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stevie ray vaughn - Gotta be the best ever?

gearhound said:
Hendrix......period.
Guess where a large portion of SRV's "licks" came from?


Steve
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So just to make sure I wasn't kidding myself I just skimmed thru some Hendrix stuff. This stuff is a whole other level separated from the blues than Stevie. Even Little Wing doesn't seem to have as much of a laid back blues feel.. more forward more towards rock.

Even "Red House" which is clearly an attempt to do a traditional blues song. In fact the more I listen to this .. I think I may have been giving him more credit than I should :)

As far as traditional blues goes Stevie has all over him and there are much much better traditional blues artist than hendryx.

Don't get me wrong he is a great guitarists... I would clearly put him in the Rock Guitarist category and arguably the one of the Best Rock guitarists of all time.

Just my opinion...It fun to disagree about such things no?

Steve
 
fotno said:
I wouldn't call SRV unappreciated in his own lifetime. Matter of fact I seem to recall seeing his face on the cover of quite a few magazines, not to mention his record sales are quite good both then and now. Not to shabby for a guy who left us far too young.

http://www.stevieray.com/awards.htm

He was an incredible guitar player, and the saddest thing to me is thinking about how good he would be now... He would only have been 55.
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I'm a bass player and used to go to a LOT of blues jams to sharpen my chops. It was VERY challenging because I never really liked the blues so had never heard most of the songs. Meanwhile, some guitar player singer comes up and sez, "ok guys, we'll do The Sky is Crying in G with a fast four". Huh?

It was in the blues jams that I was turned on to SRV learned to really appreciate not just his technical prowess, but his "feel" - his "musicality".

I still don't like the blues all that much (at least most of what you hear at blues jams), nor John Lee Hooker or B. B. King, but SRV is in his own league. Sometimes what rises to the top really IS the cream, and not just the marketing lotto winner.
 
Love Stevie and all that he did. Unfortunately he was not all that well know back in the early 80`s except in Austin and a little outside Texas. His progressive blues/rock style was derived from a lot of different influences most of which you guy`s have hit upon. He was and will always be one fof the greats and Jimmy is by no means a slouch in his own right. We all miss him and his ability to move the music and you.
 
Like I said, SRV DID play the blues but several of his songs weren't blues. "Lenny" "Riviera Paradise" "Stang's Swang" "Little Wing" "Life by the Drop" for example. When he played the blues, he played the hell out of it.
 
GOYA said:
Like I said, SRV DID play the blues but several of his songs weren't blues. "Lenny" "Riviera Paradise" "Stang's Swang" "Little Wing" "Life by the Drop" for example. When he played the blues, he played the hell out of it.
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I saw him as "blues with a twist".

That is how I saw my favorite "rock" band, "old" Genesis - Rock with a twist.

And maybe that's why I like them both.
 
I've been on a big Genesis kick lately myself. And strangely enough, a few years back, I was on the other side of a slightly different argument. I had a blues band and my bass player insisted that SRV was not a blues musician at all.
 
GOYA said:
I've been on a big Genesis kick lately myself. And strangely enough, a few years back, I was on the other side of a slightly different argument. I had a blues band and my bass player insisted that SRV was not a blues musician at all.
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Yous want I should rough 'im up for yas?
 
"Life by the drop" is as died-in-the-wool of a Texas Blues song as you are ever likey to find. Does it meet all the technical requirements for being a blues song? Of course not! That's why it is "Texas Blues" and Not some other kind. We do not accept your traditional definitions of music, be it rock, blues, or country, so we do our own thing. If Stevie doesn't fit your mold of what a Texas bluesman should sound like, maybe ypu should revise your definition. To use your own example, ask Johnny and Edgar if Stevie was a bluesman. Blues is something you feel. While it's true that many Texas Blues songs follow a more traditional structure, there are even more that don't. I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to understand Texas Blues, put down your mortarboard and pencil, grab a pack of smokes and a beer, and hang out @ Antone's or Stubb's for a year. And don't try to define Texas Blues for a Texan. You can't get it from listening to a few albums or studying music theory. You gotta be there when Willy drops in @ Waterloo, or when Kris or Bonnie drop by the Saxon and jam w/ whoever happens to be on. Hell, just show up anywhere Stephen Bruton or Carolyn Wonderland are playing, and be prepared to see some of the finest guitar work going (carolyn on the lap slide is worth the price of admition, no matter what the cover). Stevie not a bluesman? Tell that to the Texas Blues Museum. This ain't no sonnet i'm talkin bout! Here, the rules bend like
a bottom E....
 
Whoa there, Tex. Who said SRV was not a bluesman? You can sing "Faded Love" and call it Texas opera, but it won't make it opera.
 
I'm going to have to give the nod to Hendrix as the best ever, mostly for the reason that he was a rock/blues pioneer. Hendrix was probably more versatile, he could make you cry with one song, and rock your world with the next. But why would I say that when SRV can do it too? :dunno: SRV played clean and precise, and he never hits the wrong note, his solos are always perfect. SRV in a close second behind Jimi. RIP, Stevie Ray. Wish he was still with us. :tears:
 
GOYA said:
Like I said, SRV DID play the blues but several of his songs weren't blues. "Lenny" "Riviera Paradise" "Stang's Swang" "Little Wing" "Life by the Drop" for example. When he played the blues, he played the hell out of it.
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Great pics Goya .... Especially "Life by the Drop", very under the radar song that shows his amazing vocal prowess .... Best blues singer IMO

And Riviera Paradise, Is a song that gets me every single time I hear it. chills, goosebumps and sometimes tears.

Lenny live at the El Mocambo is my favourite live guitar performance I've ever seen .... Stevie looks so sick and gray but his playing is spot on perfection. If your a guitar player like I am I don't know if it really technically does get better than Stevie. Seeing someone just ooze soul and doing it in such a masterful way is just magic.
 
are jimi hendrix and srv being questioned as bluesmen because they wrote pop tunes? or rather that they had crossover appeal? the definition of blues can get pretty skewed in this light but i consider them two of the best blues guitarists ever, and definitely my two favorites. imo srv was technically superior to hendrix but wouldn't have been half as great without the hendrix influence.
 
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You can definitely hear Hendrix in Vaughn's playing, but that's just one part of it. Albert King is there too, and probably a hundred other guitarists and styles that the young SRV was influenced by. The difference is, that he absorbed what they had to teach him and took it someplace new, and that's the mark of a truly great musician.
 
During the late 80's a coworker of mine introduced me to SRV's In Step album. After that I was hooked, I loved all his music. His artistic style really could bring goose bumps on certain songs, like Riveria Paradise.

I'll never forget the fall of my sophmore year in college hearing about his death standing in line at the cafeteria from some unappreciative frat boys who thought he sucked. I was pissed as hell hearing these guys talk about Stevie, and saddend me that he died at such a young age. He seemed so old to me when I was only 19 at the time, but looking back he was only 35 when he died. I'm almost 38 now, and all I can say life sure does fly by. It only seemed like yesterday when his music was new to my ears. I only wish he could have made more.
 
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