u/Signal-Caregiver8280

"I like the climate, the air, the water. I like the smallness. I feel good being here. It kind of reminds me of Oakcliff, Texas, where I'm from — the houses and countryside, except that the roads are real windy while at home they're so straight"!!

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Photo credit: Rob Pearson, New Zealand 1988 for the oil tv commercial.

"Jimmie Vaughan reflects on his brother"..

Stevie's story is about growing up in Texas and the South. A place that is not perfect but it gives you freedom to discover what you like, what you think is cool, and to connect with it and become a part of it. It's about finding yourself and expressing who you are. It's about the love of music—Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters, Lightnin Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, and Jimi Hendrix. It's about falling in love with music and discovering the way to express your true nature through music.

People express themselves through painting or writing or music because they have to. Many of the people we grew up with in Oak Cliff are dead or in jail, and I'm not sure Stevie or I would have been any different if we hadn't found the guitar.

The guitar was Stevie's instrument of liberation, his magic sword. I can't even fathom Stevie without a guitar. It meant everything to him. It took Stevie around the world. It introduced him to his heroes. It allowed him to express himself so he could speak, so he could have an identity. So he could find out who he was. When Stevie played, his guitar talked and told his story. If you listen, you can hear it. You can hear him speaking through his guitar. I know I can.

When he was playing his best, it was like a religious experience, almost. I know what he's going through, because I've been there. I know what it feels like to get hooked up to the "direct link" to whatever it is. I know it sounds deep, but for guitar players, it is deep. When you are inspired like that—when the temperature is right or whatever it is— everybody knows. When other people hear somebody on that wavelength, they get it, too. Because it's real. And if it ain't real, you know it, too. You can't fool the audience.

Stevie's personality comes through in his playing, and that's what drew people to him. It's just straight feeling; it's all from the heart. If you could take your emotions and put them on the table, and let everybody come and pick them up, that's what it would be.

Stevie worked very hard at what he did, but his main thing was that he just loved to play the guitar, and it showed. It was a completely natural thing. He got the chance to express who he was through his instrument, and he took it. And that's why Stevie got over with so many people.

I'm still amazed at the impact Stevie had and is still having to this day. I believe it's because of the purity and simplicity of his message: find out what you love, and do it. That's the message he was sending out into the world.

~Jimmie Vaughan epilogue from the book "Texas Flood" by Alan Paul and Andy Aledort

📸 Glen LaFerman 88 (post from Mike Leon on Fb)

Stevie Ray Vaughan. October 4th, 1984. Carnegie Hall

- Live at Carnegie Hall is the third live album by American blues rock band Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, released by Epic Records in July 1997. The album consists of live selections from their sold-out October 4, 1984, benefit concert at Carnegie Hall for the T.J. Martell Foundation. Backed by a ten-piece big band for the second half of the event, Vaughan had celebrated his thirtieth birthday the night before, and called the concert his "best birthday ever, forever".

📸 by Chuck Pulin.