Stevie Ray Vaughn
Texas Flood (1983)

review by: Glenn Pfeifer
Date: 5/20/02

I recently noticed that yet another compilation of Stevie Ray Vaughn's brilliant musical career is being offered for a "new generation" of music fans. (The disc I refer to was probably released last year, which shows you how out of it I am.) I suppose I should be happy that SRV's record company, or his widow, or his Double Trouble bandmates have decided to make every take of every song Stevie ever put on tape available to the public, (much like they've done with Jimi Hendrix) but I can't say that I am. In my opinion, if a musician decides that an alternate take or a jam session wasn't worthy to make it on an album, how can the record company justify its release for more posthumous profit. They already jack up the CD price of any artist's work once he/she dies... isn't that enough? I would even argue that all this unreleased work (which in Stevie's case includes some F***in' wicked jams!!) should be offered for FREE on a special SRV website. I suppose I have a better chance of actually meeting Stevie or Jimi or any of the other deceased guitar gods, but...oh well.

Getting to my point in all of this, each of you should run out and purchase the original SRV & Double Trouble CD "Texas Flood." This album was released when the blues were about as palatable to mainstream music as Ani DiFranco is. No Matter. I read somewhere that the disc was virtually all raw demos that the band laid down in a matter of days. As I listened to it again recently, that aspect of it definitely shows through. There's very little polish, and even some of the riffs are repeated across songs. But from the very first Albert King-inspired notes of Texas Flood, any guitar worshipper had to immediately bow at the feet of SRV's pure, raw talent. I can't help but wonder if this album didn't actually have a "single" (Pride & Joy), would Stevie Ray Vaughn have burst onto the scene as quickly as he did. I hope so, lest we all would've been damned to think that Bow-Wow-Wow or The Stray Cats were actually the best of Blues-inspired rock in the 1980s.

For those of us fortunate enough to see this legend in concert before his incredibly unfortunate tragic death...lucky us. And if Stevie gets to surf the Net in the place he's at now....God, I miss you man. gpfife