Stevie Ray Vaughan

Who was Stevie Ray Vaughan?

Stephen “Stevie” Ray Vaughan was an American musician, singer, lyricist and record producer, who is better known as the lead singer of the eighties rock band from Texas, ‘Double Trouble’. Although, he had a short-lived musical career of only seven years yet Vaughan became the master of blues rock during his time and earned many awards and recognition for it. He belonged to a middle class family and music was his only passion since childhood; it was also his only solace and salvage from his father’s abusive behavior. He started out in Austin by playing sporadic gigs with garage bands until he found his own band called ‘Double Trouble’. The band was first recognized by Mick Jagger and gained popularity when they signed a professional contract with the Epic records. The band had a good run for at least three years with three great albums like ‘Texas Flood’, ‘Soul to Soul’, etc. until Vaughan started getting seriously affected by his cocaine and alcohol addiction. But he conquered his weakness for the drugs and came out clean and successful with his album ‘In Step (1989)’, which also fetched the band their first Grammy award. A year after that Vaughan died an untimely death in a chopper crash.

Career

Vaughan went through a hard time trying to maintain his academic performance at Southern Methodist University as he had no inclination towards studies and all his loyalties lied with music and playing with garage bands.

Soon he dropped out of college and moved to Austin. In order to make a living, he collected soda and beer bottles for money and stayed at friends’ houses. During this time he was able to get sporadic gigs in Austin.

In 1975, Vaughan collected a bunch of musicians and formed the band, ‘Triple Threat’, which was later changed to ‘Double Trouble’. He was the lead vocalist of the band and started getting quite a bit of popularity in Texas.

‘Double Trouble’ caught the attention of the famous Mick Jagger in 1982. They received an invitation to come and play at his party in New York. In the same year, they performed at the Montreux Blues and Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

In 1983, singer David Bowie’s gave them an opportunity to play on his album ‘Let’s Dance’. In the same year, they signed a contract with Epic and the producer, John Hammond, Sr. took over the management of their career.

In 1983, their first album ‘Texas Flood’ was released and it ranked at No. 38 on the big charts. Vaughan was voted as the Best New Talent and Best Electric Blues Guitarist by ‘Guitar Player Magazine’.

After some successful tours, ‘Double Trouble’ released their second album, ‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’ in 1984. The album went gold and peaked at No. 31 on the rock musical charts all over America.

In 1985 ‘Soul to Soul’ was released and its singles—‘Change It’ and ‘Look at Little Sister’ were great hits on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. ‘Live Alive’ was released the next year—a recording of live concerts in Texas.

After a break of few years due to Vaughan’s substance abuse problem, the band released ‘In Step’ in 1989. The album peaked at No. 33 on the rock charts and earned them a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Recording.

Vaughan collaborated with his brother Jimmie to record an album called ‘Family Style’ in 1990. The album consisted of ten songs—both the Vaughan brothers always wanted to do an album together and it was released after Vaughan’s death.