Photograph by James Minchin III

Back on Track

Jimmie Vaughan: A Lone Star state of mind

By Alan Sculley

Jimmie Vaughan has entered a new phase with his latest CD, Do You Get The Blues? After more than a decade on Epic Records, first during his long stint as guitarist in the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and then for his first two CDs as a solo artist, Strange Pleasure and Out There, both on the Sony/Epic label, Vaughan has moved over to the independent Artemis Records.

“They let me do the record like what I wanted,” Vaughan says of Artemis. “They weren’t trying to get me to use this [producer], some guy who just had a hit with ‘N Sync, you know what I mean. You run into a wall sometimes. Some people have crazy ideas. But I’m happy with [the new CD]. I like to try to make records so that 15 years from now if you’re playing the record and you go, ‘You know, that sounds pretty good.’ It’s not about the latest gizmos and all that.”

Sounding both contemporary and timeless is a central goal for Vaughan whenever he enters the studio. As an artist whose music is seeped in the blues, that’s not always an easy goal, since there are those who consider blues a relic from an earlier era.

Suffice to say Vaughan doesn’t agree with that way of thinking. “I didn’t go and evaluate the market before I made this record,” he says. “I mean, I think my records are current. They’re not nostalgia records. They’ve got a lot of roots in them, and it is blues and this and it’s got all kinds of elements in it. You can pick out what that is. You can say ‘That sounds like an old gospel record’ or that sounds like [something else]. But I’m not trying to make an authentic, looking-back kind of record. To me this [stuff] is like now.”

Do You Get The Blues? could convince more than a few skeptics that at least in Vaughan’s hands, the blues is nowhere near as arcane as they think. Bill Willis’ chunky Hammond B-3 organ and George Rains’ in-the-pocket drumming give the songs a spirited groove. That bedrock sound, coupled with Vaughan’s lean and expressive lead guitar and some occasional gospel-tinged male vocal harmonies, gives Vaughan one of the most distinctive and fresh styles on the roots-music scene.

It’s a sound that was clearly defined from the opening notes of Vaughan’s solo debut Strange Pleasure and its rousing lead track “Boom-Bapa-Boom.” But there are subtle new wrinkles on the new disc. On his cover of the soulful “In The Middle of the Night” and the rocking “Power of Love,” Vaughan supplements his sound by sharing lead vocals with the great Austin-based singer Lou Ann Barton, who joins him Nov. 11 at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma.

The cosmic instrumental “Planet Bongo” and the moody ballad “Don’t Let the Sun Set” get much of their atmosphere from the flute playing of Herman Green, a veteran Memphis musician who got his start in the late 1940s as a member of B. B. King’s original band. The CD’s first single, “The Deep End,” is another slight departure, as this tangy tune highlights Vaughan’s work on acoustic slide guitar and also features a guest turn from Muddy Waters’ former harmonica player, James Cotton.

“I’ll tell you the story on that one,” Vaughan says. “We used to be the house band, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, at Antone’s nightclub [in Austin], way back in the day. The first time Muddy Waters came, we opened for him. He liked us, so one night I pulled out my slide guitar and kind of did a little Muddy thing on a song. The next night when we did it, he came out and grabbed me by the neck from behind me on the stage and was kind of choking me and kind of playing with me. And then he told me later, ‘When I’m gone, I want you to show people what I did. That’s it. Show people what I did.’

“So I remembered that, and this was my opportunity to do that. And then James Cotton was there, too, so it all just made sense.”

Both on album and onstage, Vaughan these days clearly seems energized by his music. That’s something he couldn’t say toward the end of his 15-year stint in the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the rocking blues-based group he formed with singer Kim Wilson and the band with which he recorded such popular albums as Tuff Enough and Hot Number.

“I was just sort of burned out,” Vaughan said, describing the period that preceded his departure after the 1989 Fabulous Thunderbirds CD Powerful Stuff. “You know, just a lot of drinking and drugs, and it was mostly just you’re young and you’re burning the candle at both ends and the candle gets too short, you know. And then everybody’s personality gets in the way. It was just screwed up, and I just had to get off the bus and go home and rethink my whole thing. We had just been on the road for so long. After we had a couple of hits, then the booking agents wanted us to play four gigs a day.

“I just ran out of gas.”

The professional wear and tear was complicated by personal tragedy. Just before leaving the T-birds, Vaughan fulfilled a longtime dream by recording Family Style with his younger, more famous brother Stevie Ray Vaughan. But in August of 1990, Stevie Ray perished in a helicopter crash after a concert at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin. Jimmie retreated following the tragedy, and it wasn’t until 1994 that he re-emerged with Strange Pleasure. With his lifestyle cleaned up and his solo sound to pursue, Vaughan once again enjoys his life in the studio and on the road.

“I’m present now. I’m able to enjoy things, and it just took what it took,” he says. “It was a great time in the T-Birds. We were fun and we made a lot of good records. We had a lot of fun and went everywhere.

“I’m having a ball now. These are the good old days.”

Jimmie Vaughan and Lou Ann Barton perform Sunday, Nov. 11, at 8 p.m., at the Mystic Theatre, 21 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. Tickets are $20. 707/765-2121.

From the November 8-14, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

High Lonesome: Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys

Kiss Kiss

Love–American roots music style

By Greg Cahill

America’s love affair with roots music is heating up. This on-again, off-again romance–which most recently saw the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack rocket onto the pop charts–is likely to get a fresh start with the airing this week of the PBS four-part documentary American Roots Music (with a companion book and CD box set on the shelves this week as well), which traces the roots of rock by exploring a century of blues, folk, gospel, Tex-Mex, Cajun, zydeco, Native American, and country music.

This infatuation rises in the national psyche every once in a while–witness the 1960s plundering of blues giants by the British rock bands, the blockbuster success of Robert Cray’s 1986 smash hit “Smoking Gun,” the enduring hillbilly hipsterism of Dwight Yoakam, or Moby’s gospel-inflected electronica–all leading the mainstream media to trumpet the resurgence of roots music.

These days, American roots music enjoys a comfortable niche. There’s a legion of celebrated underground acts (including such autumnal singer/songwriters as Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Julie Miller, and Iris Dement); numerous indie record labels, both big and small (Rounder, Bloodshot, Vanguard, et al.); a struggling radio format (Americana); a handful of magazines (No Depression, Living Blues); and now, after a century of commercial neglect, canonization in a PBS documentary bristling with rare film clips, interview footage, and a glorious music that personifies the ethnic and social diversity of the nation.

Now we’ll see if America really was cozying up to the old-timey music of O Brother (the soundtrack of which sold more than 2 million copies), or if it was just George Clooney’s comedic parody as one of the fabled Soggy Bottom Boys that won their hearts.

The four-CD set (a single disc of highlights also is available) showcases eight uniquely American musical forms. It contains single CDs dedicated to country and blues, respectively; a third disc split between gospel and folk; and a fourth CD devoted to Cajun/zydeco, Tejano, and Native American artists. There also is a 56-page booklet with an essay by Robert Santelli, a timeline, lots of photos, and artist biographies.

And there’s so much to love here: the high, lonesome wail of bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe; the blistering harmonica solo of James Cotton, the inspiring power of gospel great Mahalia Jackson, the foot-stomping zeal of zydeco king Clifton Chenier.

Among the other highlights are a rare version of blues great Son House’s “Death Letter Blues,” a previously unreleased rendition of the radical chic Weavers’ (with folkies Pete Seeger and Ronnie Gilbert) “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh,” a vibrant “Ossun Two-Step” by Cajun journeyman Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, and a rockin’ “Sorry Boy” from Tex-Mex star Flaco Jimenez.

Of course, purists will argue that the box set barely scratches the surface of the vast repertoire, and they’d be correct. But as a sampler for enthusiasts (the 68-song collection has several new recordings and numerous rare tracks taken from archival film sources) or a primer for novices, this small sampling of seminal music is an important overview of what documentary film series director Jim Brown has called “our country’s most important cultural force.”

From the November 1-7, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.