are available on YouTube and DVD, more will bear witness to this singular talent.