The blues is not something that can be learned. Great bluesmen are born, not raised. There is something that needs to be present in their very souls from birth that makes them have a deeper connection to the music that seems to flow from them like breath flows from you and I. Stevie Ray Vaughan couldn’t help but feel the blues. If you have been living under a rock that had been thrown deep inside a dark cave onto which an avalanche fell blocking the entrance and sealing you in and away from society and you have never heard of this Stevie Ray Vaughan guy, just one listen to his guitar and you will realize that he was meant to do one thing, play the blues. His Texas style blues is huge and on the Couldn’t Stand the Weather: Legacy Edition you get a massive helping of some great legendary Stevie Ray blues.
What the blues gods have blessed us with is a double album re-release. Epic/Legacy have remastered the original 8 songs and included an addition 11 songs that were recorded during the sessions for this album. Now, like all of these remastered albums that come out, there are some songs you have heard before. If this isn’t your first Stevie Ray rodeo than you have already heard “Little Wing”, “Empty Arms”, and “Wham!” from The Sky is Crying. If you bought the 1999 re-release of Couldn’t Stand The Weather than you will no doubt be familiar with “Look At Little Sister”, “Hide Away”, “Come On (Pt lll)”, and “Give Me Back My Wig”. But, what you haven’t heard are the 3 previously unreleased versions of tracks that have been found for this set. Given the lack of new material coming from the Vaughan camp cause of that whole “being dead” thing, this is stuff to be excited about even if they are just alternate versions of songs you already know. The three songs are “Boot Hill”, “The Sky is Crying”, and “Stang’s Swang”.
From the opening countdown by Stevie Ray himself on “The Sky is Crying” the differences between this version and the original become very clear. His guitar has a much fuller sound than the Texas twang on the previous version. His voice sounds the same by which I mean amazing. His wonderfully nasal tone seems to come not from his mouth but from somewhere much deeper in his bones. As I said before, the blues can not be learned. You can’t teach someone how to sing and play guitar with feeling like this.
“Boot Hill” sounds more like a roadhouse version than the previously released song we have heard. Stevie and Double Trouble rip through this slightly faster version like they are playing for their lives. On “Stang’s Swang” they have removed the saxophone that can be heard playing along with Stevie’s guitar at certain times during the song. Listening to Stevie play an instrumental is like listening to angels sing the blues.
The original album is the stuff of legend and should be in every aspiring blues fans catalog. The album includes such legendary songs as “Voodoo Chile”, “Couldn’t Stand the Weather”, “Tin Pan Alley”, and the air guitar favorite “Scuttle Buttin”. This is Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s second album and their first album to go gold and later platinum.
The Second album in this set is a previously unreleased concert that took place three months after Couldn’t Stand the Weather at The Spectrum in Montreal, Canada. The set list for it contains a great mix of his first album Texas Flood as well as songs from Couldn’t Stand The Weather. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble live are like an entirely different animal than their studio recordings partly due to the fact that live blues is the pinnacle of the blues triangle. Good live blues is, in my humble opinion, Zen. It is the moment where the hands and voice of the bluesmen are linked to their soul. It is one of the most beautiful things in the world and this live album is no exception with incredible versions of “Texas Flood”,“Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)”, “Pride and Joy”, and an amazing version of “Lenny”.
Stevie Ray Vaughan is to blues what breathing is to all living creatures, necessary. To be a fan of blues without understanding and enjoying the imprint Stevie Ray left on it is like being a fan of Rum without ever tasting Captain Morgan Private Stock. It’s been twenty years since Stevie Ray Vaughan was taken from this place but through his recordings he managed to leave a part of his soul behind. Evidence of that takes place at 8:30 seconds on the live version of “Lenny”. Turn it up, close your eyes, sit back, and enjoy the shivers that go up your spine.
Key Tracks-Couldn’t Stand the Weather, Lenny(live), “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
Doug Morrissey- MuzikReviews.com Staff
July 5, 2010
