This is the second installment of the SRV story. We missed Freddie King's birthday. Maybe next week. I got a BS email from someone with a MAGA hat on telling me I should be ashamed of myself for telling folks to get their shots and saving their lives. To that gentleman I just say KMA. We had a helluva show at the RR on Sunday. Many old friends showed up and met and made some new ones, too. We can't thank the players and the RR staff enough for helping us out. This has been an annual gig for several years with a little break for a pandemic. We fell right back into it. And it felt good. Have a safe week. Sincerely, Jim Crawford - PBS | |
Blues To Use www.coldshott.com The Sugar Thieves www.sugarthieves.com Gary Zak & The Outbacks www.outbackbluesband.com Hans Olson www.hansolson.net Rocket 88s www.rocket88s.net JC& The Rockers www.thejukerockers.com Carvin Jones www.carvinjones.com Hoodoo Casters www.hoodoocasters.com Rhythm Room www.rhythmroom.com Nina Curri www.ninacurri.com Paris James www.parisjames.com Mother Road Trio www.motherroadtrio.com Blues Review Band Reverbnationbluesmanmike Big Daddy D & The Dynamites Facebook www.bigdadddyd.com Cadillac Assembly Line Facebook Innocent Joe and the Hostile Witnesses Facebook Chuck Hall Facebook Pop Top Facebook Tommy Grills Band Facebook Sweet Baby Ray SweetBabyRaysBlues.com Thermal Blues Express Thermal Blues Express.com Tuesday, September 7 Gypsy & Hooter’s Blues JAM, 6 p.m., Pho Cao, Scottsdale Wednesday, September 8 Rocket 88s JAM, 7 p.m., Dubliner Irish Pub, Phoenix Tool Shed JAM, 7 p.m, Blooze Bar, Phoenix Johnny Miller JAM, 7 p.m., Coop’s, Glendale Thursday, September 9 Blues Review Band, 6:30 p.m., Westside Blues & Jazz, Glendale Hans Olson, 6 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Friday, September 10 Soul Power Band, 9 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Sugar Thieves, 6 p.m., Kazimierz, Scottsdale Leon J, 11:30 a.m., DA Ranch, Cornville Saturday, September 11 Rocket 88s/Women in Blues Show (see poster), 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Cold Shott & The Hurricane Horns, 8 p.m., Westside Blues & Jazz, Glendale J C & The Rockers, 7 p.m., Handlebar Pub, Apache Junction Mikel Lander, 1 p.m., The Potato Barn, Chandler BluZone Duo, 6 p.m., Voodoo Daddy’s, Tempe Leon J, 11:30 a.m., DA Ranch, Cornville Mother Road Trio, 11 a.m., Jim Cullen Park, Flagstaff Sunday, September 12 JC & The Rockers, 6 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Leon J, 11:30 a.m., DA Ranch, Cornville Monday, September 13 Hooter’s Monday Night Blues JAM, 7 p.m., Starlite, Glendale | | SRV by Bill Millikowski “And between the coke and the alcohol, it had gotten to the point where I no longer had any idea what it would take to get drunk. I passed the stage where I could drink whatever I wanted to and be able to hold my liquor, so to speak. One day I could drink a quart, and then the next day all I’d have to do was drink one sip to get completely smashed.” Stevie Ray doesn’t remember exactly how much he drank the night he fell off the stage in London in 1986. Two, maybe three drinks. Maybe a quart. But it was painfully obvious at that point that something had gone dreadfully haywire with the reigning star of the rock and blues scene. John Hammond’s promising protégé was drowning in a morass of self-destruction. “I would wake up and guzzle something, just to get rid of the pain I was feeling – whisky, beer, vodka, whatever was handy. It got to the point where if I’d try to say hi to somebody I would just fall apart, crying and everything. It was like… solid doom. There really was nowhere to go but up. I’d been trying to pull myself up by my boot straps, so to speak, but they were broken, you know?” He exacerbated his mental, physical and spiritual decline with the help of some unfortunate ‘recreational’ activities, the most effective of which involved pouring cocaine into his drinks to prolong the buzz. “I tore up my stomach real bad by doing that. I didn’t realise that the cocaine would crystallise in my stomach and make cuts inside there. Finally I had a breakdown. I mean, everything fell apart. I surrendered to the fact that I didn’t know how to go without the stuff. I had envisioned myself just staying high for the rest of my life, you know? But I had to give up to win, because I was in a losing battle.” In September 1986 he entered a clinic in London, under the care and supervision of Dr Victor Bloom. “He filled me in on the disease of alcoholism and made me realise that this thing had been going on for a long time with me, long before I ever started playing professionally. Fact is, I had been drinking since 1960 – when I was six years old. That’s when I first started stealing daddy’s drinks. When my parents were gone, I’d find the bottle and make myself one. I thought it was cool… thought the kids down the street would think it was cool. That’s where it began, and I had been depending on it ever since.” Stevie Ray readily admitted that, just prior to his breakdown, the constant intake and build-up of drugs and alcohol in his system contributed to a decline in the quality of his playing and in his band’s overall performance: “Sure it affected my playing. Of course, my thinking was: ‘Boy, don’t that sound good?’ And there were some great notes that came out, but not necessarily always by my doing. It was kind of like I was getting carried through something. I just wasn’t in control. Nobody was. We were all exhausted. You could hear it on the tapes of the stuff we had to pull from for the Live Alive album. Some of those European gigs were okay; some of them sounded like they were the work of half-dead people. “Part of the deal,” he continued, “was that this kind of behaviour is so accepted in this industry. It’s a classic line: ‘Golly, he sure is screwed up, but he sure can play good.’ And I found out that if I stayed loaded all the time, my ego got patted on the back and I didn’t have to worry about things that I should’ve been thinking about. It was a lot more comfortable to run from responsibilities. There were a lot of things I was running from, and one of them was me. I was a 33-year-old with a six-year-old kid inside of me, scared and wondering where love is. I was walking around trying to act cool, like I had no fear at all. But I was afraid – afraid that somebody would find out just how scared I was. Now I’m finally realising that fear is the opposite of love.” Shortly after that story was published (September 1988) I went to see the new and improved SRV at an outdoor concert at Pier 84 overlooking the Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan. The show was typically brilliant, the musicianship phenomenal, and included Stevie’s regular speech during his tune Life Without You about committing to a life of sobriety. After the show, I got backstage to say hi to Stevie Ray. At some point he spied me in the sea of well-wishers and hangers-on, approached me, looked me dead in the eye, shook my hand and said: “Thanks for what you did.” I next saw Stevie Ray in early 1990 at an intimate listening party at the midtown Manhattan offices of Epic Records. He and his brother Jimmie were there to premiere their first-ever collaboration, Family Style, to a select few press members. I remember Stevie wearing white boots, smiling a lot and dancing as the tune Baboom/Mama Said came booming out of the speakers. He was clean and sober and grabbing the brass ring of life from his personal merry-go-round. No more bleary eyes and tell-tale stagger. He was sitting on top of the world, to quote Willie Dixon, enjoying the fruits of his labour right alongside his brother. These were the good times. And then, like a meteor streaking across the night sky, disaster struck. On the morning of Friday, August 31, 1990, more than 3,000 fans arrived at Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas to pay their last respects to Stevie Ray. Inside the chapel, an inner circle of friends and family gathered in private. First to emerge from the chapel was Stevie Wonder, who was led to a sheltered reviewing stand near the grave site. The casket was then placed in a white hearse, which drove slowly to the site as mourners followed behind on foot. Jimmie and his mother Martha walked alongside the late guitarist’s fiancée, Janna Lapidus. Strolling behind them, heads bowed, were SRV’s drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon alongside the Fabulous Thunderbirds harmonica ace and frontman Kim Wilson. Behind them were Canadian blues guitarist Jeff Healey, Austin guitar slinger Charlie Sexton, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard, New Orleans icon Dr John, Mark Pollack of Charley’s Guitars store in Dallas, Canadian blues guitarist Colin James, and Charlie Comer, Stevie Ray’s friend and publicist. Blues guitar great Buddy Guy, overcome with grief, slipped out of the chapel and into a nearby car, unable to bring himself to the grave site. The Reverend Barry Bailey of the First United Methodist Church of Fort Worth (Stevie Ray’s AA sponsor) opened the funeral service with some personal thoughts, his rich voice booming through two huge stacks of speakers. “We’re here to thank God for this man’s life,” he began. “He was a genius, a superstar, a musician’s musician. He captured the hearts of thousands and thousands of people. I am thankful for the impact of this man’s influence on thousands of people in getting his own life together in the name of God.” Several mourners wept openly as Nile Rodgers eulogised Stevie Ray by recalling a tune from the Family Style session he had produced only a few weeks earlier: “In the song Tick Tock, he sings the refrain ‘Remember.’ And what Stevie was trying to tell all of us was: ‘Remember my music. Remember how important music is to all of us. And just remember that it’s a gift.’ Stevie was truly touched by the hand of God. He had a powerful gift. And through his music, he can make us all remember things that are very, very important, like love and family. And believe me, Stevie, I’ll always remember.” And with those solemn words, the soulful sound of Stevie’s soothing vocals on Tick Tock poured out of the speakers, touching hearts and raising goose bumps. It was a preview of the Vaughan Brothers’ Family Style album, which would not be released until September 25 that year. The crowd, surprised by this sample of what was yet to come, applauded and cheered. Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Stevie Wonder then led the crowd in a few choruses of Amazing Grace, Bonnie carrying the melody as the other two harmonised. And when Raitt said: “Take it, Stevie,” the magnificent Wonder voice came forth, swooping and swirling around the notes with spine-tingling, emotionally charged power, causing many in the crowd to lose control. Twenty years later, in 2010, Stevie Ray Vaughan was still being rediscovered by a new generation that appreciated the directness, rawness and sheer honesty of his stinging Strat work. Meanwhile, Sony released a newly remastered two-CD edition of SRV’s 1984 platinum-selling album Couldn’t Stand The Weather, to commemorate the anniversary year, which included out-takes and a previously unreleased live concert recording from 1984. You see, that old blues adage is true: What goes around comes around. Stevie Ray Vaughan was back. And his toe-curling licks sounded as fresh as ever. | |
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