While I'll home sick, I was going thru some files and I came across a email interview I did with Dick Waterman (Son House manager and blues historian) for the radio show I co-hosted with 'Dapper' Dan Axt.

Waterman & SRV were setting in a Southwest Airlines lounge waiting to fly from Dallas to Austin a few months before he was killed.

Waterman was on the Board of Directors for the Blues Foundation at that time and was ragging on him to come to the Handy Award.

They were talking about blues and his exact quote to Waterman was:

"I just consider myself a Texas blues man who updated the technology. I'm just bring it down the line from Freddie King before and Lightning Hopkins before and Blind Lemon Jefferson before him.

The greatest compliment that anyone can ever give me is to say that they hear the roots of Texas blues in what I play."

Wow, I had forgot about this interview, it was more on Waterman's life than about SRV, but the quote from SRV just floored me.

I still miss him.

Dick Waterman http://www.dickwaterman.com/

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Tony Houston

Well Stevie used to call Albert King his Godfather and Alberts influence shows the most in Stevies playing.

I actually heard allot of Albert King before Stevie Ray, and then when I first heard "Texas Flood" I knew that it had Albert King written all over it, what a masterpiece. Another one of Stevie's songs "Gone Home" reminds me of the sound that T-Bone Walker made famous.

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Fender Highway One HSS Stratocaster '09
Modified Fender Champ600
Honer Special20 Harmonica

I had actually saw Albert King live a couple of times before I heard SRV. I'm a native of Dayton OH, where Gilly's http://www.gillysjazz.com/ is located. Owner Jerry Gillotti has always booked blues along with jazz acts.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds had played Gilly's and Jimmie Vaughan had told me how good his little brother was playing guitar.

I'm a big David Bowie fan, Bowie did the 'Cat People' soundtrack, I saw the movie and heard this amazing guitar on one songs. Than Bowie released 'Let's Dance' with SRV on guitar. This blew my mind.

A couple of weeks later on Shakin' Dave Hussong's Hall of Fame radio on NPR WYSO, he played 'Floodin' Down In Texas' . I was so stunned my the song that I pulled over on the highway.

Than Dave announced that it was SRV & Double Trouble, and that they were coming to Gilly's on 7/31/83. I immediately drove down to Gilly's to see if Jerry (Gilly's owner) was there.

He was just going into the club, I caught up with him and asked if I could buy tickets for the show. The tickets haven't even been printed yet. But Jerry knew me and held four tickets for me.

The night of the show I was about 20 ' from Stevie, and he just smoked. He broke a pick and landed close to me, I got it off the floor. Later after the encore, Stevie walked by me and winked.

I've never forgotten that night, and the three friends I took still talk about that show.

I still miss him, he was a complete master of the guitar, and played his heart out, each and every time I saw him.

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Tony Houston

Just watched Albert King on your other thread Tommy, cheers, could hear similarities in there singing also, if you listen you can hear it at the end of some lines the way they both drop off

I'm really thankful that Stevie let the people interviewing him know who his influences were. If he hadn't, I'd still be clueless. A few months after I'd seen Stevie on TV for the first time (that was the second time I heard him, the first time my Dad played Texas Flood for I actually told him to turn it off, I didn't like blues) I found a magazine with a collection of articles about him. I read all the interviews and I was actually embarrassed when I realized the only person that he listened to that I even knew about was Jimi Hendrix. And even then, I had only heard Purple Haze a couple of times and that was it.
So the day after I read those interviews I got on the internet determined to find out who Albert King was, who Jimmie Vaughan was, who B.B. King was and so on. I found a few videos of Stevie playing with Albert King on youtube and I was officially hooked on blues.

I've lived in Texas (Houston) my whole life and I had never realized so many great guitar players are from my home town and my home state. Thank you Stevie!

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Well, Stevie got his tone from wanting to sound like Jimi. There was an article written by René Martinez in Tonequest http://www.tonequest.com/back-issues.htm, where Martinez writes about mod'ing Steve's amps over the years.

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Tony Houston

Oh, I didn't mean it like I was embarrassed to like Hendrix. I meant it like I was embarrassed that I had never taken the time to listen to blues, and I didn't know who Stevie was talking about.
And I was embarrassed that I didn't even know that a lot of what Jimi Hendrix did was based on blues. I like Jimi Hendrix a whole lot, especially now that I can play some of his songs.

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Oh no, I didn't take it as that.



I started playing guitar in '72, I was 22yr, but it wasn't until the late 70s, that I started learning Jimi's songs. Why? Because I didn't know you could turn to 'Eb' .

You know that the 'How to Play All of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland!' DVD is out http://tinyurl.com/maxq5r.

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Tony Houston

I had that problem too. I only recently figured it out. I could jam along with Stevie's version of Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) and I tuned up to standard to try and play along with the Hendrix version. It took me a few minutes to figure out what the problem was, but I'm glad I finally figured it out.


Yeah! I'm going to get it sometime. I have the DVD for Axis: Bold As Love. That's how I learned Spanish Castle Magic. One of my favorite guitar solos ever is in that song, I'm going to have to finish learning it.

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thouston

That was a great story.

I have been listening to Blues music in a progressive manner over the past two years. I had heard of Stevie Ray before years ago because some of his songs were played on local radio. In the past 6 months I have had my eyes open to the likes of Stevie and Albert King through the internet. I just can't get enough of SRV, I brought my first cd of his about 3 months ago my enthusiasm for his music just keeps growing.

It is great how almost 20 years or so on from his death that people like myself are discovering his music for the first time and really enjoying it. I have yet to hear anything that comes close to Stevie's style and tone. This is the type of Blues music that I can listen to over and over again whilst enjoying it even more everytime.

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Fender Highway One HSS Stratocaster '09
Modified Fender Champ600
Honer Special20 Harmonica

There is a pretty good chance that the first music I ever heard was Stevie Ray. If it wasn't the first I ever heard it was the first that I remember hearing. My dad is a huge Stevie Ray fan and I remember sitting in the bed of his truck after his softball games when I was 4 or so and he would be hanging out with his buddies drinking beer and listening to SRV. Without a doubt SRV is the biggest reason I wanted to play a guitar in the first place. I got a lot of hell in middle school and high school for listening to and playing blues all the time because Nirvana, Alice in Chains, SoundGarden, Etc. were all the big time bands at the time. I like those bands and that kind of music because it was the music that was around me growing up, but SRV was there from my birth and is and always will be the king of Guitar for me.

I listened to SRV 'Serious Moonlight' rehearsals with David Bowie in '84 http://tinyurl.com/mda6s7, and you can tell he wasn't really 'in to' it.

I'm a big fan of Bowie, and would have liked to seen the tour, if it would have happened.

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Tony Houston

Thanks for the link!!! I always like hearing behind the scenes stuff like that.

I bet a lot of people first heard SRV on "Let's Dance". The cool thing about living in Texas is that that's not where my parents heard about him for the first time. Back in the late 70s and very early 80s my parents were in college in Lubbock and Stevie used to play there all the time. My Dad said that he used to have friends who'd tell him "Hey, there's this really awesome"... Wait, did y'all say the word awesome" way back then? Maybe not.
Anyway, his friends would tell him to come see this really good guitar player named Stevie Vaughan when he played at Stubb's. I always thought it was cool that my Dad knew of him before he even added "Ray" in his name.
My Dad was a late night radio DJ at the time in Lubbock, he played mostly rock including a lot of Jimi Hendrix. I've always wondered whether Stevie might have heard my Dad on the radio.
Unfortunately my Dad never did what his friends told him to do and he never got to see SRV live. I'll never forgive him for that.

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Don't be to rough on him! Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.