I was always fascinated that two brothers could be such good players, but yet so diversely different in their approach, and influences, it seems.
Jimmy has that laid-back, take-your-time, wring-the-tone-out-of-every-single-note minimalist style, and he's great at it.
Stevie was obviously heavily influenced by those mentioned above, plus Albert Collins. A minimalist he wasn't, but there was also no lack of feeling or tone in his playing. He was pure emotion when he played.
both are captivating players in their own right.
---------- Todd
Last Edited by on Apr 27, 2011 5:32 AM
I actually was greatly influenced by SRV's phrasing and note choices, and used to try my best to translate it to harp. Sometimes it still peeks through. His music is responsible for turning many people on to the blues. ---------- Todd
I thought it might be a nice idea to post Stevie Rays version for comparison. They are both good,however, I prefer Stevies version a bit more.
Last Edited by on Apr 27, 2011 7:30 AM
I've seen Jimmy from the time he was with the T-Birds back in 1975, and he is a classic, less is more type of player, and personally, I find his stle more truly originally than SRV (I know I'll get hell from those fans, but so what), and when SRV plays a slow blues, you can easily predict what he's gonna do, and its usually in this order, Albert King, late 50's-late 60's Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Freddy King and Magic Sam.
Jimmy's real strength is in his rhythm playing, something too many jam hacks totally ignore and that helped make the 4-piece T-Brids sound like a much larger band and made him sound like 2 guitar players and he always plays behind the beat. He plays much more fingere picked now, but he used to mainly use flat picks back in the day. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
BBq..I respect your preferences but I'm sure Stevie would be proud of the fact that you can hear his influences in his playing.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by predictable and is it a bad thing?
Like Todd, I pick up a lot of licks from SRV. I can only dream of the day that someone tells me I sound Cotton/Ricci/SRV influenced. Without influences there would be no music.
I heard Jimmie playin the harp on the his new record on xm radio with Lou ann Barton said he had to learn to play better with kim Wilson. He was pretty good to, I had no idea.
Yes!! It's some real good first position playing! Damn!! You can listen to a sample on Amazon-"Come Love" is the name of the song.
Last Edited by on Apr 27, 2011 9:06 AM
I can predict what any guitarist will do, especially blues guys. I predict Jimmie's stuff much more than SRV, and I have heard countless versions "Texas Flood." I believe Stevie Ray was more of a musician than Jimmie, and I never did buy that "less is more" school of thought.
I lived and played in austin when both the t birds and stevie were taking off. It was quite a time to be there. The town was alive with both their sounds and the offshot players like chris duarte, omar van dykes, alan haynes, the leroi brothers, etc, made the town a hot bed for blues based music. After friday night gigs a lot of the old car lovers met in the parking lot of the austin opera house. Jimmy vaughn, charlie sexton, came in their hot rods. Kim wilson came in his restored vw bug and me in either my restored 63 cadillac park ave, or 59 black limo. These were times when the musicians all worked together and the only competition was onstage when we were jamming together. The day stevie died I was baking bread at the upper crust bakery. The song tick tock came on the radio and then announcer told of stevie's death. The entire town went silent. I will never forget that moment. Stevie's last austin city limits show was a tribute to WC Clark as the opener. Charlie and Stevie invited Judy and I to the show. I wasn't deep enough in the austin history to be onstage, but we are in the front row. Stevie was straight and at peace. His playing was the best I ever saw of him. He played quiet too. It was a special night. I have so many memories of those days like eating breakfast with Jimmie at trudys south in front of ray hennings heart of texas music store and Connie Vaughn telling me at the black cat lounge on a break that Jimmie really digs how I play.......
When I hit austin I came from living 2 years based out of brussels. Over there I played very quiet with a trio. I used this old guitar and it worked great. It was the first guitar I owned that stayed in tune and was playable past the first few frets. Here is a shot from a gig at the banana peel in belguim with lousiana red playing it and me on harp
I was hired to play 5 nights a week at the black cat lounge on 6th street. The black cat lounge (the original location) was the craziest club in Texas. On either side were clubs and the music came through the walls from those bands louder than my trio. My guitar would feed back when turned up and it was going through a piece of junk peavy solid state amp. Charlie sexton came in and gave me a black face pro reverb and to my amazement I was given a 63 jazzmaster that lonnie mack gave to stevie when they recorded lightning strikes back together. Lonnie used it on his recordings back then. Stevie played too hard for the bridge set up and the strings moved around. So here I am, a new guy in town, know no one and am playing the coolest musician club in town, and given incredible gear by 2 of the greatest players in town. Most people that hear I was from the austin days of that SRV sound expect me to be a whiz guitarist. I was the simplest player in town but the players dug it and the people did too. It was a blessed time that I miss daily. Times like that usually never come in ones lifetime. I correspond regularly with Lewis Cowdrey. Lewis was one of the originators of the austin scene with the vaughns. Sadly he has pretty much given up playing because no gigs come his way anymore. I hate when this happens. The young players should be getting him undead and playing again. Walter
here is the jazzmaster in action from that era
and from last year
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
When SRV 1st came out I was blown away. Then his 2nd album came out and it seemed like a lot of the same songs with different words. By his 3rd album, everyone was trying to sound like him and I really got tired of hearing that style of playing for a while. I saw the T-Birds warm up for Clapton once and I really didn't care for Jimmy at all. There is minimal that builds up to something big which everyone likes. Most of the time I thought Jimmy's solos went from minimal to a little more than minimal...like wondering what happened to the rest of the solo. Like a Keith Richards solo....he probably should just stick to what he does well... play rhythm. Just my opinion. -John
This is the Texas Flood version I enjoy jamming along with..and it gives my B harps a little more use.
2nd position, "B" harp, Try licks like the one at 1:28 on 4 hole draw..bending and sliding down to 3 and 2 hole draw....actually a pretty common harp lick...but no one would say you are Albert King influenced since you are playing harp.
Predictable as in he copped a lot of licks. What made him unique was that he put them together in a musical fashion and made them sound like his own creation. People that don't listen to a lot of Blues will not know who influenced him. People that do listen to a lot of Blues records will almost immediately know where his licks come from.
Around the time the Family Style album was released, one of the guitar magazines wrote an article comparing and contrasting their styles. It was an interesting read.
Jimmy Vaughan is a very good guitar player. Very solid rhythm and very tasteful lead playing. He's an excellent example of the "less is more" philosophy. He can play lots of different styles and he rarely overplays.
I don't think that SRV learned a lot from his brother.
I'm wondering if they lived any part of their childhood in Fort Worth. They were born in Dallas and I knew a Jimmy Vaughan (or Vaughn) in elementary school when he was in 5th or 6th grade. He had dark, slicked-back hair and wore fancy shoes. Wondering if it might have been him.
I am puzzled. Why y'all would think that Jimmy wasnt a HUGE influence on Stevie? Jimmy was the one when Stevie was a little kid, bringing in the records he was listening to, and playing the guitar...and in the hottest band in Texas as a teenager----With Doyle Bramhall.. tell me you dont hear Stevie singing as Doyle Bramhall.. Big brothers influencing little brothers.....
of course Jimmie influenced Stevie. I was around both of them in the flesh, in austin, playing the same clubs/bills, using the same musicians in my band as they were.... They influenced each other as did everyone else in that scene influenced each other on some levels. Stevie, amoung other things, sped it up, distorted it up, and volumed it up. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Walter, I don't think saying "speeding it up, and distorting it up", paraphrased I know, is exactly fair. Many of Stevie's solos built up to speed for emotional and dynamic effect, and that distortion changed with volume (which is quite natural).
Zack: Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. I said amoung other things. My point is everyone influences everyone in a regional scene, let alone a family scene. An example- Jason Ricci's style of harp playing is not for me but I have heard things within his playing that definetely have influenced my playing. The same goes for Stevie's playing. Heck I own one of his guitars and I swear his riffs come through at times. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Ahhh, okay. I know Stevie began learning after an injury from football or something, and his brother helped him out. The influence is obviously there, but the sound is completely different. Stevie evolved in a completely different way.
that was the show charlie sexton and Stevie invited me to. Tickets were impossible to get. ACL only holds a few hundred people and tickets are always hard to get but this show was more of total personal invite one. I watched the video and saw myself at the 4 second mark in the second row with the red shirt on. Wow does time fly! Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Yes I know your right Zack. I use to sit in with a band in the late 80's early 90's that did Jimmy Hendricks and Stevie Ray Vahn. The guitar playered explained the same thing to me. He told me they would tune back up to play a few songs, but next time I would have to have the correct harps if I wanted to play with them. SRV is'nt the first person to that. The guitar player for Black Sabbath did it also. It was mostly popular with blues musicians though.
Mojokane: The best part of the show was Stevie was completely drink and drug free. He could play loaded but that approach led to much more noise making IMO than the focus he had at that show. He played quiet, focused, and was a joy to be around afterwards. No drug addict, no matter how famous they are, is fun to be around when loaded....... Other than that it was just like any austin show with those guys playing except instead of 20-150 people, there were a few hundred. I am pretty sure there is a dvd of that austin city limits show available.
Stevie used very heavy strings. Most all the blues based guys in Austin followed that lead during that era. I used 10s and still do. He and the flock were using, if I remember right 12-13s. That made playing with just your fingers like I do and chording in general, tough on the hands. Most claimed you got huge tone from the thicker strings and many tuned down to make them easier to play as well as the lower tones (kind of like a low tuned harp). Freddie King used like 8-9s and his tone was mighty big. Anyway not harp related but a piece of history. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
