It was 40 years ago today that Stevie Ray Vaughan released the much anticipated follow up to his ground breaking debut album ‘Texas Flood’.
‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’ took Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble 19 days to record. At the time, Double Trouble featured Tommy Shannon on bass guitar and Chris Layton on drums. All this power came from just three players which inevitably gave rise to comparisons to Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. ‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’ was co-produced by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble with the assistance of Richard Mullen and Jim Capfer at the famed Power Station in New York City, under the respected supervision of the great John Hammond who brought the music world Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen among others. For this release, Stevie Ray Vaughan wrote half the songs and then offered his unique take on another four covers, including, ‘Voodoo Child Slight Return’. Critics who seemed bent to find something to balance their effusive praise could only point to one flaw, and that is that he did not record more original material.
#FacePalm
As the calendar turned to summer in 1984 ‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’ had already sold one million copies.
Lost to some degree in Stevie Ray Vaughan’s superlative guitar capability is the fact he wrote some pretty powerful and introspective lyrics. The title song for ‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’ offers just one example. Two verses of reflection, regret, deep foreboding and wisdom.
Runnin’ through this business of life
Raisin’ sand if I’m needed to
Ain’t so funny when things ain’t feelin’ right
Daddy’s hand helps to see me through
Sweet as sugar, love won’t wash away
Rain or shine, it’s always here to stay
All these years you and I spent together
All this, we just, couldn’t stand the weather
Like a train that stops at every station
We all deal with trials and tribulations
Fear hangs the fellow that ties up his years
Entangled in yellow and cries all his tears
Changes come before we can grow
Learn to see them before we’re too old
Don’t just take me for tryin’ to be heavy
Understand, it’s time to get ready for the storm”
Thinking back to this time four decades ago, I can only recall how refreshing Stevie Ray Vaughan was to these ears. He arrived like a messenger from another era. His mission was to deliver a unique brand of the blues to both a new audience and devotees who were clamouring for something that reflected blues traditions. In the end, Stevie Ray Vaughan was instrumental in bringing the blues back to the mainstream. There were no synthesizers, no overdubs, no fancy haircuts or leather. It was just a straight forward blues, rock and country feel, delivered in a roadhouse style that made every traditionalist wanting more. It was done the way the pioneers laid it down and then it was taken to another level.
Set some time aside and listen to this live recording from Montreal that coincided with the release of ‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’. This is from the radio show called the ‘King Biscuit Flour Hour’. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s album hit Gold in Canada, a country that was always good to him.
Going back 40 years, it is interesting to read the reviews that greeted Stevie Ray Vaughan’s second release. An obvious pattern that is apparent over the past 75 years is the tendency for critics to frequently be hard on artists who managed to take the world by storm with their debut release. Somehow, they get held to a different standard. Here is a back handed compliment from Stephen Thomas Erlewine.
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s second album, Couldn’t Stand the Weather, pretty much did everything a second album should do: it confirmed that the acclaimed debut was no fluke, while matching, if not bettering, the sales of its predecessor, thereby cementing Vaughan’s status as a giant of modern blues … [However,] Vaughan didn’t really push himself as hard as he could have, and the feeling that if he had, he would have come up with something a bit stronger.”
Another often quoted critic in Ted Tocks Covers is Robert Christgau, who only manages to save this observation with his closing statement.
The problem with guitar virtuosos is that most of them wouldn’t know a good musical concept if they tripped over it, which happens just often enough to keep everyone confused. The exception that proves not a damn thing is Jimi Hendrix, the finest guitarist in any idiom ever. Though he comes close sometimes, this Texan ain’t Hendrix. But between earned Jimi cover and lyric refreshment, album two is almost everything a reasonable person might hope from him: a roadhouse album with gargantuan sonic imagination.”
“A roadhouse album with gargantuan sonic imagination” is such a great way to describe the sound that emerges throughout ‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’, but the lead in to this astute take, tempers the compliment. This leads me to inquire, why did we need to compare Stevie Ray Vaughan to Jimi Hendrix?
We were lucky to have them both.
Consider the fact that this pair of shooting stars were only able to provide us with approximately a decade of recordings is a tragedy, but as always, the legend status precedes their names whenever their catalogue of music is discussed. The standard they created is the gift. Few have ever risen to that level.
This is where a look back at the reflections of those who embraced the moment tell the tale.
Imagine being in an audience in Florida, waiting to see Huey Lewis and the News and the audience is greeted by Lewis, who strolls out on the stage and asks them to sit back and enjoy a one hour set from the best guitarist he has ever heard.
The blues was the new drug. With music, everything old can be new again, when an artist lays it down in their own way. That was Stevie Ray Vaughan.
The price for the entertainment that evening was $13 and change.
Here is another look back at one of the most important shows of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s career. When he hit the stage at Carnegie Hall in New York City, just over 40 years ago, he stood before a rapt audience who were there for only one reason, and that was Stevie Ray. Here is the effusive praise that flowed from the pen of Stephen Holden of the New York Times.
Mr. Vaughan was discovered in Texas two years ago by the Rolling Stones, and his style is some ways the culmination of a blues guitar tradition that runs from Robert Johnson through Jimi Hendrix. Although he is able to play in almost any idiom, Mr. Vaughan is at heart a southern honky-tonk guitarist-singer whose taut phrasing and steely muscularity of tone remain fairly strictly within a raw country-blues genre.”
He went on to say;
Even though his playing incorporates many of the psychedelic effects of Cream and Jimi Hendrix, one rarely senses that he is using aural phantasmagoria to try to explode and re-invent the blues. On the contrary, he is a classicist who fits the sounds of Mr. Hendrix’s anarchic fireworks firmly into a blues context.”
Here is the full show for your listening enjoyment. Block out the rest of the world and enjoy. Nothing else matters.
Then note that this show was recorded just one day after his 30th birthday.
Tragically, a little over five years later he was taken from us.
To close this portion of today’s offering I will share this heartfelt tribute from Doyle Bramhall, who wrote ‘Life by the Drop’ as a tribute to his friend.
To me, Stevie stood alone. There was no one like him. He left room in his music for his honesty and his soul to come through and I think that’s what people picked up on. He was just completely dedicated and loved what he was doing. I had great admiration for him as a musician and a person because he always lived life to the fullest. Every time you were around him was a constant reminder that today is all we have.”
One of the best ways to measure the value of a musician is in the way they inspire other musicians to reach for the stars when it comes to their playing. The four covers that will follow are not huge names but just listen to the talent as it penetrates your ears. Man! There are so many fantastic musicians out there just waiting to be heard. If today’s feature gets them just one more listen, I suppose it will have done its job.
This recording by The Incredible Southern Blues Band was released in 2014 but they had been covering Stevie Ray Vaughan for about two decades. This is a strong cover.
Here is another impressive tribute by Scott Hill just one year later, on a tribute album called, ‘The House is Rockin’: A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan’.
The tone on this instrumental by Sean Mann will just make you drop everything and listen. It is just that good.
Finally, this cover by Corey Heuvel only reinforces my early point. There is talent everywhere, and the beauty is, it is at our fingertips on line or at a bar near you. Get out there and find it. Listen to this acoustic magic.
Head to a roadhouse tonight and support the local talent. You just never know whether it will be your enthusiastic response to their craft that will give them the strength and conviction to move on up the ladder; and then you too can say “I saw them when…”
This all takes me back to my introduction to Stevie Ray Vaughan. I was flipping through channels on my TV back in 1983, and I found this on a local Hamilton station called CHCH TV 11.
It featured Albert King and his protégé; a rising star by the name of Stevie Ray Vaughan. I couldn’t believe what I was watching. It was my indoctrination to the blues. I immediately went out and bought ‘Texas Flood’ which opened the floodgates to an exploration into an entirely new area of music for me. I distinctly remember telling my friend Steve, to check it out. To this day, on random occasions he we will send me a message thanking me for turning him on to Stevie Ray Vaughan. This is from a guy who turned me on to so many incredible artists, and made me recognize the roots of so much of the music we were listening to in the moment.
This is yet another example of the fact ‘#MusicisLife.
It connects the dots, between time and space, and sound.
Memories abound.
Ted Tocks Covers 