Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues (2023) Movie Script

[light music]
..
..
-[blues guitar music]
-[man singing]
[narrator] In March of 2017,
the Bob Bullock Texas
History Museum held
an exhibition dedicated
to Texas guitarist,
Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Although he's been gone
for nearly 27 years,
Stevie has millions of fans
who were not even born
when he was at the height
of his popularity.
Stevie's rise to the top was
preceded by his older brother
Jimmie,
who served as a role model
and influenced
the younger Vaughn brother
in so many ways.
Their success represented
the dreams of many of my fellow
baby boomers
to somehow become
a rock and roll star,
a true guitar hero.
When the Beatles appeared
on the Ed Sullivan Show
on February 9th, 1964,
the whole world was watching.
For myself and millions
of other male baby boomers,
that performance
changed our lives
and our worldview.
It showed us there was now
a whole new way to meet girls.
Because up until The Beatles,
you had to play football
or be one of the cool kids.
Now you just had to play
in a band.
But before the Beatles,
that wasn't even a possibility.
Until then,
Elvis was rock and roll.
But to be like Elvis, you had
to be good looking.
And the only problem was
that most of us just weren't
that attractive.
But all that changed
with Ringo.
Ringo wasn't pretty
like John or Paul,
but he was in a rock
and roll band.
And the girls loved him.
The next morning,
millions of us bought
electric guitars
and started practicing
in our basements,
garages, or living rooms,
dreaming of making it big.
But in the end,
only a minuscule number
actually got there.
Down in the Dallas neighborhood
of Oak Cliff,
two brothers were part
of this wave.
And from that small home
on Glenfield Avenue,
those two brothers went on
to win Grammy awards
and perform
alongside rock and roll
legends like David Bowie,
Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton,
Nile Rodgers and Jimi Hendrix.
There were Jimmie
and his little brother,
Stevie Vaughan.
And in the words
of Lou Ann Barton,
they came from nowhere
and went everywhere.
[man] Roll it, and I'll just
feel something.
["Hard to Be"
by the Vaughan Brothers]
It's hard to be
It's hard for me
To keep arm's length
From my baby
Whoa, can't you see
When I'm away from her
It sho' nuf' drives me crazy
Oh, something inside of me
When she's gone
I miss her so
I want to tell her
How I feel
[narrator] In 1963,
America was still enjoying
the fruits of the postwar boom.
Millions of GIs had returned
from Europe and the Pacific
to marry, settle down and raise
a family.
The GI Bill provided them
with low-cost home loans,
and a housing boom took off.
In Oak Cliff, a neighborhood
just south of downtown Dallas,
a businessman named Angus Wynne
started a planned development
called Wynnewood.
It featured thousands
of low-cost, two-bedroom
tract homes
that sold almost as fast
as he could build them
and one of the country's
first shopping centers,
Wynnewood Village.
60 years later, most of those
homes are still in use,
as is Wynnewood Village.
One of these houses was at 2755
Glenfield Avenue
on a side street
off of Hampton Road,
near Kiest Park.
It was here that Jim
and Martha Vaughan settled down
and raised their two sons,
Jimmie and Stevie.
There wasn't anything
outstanding about
the little house.
It looked just like
all the others around it.
As a matter of fact,
in the 1950s, most of America
looked the same.
We all lived in two-parent
households,
watched the same three
TV channels,
four if you lived in the city
that had what they called
educational TV,
and we shared one landline
telephone
and went to the nearest
public school.
And we pretty much looked
and dressed the same.
[Jimmie]
Our uncles played music,
and our parents danced,
and they played dominoes,
and they worked every day.
We were like just totally
normal kids, going to school
and riding our bicycles,
you know, playing
in the backyard.
Didn't have any idea
about any of this stuff.
You know,
we had a great, great childhood.
[narrator] One person who saw
the Vaughan brothers grow up
was their cousin, Connie Trent.
After losing both parents
at the age of seven,
she was adopted by Preston
and May Vaughan.
[Connie] They all hung out
together, and they went
to what they called honky tonks.
And this picture right here,
this is my mother.
That's my father.
That's Big Jim, or Jim Vaughan.
And there's my Aunt May
and Uncle Preston.
It was pretty much all
two-parent families,
that's just the way it was.
As far as dressing the same,
everyone wore the same styles.
It was a time period
when the mothers
were still at home,
you know,
and they made sure
that the kids kept busy,
'cause they wanted to keep
them out of trouble.
[narrator] But all that changed
with the Beatles.
Boys started wearing their hair
longer,
and every town enjoyed
a burst of rock bands
that sprang up like mushrooms
after rain.
Rock and roll dreams reached
all the way, even into rural
America.
At the same time,
Oak Cliff, Texas was
undergoing a transformation.
So many children were born
to all of the returning
World War II GIs
that a building boom
of new schools
took place to accommodate
the growing enrollment.
For over 30-- almost 30 years,
there had been no new high
schools or junior highs built
in Oak Cliff.
And starting in 1952
when South Oak Cliff opened,
over the next about 14 years,
there were four large high
schools built and six junior
high schools built.
So, everything really expanded.
Kimball opened in the fall
of '59,
and then Carter opened
in the fall of '66.
[narrator] Both Carter
and Kimball High
produced a bumper crop
of budding guitar heroes.
They drew inspiration
from a long list of
Oak Cliff artists
and musicians
who went before them,
including
Michael Martin Murphey,
T-Bone Walker,
B.W. Stevenson, Terry Southern
and Yvonne Craig.
Yes, Batgirl
was from Oak Cliff, Texas.
Oak Cliff
was both an artist factory
and a band of misfits.
On the one hand,
you had Terry Southern
and Yvonne Craig,
while on the other hand,
you had Lee Harvey Oswald
and Bonnie and Clyde.
In that day, Dallas, Texas
was also the music mecca
of the Southwest.
Elvis had played the state fair
of Texas,
while Buddy Holly played
the infamous Sportatorium
and then drove over to Oak
Cliff with the Crickets
to buy his first motorcycle.
So, Oak Cliff was cranking out
creative types and criminals.
It was an interesting
dichotomy.
In the 1960s, most of us
sat glued to our TV sets
to watch shows like Shindig,
Hullabaloo or Dick Clark's
Where the Action Is.
We went to the movie theaters
to see The Beatles
inA Hard Day's Night
orThe T.A.M.I. Show.
Mainly, we wanted
to be anywhere else
but where we were.
It seemed as if all the action
and excitement
was happening
out in Southern California
or New York City
where everything was cool.
We felt like we were missing
out on something.
And because we couldn't
get there, we did the next
best thing.
We went to teen clubs.
I went to this church
called Glen Oaks
Methodist Church on Polk Street.
And they would have
sock hops on Friday
and Saturday nights
to try to keep us off
the streets.
And so, they would have
these bands come in,
of all high school bands
from Oak Cliff.
And so there was a guy named
Seab Meador in one of the bands,
Danny Sanchez
was in one of the bands,
Stevie Ray Vaughan was in one
of the bands.
Jimmie Vaughan was in one
of the bands.
So, all these famous
guitar players then,
they were
even notable back then--
is we were kids.
If somebody was famous
a couple of years older than
you, it was a big deal.
We were too young to go out
and go to any
of the grown-up clubs,
so to speak.
You know,
the ones that served alcohol,
you just couldn't get in.
So, these were places
in Oak Cliff where teenagers
could come
and have a good time,
and dance and listen
to music.
And of course,
instead of having deejays then,
we would have live bands
or combos of, you know,
little bands that-- garage bands
that kids in the neighborhood
put together.
And those that had gotten good
would play at these places,
and would play
at the school sock hops,
and we would play it,
at Candy's Flare,
we'd play the church dances
and things like that.
During the week
on Fridays, Stockard,
where Jimmie went at the time,
had a sock hop in the gym,
7:00 in the morning
every Friday, 10 cents,
you can ask Jimmie.
He says, "It's the cheapest
10-cents dance in town."
[narrator] Dallas even
produced its own version
of American Bandstand,
a weekly dance show broadcast
live from North Park Mall
calledSump'n Else.
These are the Five Americans
with "Western Union,"
would you join me in a welcome
for our own Five Americans,
here they are.
[applause]
[music playing]
Things went wrong today
And bad news came my way
I woke up to find
That I had blew my mind
[narrator] In short, there was
a huge scene going on in Dallas
and Fort Worth,
but you
would have never known it
unless you lived there.
The Internet, cell phones,
Facebook, texting,
and social media
had not been invented yet,
so going viral
was out of the question.
All that we had to spread
the word were landline phones,
and most of us only had
one phone at home
that we had to share
with our parents.
The entire
teen club phenomenon
was our version of Facebook.
This was how you met girls.
You had to get out
of your house,
go to wherever the kids
were meeting up,
and walk up to a girl
and ask her to dance.
You couldn't do it
on the Internet.
You had to get off your couch
and do it.
But because we were all
too young to drive,
we had to have our parents
drive us to the club,
and then hopefully drop us off
and pick us up.
[Connie] A lot of them
had station wagons,
so they could pile in
a lot of kids and take them
to Oak Cliff Country Club
or to the sock hops
at Glen Oaks Methodist Church
or to Candy's Flare.
And I personally
begged my aunt to take me
whenever I knew
Stevie was going to be playing
or Jimmie.
[narrator] It was into this
rock and roll wave
that an 11-year-old kid
in Oak Cliff
got a rather unlikely
introduction to the guitar.
My friend at school told me,
he said, "If you want to get
a girlfriend
or be popular with the girls,
you're going to have to
play football."
Said, "There's just no way
around it."
He said,
"Look at all these guys,
this is what they do."
And he said,
"Nobody really cares
about football.
They just want a girlfriend."
I was like, "Okay, that's sounds
like me."
[chuckles] You know?
So, I went to football practice
and, uh...
uh, the guy said, "What do you
want to go out for?"
And I said,
"Well, I don't know."
I didn't really play football,
but I went anyway.
So, they called my name.
Finally.
I'm the last guy,
they call my name
and I have to go out for a pass.
So, I mysteriously
catch this pass,
and all the football players
jumped on me,
tackled me,
and I broke my collarbone,
first day, first practice.
And so I had to go
to the doctor,
and they put one of those
slings on--
they called 'em a wingie.
So I was at home
for three months,
and my dad got a guitar
for 50 bucks
and gave to me.
It had three strings on it.
It was about like this one.
He said, "Here, I don't know
what we're going to do with you
for three months."
But he said, "Here, play this,
maybe this will keep you
out of trouble."
And I've been playing guitar
ever since.
The first thing I learned was--
instead of going like this...
...which is what everybody
wants to learn
when they first start,
if you're a kid.
Back then in the fifties.
I did it backwards.
I didn't know, and I went...
and so like the first couple of
days, I was like, I was like,
"Damn!"
I was thinking, "Man,
I'm going to make records
and everything."
So, I started getting pretty
good on the guitar.
And so, in the meantime,
my dad gave
my uncle 50 bucks
for an electric guitar.
It had one pickup.
It was a three-quarter Gibson,
no cutaways,
and that was my guitar
for a couple of years.
My dad knew
that I needed a real fancy
electric guitar.
So, he said, "Come on, son,
look, we're going to get you
a new guitar today."
I said, "All right." So, we went
down to McCord's Music,
I think it was.
Downtown Dallas.
He said-- we went in there
and he goes,
"Which one do you want?"
I said,
"Well, I like those up there."
You know, there was a Gretsch
or something.
So they got it down
and I played it and everything.
And so, my dad tells the guy,
"Come on, let's go back here
and sign up for it."
So, they went back there,
and they turned his credit down.
And so...
You know, it wasn't a big deal
to me, but it was--
he was embarrassed.
So, we went-- we just went
to another place,
and we went to Arnold
and Morgan Music,
which was the big music store
out in Garland.
And we went in there.
They had a whole row
of Telecasters.
They said,
"What color do you want?"
And they had a whole row of
used Stratocasters, everything.
And so I got a Gibson 330,
brand new.
I picked out a brand new one,
and they signed him up,
and I had it.
I was on my way.
[narrator] When he first
started playing the guitar,
his musical taste reflected
what was going on in Dallas
at the time.
While Nashville had its country
sounds, and Memphis had Elvis,
Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins
and Johnny Cash,
Dallas had a blend of Black
blues and country,
or what was commonly called,
"Hillbilly."
And my mother's brothers
all played in country
and Western bands.
They liked Merle Travis,
Hank Thompson,
and all that kind of stuff.
That was rock and roll
in the early '50s.
There was all kind of music
around the house,
on the radio and on the record
player.
So, later on,
I'm in several bands
with Paul Ray over the years.
Paul Ray says, "Hey, tonight
T-Bone is playing at Guthrie's."
That was on there on the river,
Trinity River area, down there
in the bottoms.
Oak Cliff was dry back then.
Everybody had to go over
the river to get booze,
and there was a lot of clubs
right there,
liquor stores and clubs
for a mile.
And so, that's where I saw
T-Bone Walker at Guthrie's,
and Paul Ray took me.
I already had his records
and heard about him,
but I'd never seen him
in person.
So, that was a big milestone.
Seeing all these guys
and understanding that you were
in a place
where a lot
of that music came from
and was from there
was very, um, empowering
and exciting,
you know, to be from Dallas.
[guitar playing]
[narrator]
Oak Cliff was in on this wave.
It also gave birth
to the first top 40 radio
station in the country,
KLIF 1190, on your AM dial.
[Connie] I mean, it was huge,
and everybody knew where KLIF
was down in downtown Dallas.
You know, that really unique
triangle shaped building.
[narrator] And as a hundred
thousand watt AM station,
it could be heard
as far away as Midland, Texas
and Louisiana.
But one of the most popular
radio programs
for white kids in Dallas
was Jim Lowe'sKat's Karavan
on WRR.
For a whole generation
of Dallas baby boomers,
this program was their
introduction to R&B
or "race music," as it was
called back then.
[Jimmie] Kats Karavan.
I'd listen to that every night,
it came on at 10:00,
I think it was. For an hour.
And he would play
Jimmy Reed
and Lightnin' Hopkins
and... different people.
And then
I'd switch it over to WLAC,
Nashville would come in.
The Hoss Man, and then later on
after that,
it would be Wolfman
would come in late at night.
So... and that was all
on my little transistor radio,
which was under my pillow.
Click! You just click it on,
and you could hear it
but nobody else could hear it.
'Cause you're supposed to be
asleep, right?
[narrator] And one band
that took up the idea
of white boys
playing Black music
was The Nightcaps.
Jimmie Vaughan
was an early fan.
The Nightcaps
was the first album that
I bought with my own money.
This is before I was in a band
and went out and bought
the Nightcaps,
the whole album,
because they had an album,
you know.
"Wine, Wine, Wine."
I'm drinking wine, wine
Fine wine all the time
[song continues]
And it was all drinkin' songs
pretty much, and blues.
It was
T-Bone Walker, Jimmy Reed,
and Lazy Lester-type songs,
but done by a rock
and roll band.
[narrator] It wasn't long before
Jimmie was learning songs,
not just by The Nightcaps
but other performers.
This was decades before
instructional YouTube
guitar videos
or even the VHS tape.
Back then, if we wanted
to learn to play guitar,
we signed up for lessons
at the YMCA,
but they didn't teach us
"Sunshine of Your Love"
or "Purple Haze."
To play the songs you heard
on the radio,
you had to either
learn them by trial and error
or have a friend show you.
It wasn't easy.
You had to have talent,
you had to practice.
It was hard,
and so few made it.
I knew Johnny Peebles.
Johnny Peebles was the hot
guitar player in Oak Cliff,
and he was playing all around.
He was probably 17 or 18,
and he had a gig,
he had a Stratocaster
and an Epiphone,
and he was a badass.
He showed me how to play
all this stuff.
See, if you know that,
then, uh...
you can run away from home.
No.
I learned how listening
to a Jimmy Reed record.
You know, one day my dad
had a guitar already,
and I'd lay it in my lap,
you know, like this,
and I'll be seeing
where to put my fingers,
and I finally get it.
And one day I said, "Well,
if I'm really going to play,
I need to hold it up like this
and try to do it like this,"
you know?
And so finally,
you know, I got it all down,
-[producer] Play a blues lick.
-Oh, boy, it's been a long time,
you know.
-You know.
-The first song I learned
was from my stepbrother, Bruce,
which was "Pipeline."
It was just osmosis. I mean,
it was just being in the room.
It was going to those sock hops,
it was going to Candy's Flare,
it was going
to Twilight Roller Rink,
and just-- you'd watch
what somebody else did,
then you'd go home,
and you'd get the record,
and you'd just wear it out.
You'd get a new B.B. King
album, and you'd just--
the album would just skip,
'cause you'd move the needle
back to get the lick
so many times, you know?
So, I would just sit,
and I would listen with my ears
and try to learn the lick.
And so, most of us were
self-taught.
And then when we would rehearse,
because you were so young,
there were kind of
a rehearsal/learning session,
like somebody
would know something
and they'd show it to you,
and you'd know something and
show it to the guy next to you.
It was fun.
Here's the thing
about a guitar player,
whatever you play,
to a great degree,
it's going to sound
like you sound.
So much of your tone
is in your hands.
So, Stevie sounded
like the Stevie that
we all grew to know and love,
even playing through this rig,
you know.
[Connie] They were both
the most determined people
I have ever met in my life.
I still believe that Jimmie
and Stevie
were born to be who they were
going to be,
because they believed in
practice made perfect,
and they practiced.
[narrator]
After learning a few songs,
Jimmie Vaughan, Phil Campbell
and Ronnie Sterling
formed a trio,
The Swinging Pendulums.
Back then, the idea of playing
records at a dance
was considered lame.
You had to have a live band
to be cool.
It was much more fun
to hire, you know, a couple--
you know, three or four kids
to come play a church party
or a sock hop
or something like that
and pay them, whatever,
ten or 15 bucks each
and have them show up.
And it was it was a boon
to them.
It was fun for the boys playing
because you got the exposure.
You were an early rock star
and you have you had all your
friends out there
watching you
who may or may not have
known that you played guitar.
So, it was exciting,
and my primary reason was
you got to meet girls.
[narrator] But there was
just one problem
for The Pendulums:
They were all
too young to drive,
so they had to have
their fathers do it.
The three fathers
would switch off,
or they would fight
over who got to do it,
or they would flip a coin,
because, you know,
they would be like,
"Darn, I got to take the kids
tonight.
I'm sorry, honey."
You know what I mean?
Vroom, you know?
[narrator] Even though Dallas
had hundreds of bands,
there was a hierarchy to them
with a few of the top
commanding
premium prices and drawing
the biggest crowds.
And in Dallas,
the hottest band in the 1960s
was The Chessmen.
When The Chessmen's
lead guitar player,
Robert Patton,
drowned in an accident
in White Rock Lake,
an open audition was held
for his replacement.
He was in a fraternity,
and his fraternity buddies and
him were out in White Rock Lake
real late at night
or real early in the morning.
Robert was a good swimmer,
but they were out on the lake.
It was windy and the boom--
and it was cold, and wind blew
one way and knocked
Robert out the boat,
the boom, the sail did,
and then it blew the other way.
Pulled him away.
And of course, we were thinking,
Robert's a good swimmer,
he made it to the shore,
but it was too cold.
[narrator] A 14-year-old
Jimmie Vaughan came in
and blew everyone away.
I remember when I asked him
to come down there, he said,
"Wow, I play with y'all?"
I said, "Yeah."
So, he says, "Are you sure?"
I said, "Yeah."
So, we went down--
I remember going to Louanns
and coming in,
and he got up there
probably two in the afternoon
we got there to try him out.
-And he worked out right. Yeah.
-Yeah.
He played everything
that we already knew,
you know.
[narrator] Jimmie got the gig,
but he was still too young
to drive,
so the band members
had to be his driver,
picking him up for their shows
and taking him home
around 2:00 a.m.
after the clubs closed.
I'd pick him up or some
of his friends that had
a license would bring him.
Well, but now we had--
back then
we had a black '50 model
Cadillac hearse,
that was our band wagon.
And we'd go by and pick up
Jimmie.
He was right off to Illinois
and Hampton, in Oak Cliff.
And this is the ironic thing.
Now, Johnny said this,
and I never saw it
but he said
Stevie Ray would stand
out on the front porch
and cry when we left.
In an interview he had
with somebody, he said,
"When they left with Jimmie,
I'd do one or two things,
I'd either stand
on the front porch and cry
or go in and practice
like crazy."
Yeah, well, my parents
would take me sometime
when I lost my license,
and we'd drive over there
to pick Jimmie up,
and they'd take us
where we need to go,
and Stevie would be running out
to the car.
And then Jimmie would--
at one time that I know of--
would chase him
back up to the porch and run
and get in the car and take off.
Stevie wanted to go.
We should've let him go,
you know?
If he didn't have a brother,
Jimmie-- Stevie
would have played.
I do think that if the fact
that he had a brother
that played like Jimmie,
it opened the doors,
it's like the sparrow
and the eagle, like,
he got to experience
music on a really potent level
at an early--
as a really young kid
because of his brother.
We knew Jimmie
from The Chessmen.
When I had the Moving Sidewalks
out of Houston,
The Chessmen
had started their thing
up north Texas and Dallas.
And Jimmie
was leading the charge.
We admired what they were doing
to the point where
if we had a night off
and they were playing,
we'd seek them out.
[narrator] Without question,
the two most revered guitar
players of the 1960s
were Jimi Hendrix
and Eric Clapton.
They completely changed
the idea of what a guitar
could do.
Now the front man
wasn't the singer
on the microphone.
It was the guy who could make
his guitar talk.
Like every other budding
guitar player from that era,
both Jimmie and Stevie idolized
Hendrix and Clapton.
And one night, Jimmie Vaughan
and The Chessmen
got a chance to open up
for Hendrix
at his Dallas concert.
Hendrix, his road man--
his gear guy,
he said that he'd busted
his Wah-Wah pedal.
So, they came to me,
and I had a brand-new Vox
Wah-Wah pedal,
which cost--
I can't remember
if it was $29 or $17,
but it was something like that.
And they said,
"Look, Jimi has busted
his pedal.
If you let us use yours,
we'll give you his old one.
And I'll give you 25 bucks."
Which is more than I paid
for it,
you know, or 50 bucks
or something like that,
because we can't
go to the music store
on a Saturday, you know.
So, that was
what the real story was.
And then of course the legend
has it that...
we traded Wah Wah pedals
or something, you know,
something ridiculous.
But what it was
was they just wanted mine
'cause they didn't have one.
And so they gave me 50 bucks
and his old DeArmond,
which wasn't any good...
for that, you know?
-[producer]
You still have that pedal?
-I think I do, yeah.
But, I mean, you can't tell
that it's anything, you know,
you can go on eBay and buy 15
of them, you know? [chuckles]
[Tommy] All I can say is
Hendrix, and Noel Redding,
and Mitch Mitchell,
they were all three
real nice guys.
I mean, I was really
kind of shocked,
and, uh--
but, uh-- and they were nice,
and I want
to say something here
and it's gonna sound crazy,
but I honestly think that night,
we were louder than they were,
but they were a lot better
than we were.
But they were--
they were playing out
of two Sun amps--
Our volume covers that up,
right?
Yeah, the volume covers
our stuff,
our mess ups, you know,
but honestly,
we had more sound equipment
on the stage.
But then our booking agent
worked this out,
Jimmie Vaughan and I flew
with Jimi Hendrix
and his band from Love Field
to Houston.
I mean,
our booking agent got that,
and that was so cool.
But what do you talk
to Jimi Hendrix
on an airplane about?
I just kind of, "Uh..."
[narrator] Jimmie Vaughan
and Billy Gibbons
had something in common now.
They had both met Jimi Hendrix,
but the admiration and respect
went deeper than that.
Houston had this place
called The Catacombs,
and it was pretty nice,
big stage, two stages, actually.
They had a big room,
and a small room, and...
The Chessmen
and The Moving Sidewalks
played a Friday
and a Saturday night together,
and we just had a blast.
It was really, really something.
I've known Billy since I was 15,
and The Chessmen would go down
and play in Houston,
and Billy Gibbons would be
on the same bill with us
sometimes at The Catacombs,
which was a club that we used
to play down there.
And we actually did one gig
where they said,
"Jimmie Vaughan from Dallas
meets Billy Gibbons
from Houston on the same stage."
And so, one of us was on each
side of the stage,
and we were
supposed to battle it out,
you know, and everything.
It was a big, sold-out deal,
you know?
[Johnny] I broke my Epiphone
in half that night, so...
-So, was that the night?
-Yeah, I was playing on
the keyboard,
and we were doing
some kind of Who song,
you know,
where they broke
all their equipment,
and I...
my guitar, I slid it off
and I was running up
and down that organ.
And then
I looked down there and saw it,
and I walked around the front
and I took my foot and did that.
And it did that.
And then I got on my knees,
and I started, you know--
make a bunch of racket with it,
you know,
and this end of the neck
right here laying over here.
[chuckles]
So I broke that thing in half.
And then we all went back
in the dressing room
after that.
And someone came in there,
you know how they come
backstage.
-Yeah.
-He says, "Y'all do that?"
I said, "We do that every show."
[narrator]
Because he was staying out
until 2:00 a.m. every night,
he was missing school.
It finally reached a point
where he decided to leave home
and chase his rock and roll
dreams.
Doyle Bramhall
pulled into his driveway.
Jimmie carried his things
to the waiting car,
and he was gone,
leaving his family
and younger brother Stevie
behind.
I was making $300, $350
a week at 14.
That was big money
in the mid '60s.
That was more money than my dad
made at the time.
And, um, it was kind of weird,
you know,
but all of a sudden, I could--
I could go down and sign up
and get any guitar or any amp
and I could go buy clothes.
And I had an apartment,
you know, and things like that.
So I was, you know,
in hog heaven, and all I had
to do was play guitar,
which is what I wanted to do,
you know what I mean?
And so, about that time,
if you look at the old pictures,
there's a picture
of me playing a guitar
like this with a flat top.
And then Stevie is right there.
He's got a toy guitar,
but it had six strings,
you know.
We stood next to the stereo
because it looked like
we had speakers.
If I did something,
he would do it.
Uh, guitar-wise.
If I bring home a record,
you know,
he would watch me learn,
so it was really the same.
I put it down,
and he would emulate that
because, you know, there it was.
When I ran off to be a musician,
everything when I got in
that band,
my parents kind of clamped down
on him,
because they didn't want him--
they knew that he would do
the same thing I did, right?
So all it did was jack him up
more to even try harder
because he had to beat me.
It's the natural thing, right?
If you're going to do something,
you have to have the bar set.
So... and so I saw him
a few times because I didn't
want to go home.
[stammers] I was still afraid
they would keep me.
Right?
[chuckles] And so, uh...
So they kind of clamped down
on Stevie to make sure he
wouldn't run away, too,
which made him try harder
and harder and harder.
And so by the time he got out
of high school,
he was a bad motor scooter,
you know, on the guitar.
He was good.
When I first heard him play
away from one another,
I couldn't see the connection.
Because for me,
uh, Stevie was Albert King.
He was, you know, he...
[stammers]
it seemed like he was
a protg of Albert King,
he played that way.
And I thought,
"These are two very, very
different styles."
What I think
you could be looking at
is the fact that
would-- would Stevie
be playing at all?
You know, and I think in a way,
it was like, well, if you're
gonna do it,
I could probably
do a better job
it was definitely
sibling rivalry, I think,
going on.
I don't know whether Jimmie
would agree.
Probably-- he probably would.
And I think it's like, well,
"Who's the fastest gun?"
You know?
So, in a way,
it may have reinforced
Jimmie's style of playing, too,
to actually really ground that,
or, you know, to keep it tight
and fundamental
while Stevie was going off
into the atmosphere, you know.
[Scott] I first met Stevie
in my senior year at Kimball.
He was two years behind me.
He was a sophomore
when I was a senior.
And I had put together
a horn band
with a friend of mine
named Jimmy Tremier,
who was a saxophone player.
And we were putting together
a band in the same genre
as Chicago
and Blood, Sweat and Tears,
which were hugely popular bands
at the time.
I was actually the guitar
player for the band,
and one Saturday
at rehearsal we realized
we didn't--
well, we didn't have
a bass player at all.
And for one of these Saturday
rehearsals,
I think it was
one of the horn players said,
"I know a kid that can come
and play bass at rehearsal,
and if he's good, you know,
then we'll keep him."
So, this Saturday morning,
this skinny, little 15-year-old
kid shows up,
brings his bass in,
and we started rehearsing.
We learned two or three songs,
and of course, he was a good
bass player.
And we took a break
after we'd gone through
about four or five songs.
We were all
standing around outside
smoking a cigarette or whatever.
And this kid says, "Hey, Scott,
do you mind if I play
your guitar?"
I said, "No, no, no, sure,
go right ahead."
You know, "Help yourself."
Anyway, he walks over
and picks up--
I was playing a Fender
Telecaster at the time,
but he walked over and picked up
my guitar
and just proceeded
to blow us all away.
I mean, he just cleaned my clock
as far as playing guitar.
He was amazing.
But that's who it was.
It was Stevie Vaughan
when he was 15 years old.
And then after we heard him
play guitar,
I immediately became
the bass player.
I walked over and took his bass
and gave him my guitar
and said, "You're now
the guitar player,
I'm bass player for the band."
The best advice I ever got--
two things that I got from
Stevie, he said,
"Always, when you're playing,
play from your heart and soul."
The mechanics are good,
but if you can't play
with your
soul or from your heart--
that's where he came from.
He played-- and another thing
is for as far as the mechanical
side, you know,
because he had
incredibly strong hands,
I can remember
watching him play
and I would pick up
a guitar and say,
"Stevie,
show me how to do that."
And he would play these
incredible licks.
I can't remember,
but let's see...
You know, something like that.
And I would watch him
when he was--
I couldn't get the concept down
of how to stretch strings
at the time.
And Stevie was-- to him,
it was just, "This is how
you do it."
And he would
just show it to me,
and I would watch his fingers,
and I'd try to duplicate it.
And there was just no way.
But I asked him, I said,
"How do you manage that?
How did you get the string?"
And he said,
"Always, when you rehearse,
when you practice by yourself,
if you have an acoustic guitar,
play an acoustic guitar,
don't play your electric,
play your acoustic
because it'll build up
your hand strength."
Well, when we were
in high school,
we heard about a project
that a guy was doing,
and it was called "A New High."
It was a play on high school
and getting high.
And so we submitted a picture,
and we wrote a bio
and where we played
and the whole thing,
and you know,
you're back to, once again,
there was no Facebook,
so it had to be public opinion.
In other words, they would talk
to two or three people.
I guess he had some sort
of panel.
And so, "Yeah, I saw them
at Candy's Flare,
I saw them at Glen Oak sock hop
or Twilight Roller Rink,"
or whatever.
So we were the band
that was picked.
It was called The Mint.
That was the band I grew up in,
and we were the band
from Carter.
Stevie was in a band called
a Cast of Thousands,
which he was the band
from Kimble.
A good friend of mine,
Mike McCollough was in it,
and the character actor
Steve Tobolowsky.
Somehow Bobby,
through his connections,
whatever those were,
got us this opportunity
to record songs on this album.
The album, which I happen to
have right here,
A New High.
This is the real thing,
and it's still sealed
in plastic,
which means it is
collector quality.
This is the first recording
Stevie Ray Vaughan ever made.
When we were brought into
the studio,
Bobby said he got
this little kid,
Stevie Vaughan,
to play lead guitar for us.
He was 14 years old.
And I said, "Bobby, come on!"
"I mean, why can't I play
some guitar? You're bringing in
a 14-year-old?"
And Bobby said, "Well,
he's actually really good,
and he's going to make us
sound like we know
what we're doing."
And Stevie was sitting
on a metal folding chair
with his Gibson with the double
humbuck and pickups.
Stevie said, "Well, what are
you guys going to do? Let me
hear a little bit of it."
And we played like one measure.
He says, "Okay, I got it."
And so he kind of played
along with us to begin with.
And then the engineer said,
"Well, Steve, we're ready,
do you want to do a solo?"
And Stevie said, "Well, sure."
So, Stevie said,
"Do you want me to do one
like Eric Clapton
or Jimi Hendrix?"
And I said to Bobby,
"Who's Jimi Hendrix?"
And Bobby said, "Shut up,
just shut up, man. Shut up.
Just stand over there
and pretend you're playing
the guitar."
And the guy said,
"Your choice, man,
do whatever you want."
So, Stevie kind of
threw his head back
and went into this lead
that was blistering.
[Stevie playing guitar]
On this album.
Blistering back then at 14.
[narrator] Now the younger
brother was following
in his older brother's
footsteps.
Dallas and Fort Worth
had a circuit of nightclubs
that needed bands.
So, if you were good,
you could find work.
Arthur's was kind of
the Playboy Club of Dallas.
It was kind of low-key, dark,
very moody place.
[stammers]
But it was pretty cool
because they enjoyed having
live music,
which was kind of unusual
for that type of highbrow joint.
But I remember
Stevie was just getting
his feet on the ground.
He had started that group
called Liberation.
And later,
ZZ Top got hired to play
at that same place, Arthur's.
And then Stevie repaid
the favor.
He dropped through,
and we had him play a couple
of numbers with us.
It was a glorious couple
of nights.
That was a good scene.
I guess that must have been
1970, '71.
[narrator]
Both Vaughan brothers were now
in a sort of competition
with the hottest
guitar players in the southwest
like Bugs Henderson,
Mace Maben, Seab Meador.
Getting started
on this crazy thing called
getting in a band
and making music,
that was an entertaining
excursion.
There wasn't any blood, sweat,
there was no toil.
It was something that we
enjoyed doing pre-Internet
pre-MTV, pre-cell phone.
It was basically word of mouth,
and that is where
it gets honest.
Because if somebody came
to see you then,
you know,
it's because they really made
an effort to come.
They didn't see
something on Facebook
or anything like this.
I mean,
they literally came to see you
because they'd heard about you.
They'd honestly heard about you
through your reputation.
[narrator] Without a record
deal, they were unknown
in L.A., New York, or Chicago,
and it was almost like
they were living on an island,
a very big island called Texas.
And you can make
a very good living
just playing in Texas.
Back then, a record deal was
considered the pinnacle
of success in rock and roll.
But the big record labels
were only signing bands
from New York or L.A.
Bands like The Doors were
getting discovered in a club
on the Sunset Strip
or The Young Rascals
in New York City.
They were signed
to Elektra or Atlantic,
major labels on both coasts.
But in between was a huge area
of America
where the A&R men
never ventured.
You could only get on a record
in one of the small local
labels back then.
They had some success
with B.J. Thomas
and Bruce Channel,
but they didn't have
the distribution or the clout
of an RCA, Columbia,
or Warner Brothers.
Their sound or style
from back then was loud,
with a lot of distortion
and some effects.
Most of the rock stars
played a Gibson Les Paul
and relied on its sustain
to get those long, searing
notes that held on forever.
[note continues]
-Still going.
-[producer] Yeah.
[Jimmie] Stratocasters
are the coolest guitar
they ever made
because everything about it--
the way it looks, it looks like
a combination--
You can't tell
whether it's a lamp
or a machine gun
or a ray gun or a--
it's part ashtray.
I mean, what is it?
It's the wildest looking thing
you've ever seen, isn't it?
I mean, it's got horns,
and it was just really trebly
and cool.
And so when you put it on,
you feel special
because it's so cool.
And it will do anything
that another guitar will do.
And it's got a twang bar.
It'll do stuff that, uh--
like Hendrix came out,
and he would just dive
the twang bar down,
and, you know, pull on it,
bash it, and do things
you weren't supposed to do.
[narrator] But down in Texas,
the guitar player
that everybody was copying
was the Texas Cannonball,
Freddy King.
Freddy King, um,
was the first guitar player
I heard
bend a note and then even
put a little vibrato on it.
I'd never heard that before.
In fact, Jackie
and Freddy and I,
we had the house band at the--
or the early band at the Chicken
and the Basket Club where
Freddy King would play.
It's pretty cool. Freddy would
show up in his Cadillac,
would drive from Dallas.
You know, his amp, you know,
that tall--
and take up the whole back seat
of his Cadillac
and he'd drag that out
and put it on stage
and wail away
with Little Al
and The High Fives.
So there was, you know,
nothing like it, yeah?
-[producer] Really.
-[laughs]
Well, Freddy King--
when I first started trying
to play,
before any of this
British invasion stuff
or any of that, I had, uh...
I had The Nightcaps
and Freddy King,
you couldn't, uh--
you had to play "Hide Away"
if you were in Dallas.
If you got hired
for a birthday party,
somebody was gonna
come up and say,
"Can you play Hide Away?"
And if you can't play
Hide Away, then you may not,
you know, you may not last
the rest of the night.
[Freddy King, "Hide Away"]
I bought the single
"Hide Away."
Someone told me
about "Hide Away,"
and I was playing "Hide Away"
before I joined John Mayall.
And so, that was it for me.
[stammers] I started--
and then I had to get
a Les Paul, you know,
like Freddy's,
and I found out a lot
about why he sounded like
he did from playing that guitar.
So he was instrumental in me
learning how to play the guitar.
When I was growing up,
I was in that band, Lynx,
and we-- for a couple of months
we had this Sunday night gig,
Burger Night at Mother Blues.
You pay cover and you eat
all the burgers you wanted.
And I'll never forget,
Freddy would come in there
and he had a girl on each arm,
and he'd sit down
in front of me.
And I remember one night
he sat down
right in front of me,
literally right in front of me,
he looked up and he goes,
"Impress me, boy."
Yeah, that's a bit intimidating,
you know?
[narrator] Freddy King's style
of blues was different
than Muddy Waters or B.B. King.
It was what came
to be known as the
Texas Roadhouse Blues,
more up tempo and driven.
Texas guitar players
like Steve Miller
and the Vaughan brothers
flocked to his shows
to absorb King's style
and in turn use it
on their songs.
This brought a whole different
style in Texas than they played
in New York or L.A.
And it was what some called
"Blue-Eyed Soul"
or white boys playing
the Black man's music.
But it was really taking
the Black roots
of rock and roll
and making it palatable
for white college kids.
You can hear it in the early
songs of The Rolling Stones
and Led Zeppelin.
At the height of his success,
Jimmie became a father.
His then girlfriend,
Donna Powers, became pregnant,
and Jimmie got married
at the age of 18.
Jimmie's marriage was followed
by a desire
to drop the British
rock and roll sounds of Cream,
Led Zeppelin,
and the Yardbirds,
and return to the blues
and hillbilly music
he grew up with.
But at the same time,
Dallas was not the most
hospitable city
for a long-haired rock and roll
guitar player.
This idea that Dallas
was a hotbed of extremism
certainly is accurate.
This is the city
that had come out of having
the Klu Klux Klan
here in the 1920s,
one of the largest chapters
in the country.
In fact, in 1960, the Mayor
of Dallas, R.L. Thornton,
was a former Klansman.
[narrator]
Austin, Texas, a college town
only about 180 miles
south down the road,
was a bit more tolerant
of creative types.
When I lived in Dallas,
they didn't want you
playin' blues.
They wanted the stuff
that was on the radio.
So, if you wanted to get a gig,
you had to play what was
on the radio or something
like it.
And so-- and down here
they had, you know,
weird bands, like...
Beatnik bands, and they had
The Conqueroo,
and they had
The 13th Floor Elevators,
and then
The Vulcan Gas Company,
we had places like that.
So I figured
if they would let them play,
they would let me play blues.
And just-- mainly just to get
the you-know-what out of Dallas.
Oh, much less crowded.
Very, very cheap to live here.
When I first moved here,
I lived with Keith Ferguson
for a few months.
Then I got another place
that had kind of
been handed down
from musician to musician.
The room was like $79.50
a month,
so even if you're
like a slacker musician
and didn't wanna
get a day job, you could
kind of make it, yeah.
One of my first houses
was right here, but it's gone.
It's like right there.
[Mike] The cost of living
was much cheaper,
and I don't know,
it just had
more of a small-town feel,
and, of course,
the artists' bohemian
community here,
musicians and artists,
it was kind of an oasis
from the rest of Texas.
So I don't think
they left Dallas
because of its politics.
I think they left Dallas
for Austin
because Austin was a hipper
place to be.
Austin had the outlaws,
it had the rebels,
it had the dopers.
It had all the things
that Dallas didn't really have
because Dallas was a place
that vehemently frowned on it.
Dallas' roots were not quite
as liberal at the time
as Austin's were,
and I think it reflected
in its policing policies,
and the fact that people
were getting beat up
for smoking dope in Lee Park.
[narrator] So Jimmie packed up
and headed that way,
determined to play
the kind of music he wanted,
playing it his way.
I went over
to the One Knite Lounge
and the only guy that played
there was Blind George.
He played by himself,
and he played on Sundays.
And it was an old junk shop.
And they had--
the whole ceiling was junk
hanging from the ceiling.
And so all they did was put
a bar in and get draft beer.
And so I went down, I said,
"Look, you got Blind George
playing here on Sundays,
and we'll play Blue Mondays."
I was telling the guy, you know.
He's like, "Okay, well,
we'll let you try it out."
And so, I came down there,
and we played down there
for five years every Monday.
Where we are, Red River
and Eighth Street.
Uh, this was called
The One Knite.
It looks pretty much the same,
except it didn't have
this front cover here.
But, uh, the, uh--
the motorcycles
used to park in the front,
and we would go
in the One Knite right here.
-[man] Where was the stage?
-The stage was down here,
but, uh...
[bartender] It's still
downstairs if you wanna go
ahead and go downstairs.
-[Jimmie]
Is it the same stage?
-[bartender] Same stage.
-It's just downstairs?
-[bartender] Right down
the stairs.
So here's the stage.
You've all seen a stage.
This was
the stage at the One Knite,
except it was up there.
It was upstairs.
And that's the One Knite
for you.
[narrator] His dedication
to the Texas Roadhouse Blues
led to Jimmie forming
one of the best loved
and most influential bands
of the 1970s and '80s,
The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
The lineup included
Jimmie Vaughan on guitar,
Keith Ferguson on bass,
and Mike Buck on drums.
To round things out,
they picked up a guy
named Kim Wilson on harmonica.
I guess Jimmy met him
here in Austin at this place
in far south Austin
called Alexander's.
It's off Brody Lane,
which back then was just
farmland.
Of course,
now it's all strip malls, and...
[Jimmie] Kim Wilson came to town
and played on a Sunday night.
Kim showed up
and sat in with us,
and he sounded great.
He had a great tone,
and he was a rea-- really...
uh, into all that stuff.
And he knew
all the Little Walter songs,
and he was very much
like a George Smith disciple.
I saw Kim. He was great.
We got together and next thing
you know,
we had a band called
The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
And I thought of the name.
I--
There was, uh-- it just--
I don't know why.
It just sounded good...
to me.
And so I thought, "We'll be
The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Why would you want to be
The Thunderbirds when you can be
fabulous?"
[narrator] The decision
to go with a stripped down,
back-to-the-basics sound
went totally against
what was selling records
in that day.
Radio was dominated by groups
like Foreigner, Boston,
Journey, and Cheap Trick.
Those bands weren't
really on our radar.
We didn't really think about it.
It's not what we liked and...
um, not what we listened to,
you know? So.
[narrator]
It was now all or nothing.
The Fabulous Thunderbirds
are going to play the kind
of music they wanted,
even though they were swimming
against the tide.
I think the main thing
for The Thunderbirds
or one of the main things,
of course,
Jimmie's guitar playing
was very influential. And Kim.
But the fact that most of the
blues bands before them were
like hippies, you know?
So we came out, you know,
suits and nice clothes,
and sharp haircuts,
what have you.
We kind of emulated the Chicago
and Louisiana guys
and Texas guys
like Frankie Lee Sims.
["Walking with Frankie"
by Frankie Lee Sims]
Well, I can walk that walk
I walk my fool self down
I'm lookin' for my woman
You know she can't
Be found...
So there weren't a lot
of guitar histrionics.
It was all pretty--
you know, every note counted
and was played with feeling.
And, you know, it wasn't like
just guitar wanking, you know,
like a lot of bands,
which there's a place for that,
too, of course, but... [laughs]
[narrator] But it was not
an easy row to hoe.
They couldn't even get
a booking in Dallas,
Jimmie's hometown.
So they played Austin
and, of all places, Providence,
Rhode Island.
They later became regulars
at Antone's where they opened
for Muddy Waters.
Muddy Waters was so taken
with the T-Birds
that he immediately
made some calls to get them
booked into the blues clubs
he played.
Antone's had been going
on for a long time,
and it was a whole big scene.
But Albert King came to play,
and he--
he would come and play five,
six nights in a row.
And it was packed.
It was like on a Friday
or Saturday night...
[engine revs]
My Ford pisses off the little
hot rod guys around here
because they hear the cam,
and they want to show me
what they got.
[man laughs]
So that was
just an example of that,
I hope you got that.
The original Antone's
was here on this corner
before they tore it down
and built this building.
It was across the street
from the Driscoll Hotel
right here.
And it was a grocery store.
And, uh, this was it
right here.
But it's gone, as you can see.
Albert King, he's got
a sold-out place,
rocking,
he's got his band there,
his whole big band.
And he, uh--
so he's playing several nights.
So Clifford goes to him,
he says, "I got this kid.
He wants to sit in with you."
And, you know, nobody asked
Albert King to sit in.
You gotta understand,
Albert is a big, menacing,
badass guy.
Like, there's nothing
you could do
if you sat in with Albert King
except suck, you know,
because Albert King
is Albert King.
So Clifford goes to Albert King
and says,
"I want you to let
Stevie Vaughan sit in."
Albert goes-- okay, you can
imagine what Albert says.
So this happens three
or four times.
And finally, he goes--
just to get Clifford to stop,
he goes,
"Okay, let's get him up here."
Finally. And so, um...
Stevie got on the stage.
I was there.
Everybody was there.
Stevie got up there,
started playing Albert King
licks...
With Albert King.
And so Albert King liked him
because he was playing
Albert King licks.
And, I mean, we used to sit
around the house and, uh,
copy Albert King.
We're on 6th Street,
by the way.
So Albert King
takes a liking to Stevie,
so that's when they met.
So they became, uh, friends.
And Stevie, in the meantime,
became kind
of a hot rock star.
One of his first gigs was here.
He would play here
on a different night.
This was a great little
honky-tonk.
We played here for years
and years...
so we must've played here
five years, too.
Thunderbirds played here,
though.
["Lowdown in the Street,"
by ZZ Top]
Oh
Well, there comes Lola
Out of control-a
She just loves those rhythm
And blues
And miss Ivy will be
Arriving...
There was a pizza joint
called the Rome Inn,
and they would close
on Sundays and Mondays,
and Mondays became Blue Monday,
and The Thunderbirds
were putting their act together.
Jimmie had just left Storm,
and those Monday nights
were epic.
That was probably, uh, telling
of what set the stage
for other bands
that wanted to call themselves
a blues band could follow.
[narrator] Billy Gibbons became
so enamored with the T-Birds
that he wrote a song
about their weekly gigs
at the Rome Inn,
for ZZ Tops'Deguello a lbum.
On any given Monday
night for the first year,
there may have been,
at the most, 40, 50 people.
That was a good night.
I remember we got really
excited the first time we made
$200 at the door.
So, "All right, $50 a guy!"
We went and bought Italian shoes
or something.
Yeah. So it was pretty cool.
And it just kept building
from there. And we'd--
[narrator] At that time,
ZZ Top was dominating
the radio and record charts.
Once I got to Dallas,
every jukebox in the place
was ZZ Top.
-It was all that was there.
-[narrator] So think about that
for a moment.
The Fabulous Thunderbirds
were so cool
that Billy Gibbons wrote a song
about them.
[stammers]
I was taken with the clientele.
Um...
We'd fall through,
and one by one, I'd say,
"Now, who was that?"
And of course, I'd hang out
with Jimmie on the breaks.
And describe some
of the people that were
hanging around.
Miss Ivy was one of the--
one of the scenesters and, um...
[inhales, exhales]
Lola out of control-a was
this woman named Lois
we knew and...
I don't know, it's kind of--
it was a lot of fun.
Pretty deboshed, I guess,
in a lot of ways.
But we were having a great time,
and...
The lyrics, um, chronicled
all of the characters.
And, uh, sweet M.B.,
that was Mary Beth Greenwood.
Little GB was
Gretchen Barber.
Lola out of control-a, Miss Ivy.
I mean, these were some real
stalwart characters
that didn't miss a Monday
either.
We were all there and held down
that corner.
[chuckles] It was great.
["Lowdown in the Street,"
by ZZ Top]
There's Jimmie and JoJo
There's Kim and Keith
Way outside the eyes
Of cool...
I was so convinced
that these guys were gonna
bust out and-- and really
s-set this blues trail ablaze.
I decided, uh,
to share the secret,
and a buddy of mine and I
went down to Continental
Trailways
and did some inquiring
how we went about chartering
a bus.
It was pretty simple.
We just had it all set up,
put the word out a couple
of weeks in advance, and, uh...
the bus at that time
held 80 people,
and it was packed.
People were driving in
from Victoria, Texas,
San Antonio, Texas,
all the way from
the Mexican border
to be part of this Blue Monday
night.
And it was pretty, pretty rowdy.
[chuckles]
[narrator] At the same time,
younger brother Stevie
had made the move to Austin.
Stevie had formed a band
with Fort Worth blues singer,
Lou Ann Barton.
They billed themselves
as the Triple Threat Revue
and started playing small clubs
around Austin
before picking up a following.
["Good Texan,"
by Stevie Ray Vaughan]
Say things to me
Like a cowgirl would
[narrator]
Things were so hard early on
that Stevie was
sleeping on pool tables
and nearly starving.
[Connie] He would tell me
where he was going to be,
he'd call my friend,
Vickie Vernelson,
and we'd head down to Austin.
And I went down to Austin
most weekends that I could.
So we went down there
for one of our trips
and just realized that Stevie
was just practically starving
to death.
And he needed clothes,
and so Vicki and I took him out
shopping. [chuckles]
and we actually went to some,
you know, secondhand
clothing stuff
and just bought him some clothes
and took him out to eat and went
and got him some groceries.
[narrator] He was soon
playing the Rome Inn
every Sunday night
while Big Brother Jimmie
and the Thunderbirds played
every Monday.
[guitar intro of
"Pride and Joy"]
[narrator] During this time,
he got married to Lenny Bailey
at the Rome Inn,
a union
that was both inspiring,
codependent,
and tragic
all at the same time.
Stevie came down--
this was on a Blue Monday night.
And, uh, the band had taken
a break, and we all gathered.
There was a balcony upstairs
and, uh...
Stevie strolled over
and he said,
"You're sitting
with Gretchen and Mary Beth.
Would you guys come upstairs?"
He said,
"I'm gonna get married.
I'd like you to be there."
[narrator] While Jimmie
and the T-Birds were on
what looked like a track
to success,
brother Stevie was gaining
a dedicated following
but also fighting a drug
and alcohol addiction problem.
One night, Stevie was
cutting up a gram of coke
in front of an open window
at a club in Houston,
when he was spied by a Houston
police officer who just
happened to be walking by.
Stevie was promptly arrested
and charged with felony drug
possession.
He was in a downward spiral
that seemingly no one was able
to pull him out of.
His addiction issues
had reared its ugly head
early in his career.
We played for an SMU
fraternity party,
Liberation did,
and that night,
after the party was over,
as all the guests were leaving,
and we were
tearing down our equipment,
getting ready to load out,
Stevie was walking around
to all of the tables
where the audience had been,
where the fraternity guys
had been out there
with their girlfriends,
and was picking up still,
you know, cocktails
that still had something in them
or whatever and was drinking.
And that was the first sign
that Stevie was a drinker.
[Jimmie] My father was
an alcoholic.
He would go out
and drink too much
and get in trouble,
get pulled over and do things.
And I said, "Well, I'm never
going to drink!"
And then--
until I got my first drink,
and then I did the same thing.
Over and over and over.
And then I got into
some other stuff,
and I got in
some other stuff and, uh,
and then I--
well, my little brother did
what I did, usually.
Uh, and so he heard that I was
getting high
and playing all night
and doing all this stuff.
And I'm sure he went
and tried it and, um...
You know, but he collapsed
in Europe, uh...
always trying to take it further
than the next guy.
[narrator]
Despite his addictions,
Stevie was always
able to show up
and play blistering sets
that left people slack-jawed.
No matter how wasted
he was, he still put on
an incredible performance,
hitting all the notes.
I saw this in person
when he played a free show
in Lee Park for us
while I was atBuddy magazine.
One look into his eyes,
and you can tell that he was
on something,
but he put on a great show
that day,
even though he wasn't getting
paid for it.
And he didn't miss a lick.
The original
Double Trouble lineup
featured Stevie on guitar,
drummer Chris Layton,
and bassist Jack Newhouse.
One night, during a gig
at the Houston nightclub,
Rockefeller's,
Buddy magazine had sponsored
the show,
and as part of the evening,
we gave away a free
Hamer guitar.
Tommy Shannon came in to see
the band that evening
and immediately wanted to be
a part of it.
Once he joined on bass,
the lineup that most people
know was sealed.
Double Trouble embarked
on a tour of nightclubs
and bars
looking for their big break.
Well, I'm lovestruck, baby
I must confess
Life without you, darlin'
Is a solid mess
Thinkin' bout you, baby
Gives me such a thrill
I gotta have you, baby
Can't get my fill
I love you, baby, and I know
Just what to do
I still remember
And let it be said
The way you make me feel'd
Take a fool to forget
I swore a ton of bricks
Had hit me in the head
And what you do, little baby
Ain't over it yet
[narrator] And it came
during a performance
at the Montreux Jazz Festival
where David Bowie
got a taste of Double Trouble
in action.
It also introduced him
to Jackson Browne.
I was at Montreux,
and I played, and we were done
playing--
As a matter of fact,
I was doing an interview
like this.
They were doing
a set in the artists' area
for other musicians,
and it was astonishing,
you know, what he was doing
was just--
he just blew everybody away,
and the guys in my band
particularly.
So I went down there
and heard him
and listened to the rest
of what he was doing,
and at some point,
they took a break, you know.
It led to him inviting me
to sit in.
The show wasn't a matter
of playing, you know,
I barely hung onto my guitar.
It was just like, hang on,
you know?
[narrator] This chance encounter
led to Stevie being asked
to perform
on Bowie's comeback album
Let's Dance.
I walked into a newly
opened after hours club
called The Continental.
I was with Billy Idol one night,
and we walked in,
and Billy went,
[imitates accent]
"Bloody hell, that's David
effin' Bowie!"
[normal voice]
And we saw David sitting
all by himself at the back bar,
drinking a glass
of orange juice.
He and I started talking.
We decided that we'd work
together, and, uh--
and it all just happened very,
very quickly.
Basically, David just dumped
the project in my hand.
He just said, "Hey, you see it,
you understand what I'm talking
about.
You deal with it."
The only thing that David
introduced
to the record that, um--
other than being David Bowie
and choosing great songs,
was this interesting
new guitar player
named Stevie Ray Vaughan
that he had only heard once
in Montreux Jazz Festival.
So when Stevie walked
into the studio,
the first thing we played
for him was Let's Dance.
I'll never forget this, man.
We became friends for the rest
of our lives.
He walked into the studio,
he looked at the speakers,
and he listened to the track,
and he was just blown away.
He knew that he was hearing
something magical.
And as with all good musicians
that I respect,
I could see him trying
to compute
how he's
gonna fit in this thing
that's already magical.
Like, "This is already great.
What do I do?"
Um...
He did very little.
But boy, that little bit he did
was amazing.
It was like unbelievable.
["Let's Dance" playing]
[narrator] His guitar work
gave the LP a different sound
than Bowie had shown
on previous records,
and it was a huge hit
with both the public
and critics.
[Nile] These are all one-take
solos.
I mean, it took me no time
to make that record.
And with the injection
of Stevie,
which added a completely
different dimension,
a whole other way of looking
at the song,
it was really-- it was just
something magical,
something really...
I don't think I've ever had
a recording session
like that since...
um, or before.
It was just one
of those really crazy things
that makes no sense.
[narrator]
As hard as it may be for
people today to understand,
a record contract
was the Holy Grail
for a rock band at that time.
With no iTunes, Internet,
or free downloads,
a record deal meant your album
would be displayed in record
stores across America,
bringing in millions of dollars
in royalties if you had a hit.
So when
The Fabulous Thunderbirds got
picked up by Tacoma Records,
a division of Chrysalis,
they'd finally "made it"
in many people's eyes.
[Jimmie]
We played for five years
before we ever had a record.
Ray Benson would play at--
from Asleep at the Wheel--
we would play shows with him
sometimes,
and he said, "Hey, I know a guy
that does the blues,"
uh, a record company.
And he told Denny Bruce
about us.
Denny Bruce came from L.A.
to Austin,
heard us play and got us
a record deal on Tacoma.
[narrator] They went into
Sumet-Bernet Studios in Dallas
to record their breakout LP
"Girls Go Wild."
[Jimmie] By the way, Mike Buck
thought of Girls Go Wild.
I don't know where he got it,
but we made our album,
and we said, "Okay, what are we
going to name it?"
And everybody had something,
you know,
said something.
And Mike goes, "Why don't we
call it Girls Go Wild?"
And we're like, "What?"
He said, "Girls Go Wild,"
and we were like,
"You can do that?"
You know?
It's like,
"That's the coolest name
we've ever heard of!"
It has nothing to do
with anything, but we're gonna
say it anyway.
Keith and I both had, uh,
pretty large record
collections, a lot of 45s.
It'd usually be...
one of ours, you know.
One of us will bring
the song in,
like I had the record
"Marked Deck" by this guy
from Dallas, Mercy Baby.
He was a drummer
for Frankie Lee Sims.
And of course Jimmie had a lot
of good stuff, too.
He was--
Everybody had pretty good taste,
you know.
[narrator] It was recorded live,
meaning that the band
played as a unit
with very few overdubs.
Although it did not top
the Billboard charts
at the time of its release,
Girls Go Wild gained
a reputation
as the album that
introduced the Texas
Roadhouse Blues
to a white
suburban audience.
She walk past a clock
The clock won't tell time
She walk through
The college
Professor lose his mind
But she's tough
Ooh, ooh, ooh, she's tough
My baby's tough
She's rough and tough
[laughter]
And that's tough enough
[narrator] A short time later,
Jimmie and The Fabulous
Thunderbirds
received what was
basically a fan letter
from Carlos Santana
when he asked them to record
an entire album with him
titledHavana Moon.
He came to a couple
of our gigs, and, uh--
and we said,
"Hey, Carlos Santana,
sit in with us."
And so he would sit in with us
and we would play.
And he said-- he said, "Man,
I like you guys because..."
he said,
"From the audience,
you can smell the tubes burning
in your amp."
You know, it's just a very
Carlos thing to say,
you know?
[narrator] Meanwhile,
brother Stevie was discovered
by the man
who had signed Bob Dylan
to his first record contract.
Hammond had become aware
of Double Trouble
and persuaded CBS Records
to sign the trio.
As evidence of his influence,
Hammer was photographed
with the band
on the back of the album cover.
Jack Chase, the head
of CBS Records in Dallas,
facilitated the signing
of the contract with Stevie.
He also personally committed
to sell 25,000 units
of Stevie's new album from
the Dallas branch alone.
The entire LP was recorded
in Jackson Browne's studio.
"Hey, if you're ever
in L.A., you know, come by
and we'll do some recordings,"
something like that,
and the same thing with them.
Like, a month later,
they're like, "We're here.
We're here to make
our album." Okay.
I was in the studios right
before Thanksgiving,
and it was Stevie, he said,
"Well, we're almost there."
[stammers]
He was like in Bakersfield
or someplace, Victorville.
He said,
"We're on our way there."
And...
And the timing is pretty good
because we were about to stop
recording for Thanksgiving.
Everybody had stuff to do.
Everybody had things planned
with their family.
So they came,
and they set up, you know,
and we started recording.
And I thought... [clicks tongue]
Uh...
[stammers]
Well, I asked my engineer,
Greg LaDonis,
so like, "Do you want to, like,
stay?" And I mean...
I could give him
the week, you know,
"Do you want to stay
and do this?"
[stammers] He had family, too.
He had stuff to do, to plan,
like that.
And my second engineer,
James Geddes said,
"I can do it."
And after Texas Flood
came out,
-they gave me a horse.
-[horse grunts]
They gave me a horse,
which I named Rave On.
It was beautiful paint
from some breeder
at Manor Downs.
It was like a gift from them,
like a thank-you gift for
this time in the studio.
So I don't know if anybody's
ever given you a horse,
but it's like the gift is,
you know, it's something
you have to feed
for the rest of its life.
I called Chris and Tommy
and said, "You want
this horse back?"
And they were like,
"No, we don't want a horse.
No, that's your horse."
[laughs]
Stevie and Chris and Tommy
were great, great pe--
colorful people
and, like, just so badass.
[narrator]
The timing somewhat ironic
because Stevie had been tapped
to play guitar
on Bowie's upcoming
Serious Moonlight tour
in support of Let's Dance.
Rehearsals
were underway in Irving,
a suburb near Dallas
at a soundstage located
in the Studios at Los Colinas.
During these rehearsals,
Bowie made it known that once
he embarked on the tour,
Stevie was not permitted
to promote his new album.
He was to be the guitar player
for Bowie's band, period,
and help promoteLet's Dance.
Faced with a tough decision,
Stevie chose his album
over Bowie's
and was dismissed before
the tour even started.
The rock press had a field day
speculating that Stevie
had made a cocaine decision
and a big mistake,
but it turned out
that it was the right move.
Texas Flood was a breakout
album.
It thrust Stevie Ray Vaughan
and Double Trouble
into the spotlight,
earning accolades from both
blues and rock fans alike.
Now both of the Vaughan
brothers had hit the top.
It was a stunning achievement
for two kids
from a working-class Dallas
neighborhood.
With success came more money,
and with more money came
more opportunities
for an addictive personality
like Stevie.
He and Lenny were now doing
large amounts of cocaine
along with heavy drinking,
and it wasn't pretty.
By now, Jimmie had reached
the end of his run with The
Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Jimmie felt like he had done
all he could do,
so he left the band
that he had founded
and embarked on a solo career.
Meanwhile, brother Stevie
was getting higher,
both literally
and figuratively.
His subsequent LPs
were selling well,
and his live shows
were the stuff of legend.
But the daily intake of cocaine
and liquor were taking a toll.
When you're in the top ten,
you're selling 150,000 a week,
something like that,
and you get really fat gigs.
Everybody wants you.
-[guitar playing]
-[no audible dialogue]
The Grammys,
everybody wants you.
George Thorogood
and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
-Do you idolize them?
-[crowd cheering]
You idolize them
just like the rest of us
to make this presentation.
Ladies and gentlemen,
once again, Mr. Chuck Berry.
You know, so, it's a good time
in that sense,
but it's hard
to keep it up every day,
drinking and drugging
and trying to medicate yourself
so you can get to the next gig.
And do good and, you know,
all this stuff.
So it all sort of--
it's like a snowball going down
the hill.
You know? [grunts]
It gets faster and faster
and faster and faster.
And sometimes, you know...
[smacks]
[narrator] Some of his closest
friends were worried.
Others tried to placate him
with the phrase,
"It's a Stevie world,
and we're all lucky
to be here."
After collapsing
during a tour in Europe,
he went into rehab.
I think either the next day
I heard that he had taken a fall
or that he was, you know--
and he was in the hospital
and that he was--
and what he told me was that
Eric had come to see him.
I called my friend Eric Clapton,
who was down the road.
Eric came over and visited him
that same day.
And they started talking about
getting sober.
[stammers]
And they had kind of
a meeting of the minds.
I think Eric sort of--
Eric Clapton, uh...
was able to...
to help him understand that
it wasn't being high
that let him play.
He's playing
in spite of being high,
and that he was, you know,
and that was not a way--
that was not a way to go.
For those guys to get clean,
you know, Jimmie and Stevie,
was like an affirmation to me
that I was on the right road.
You know, I didn't--
I felt a little bit lonely.
And I only had like a year
in front of either of the guys.
I mean, but not many other
people were getting straight
when I was getting straight.
And-- but I got straight
because I was convinced
they were going to lock me up.
And I didn't want to be
in a mental asylum.
I didn't really want to be
in an institution,
you know, uh, sanitariums
they used to call them.
And, uh, I could see that was
on the cards.
And so when those guys
got clean,
I thought,
"Well, I got company now."
Stevie caught the bug
and got sober
to everyone's amazement.
Like, when I was a kid,
my dad's friends,
they would drink.
They were just called
"drinking men."
You know?
Nobody would admit or--
I never heard of anybody
getting sober.
You know,
when I was a kid, I was like,
like you couldn't handle it
or something.
You know?
Who wants to admit that?
That was the thinking.
And so Stevie actually went
to treatment
and got sober.
Five years later, I got sober.
[narrator] Now that he had
licked his addiction,
Stevie wondered
if he could make music
the same way again.
He was reassured that he had
not lost any of his chops
when he recordedIn Step.
Once the album came out,
it was the biggest selling
record of his career
and earned him
a Grammy Award.
With his addiction issues
apparently beaten,
a divorce from Lenny
and a new outlook,
Stevie moved back in
with his mother in Oak Cliff
at the family home
on Glenfield Avenue.
It was back to his roots
in his old neighborhood
near Kiest Park.
During this time,
he met a young model
named Janna Lapidus.
The Vaughan brothers were now
part of Texas guitar royalty,
ranked in alongside
other legendary players
like Billy Gibbons,
Johnny Winter,
and Steve Miller.
Years earlier,
Jimmie confided
toBuddy magazine
that he wanted
to make an album with Stevie,
and now he had the chance.
The album would be recorded
with the man behind
Chic'sFreak Out
and Bowie's Let's Dance
at the helm,
legendary producer
Nile Rodgers.
Aw, freak out!
Le freak, c'est chic
Freak out!
-Aw, freak out!
-[narrator] It was an odd
combination.
A producer with disco hits
like "Freak Out"
and two white boys
playing the blues,
but it worked marvelously.
Family Style
came together in
such a great way,
because now I already have
a relationship
with Stevie,
and I have a separate
relationship with Jimmie.
This is really interesting,
because these are two brothers
who adored each other,
loved each other,
but never made
a record together.
[narrator] After all the songs
were recorded,
before the final touches
were made,
Stevie and Jimmie went
to play an outdoor festival
in Wisconsin
with longtime fan and friend,
Eric Clapton.
[Eric] I remember sitting
in my dressing room
listening to him play
that night,
and it was also on the TV.
It was like-- they had
a setup when I was sitting
in my dressing room.
I didn't go out on the wing,
because sometimes it's better
when you're
in the dressing room.
You hear it better
and you don't have to talk.
Nobody gonna talk to you
or bother you.
And I was sitting, watching him
on TV and thinking,
I don't really want to go on
after this.
This is, uh...
you have to either ignore this,
or just, you know, give it up
or whatever.
I mean, it doesn't happen.
In the end you go on--
I go on and do my thing,
even though I think
it's whatever.
But I mean, he nailed it,
you know.
Absolutely.
[narrator]
When the show was over,
Stevie took a seat
in one of the helicopters
while brother Jimmie
stayed behind.
It was foggy that night
when the copter took off.
It never made it.
The night I was there,
there was some weather, and...
Stevie comes in the room
and says...
this is before cell phones.
There was one seat open.
And Stevie said,
"I'm going to go home early,
and I'm going to go call
my girlfriend."
And I said-- I did
the big brother thing on him.
I said, "Look..."
I said, "I came all the way
up here to see you.
You're going to go home early?"
I did one of those things
on him.
And he looked right at me
and he says,
"You don't understand.
I gotta go."
So then he went
and got in the cart,
and they drove him
to the helicopter.
They all got in there,
and they lifted off,
and crashed
right into the ski mountain.
Because it was a ski resort,
Alpine Valley.
Crashed right into it.
Killed them all.
I didn't know about it.
The concert's still going on.
Somebody knew.
But we didn't
in the dressing room.
So anyway, we flew home,
went to our hotel rooms,
and I was kind of mad at Stevie
because he left.
Thinking, well, you know,
I came all the way up here
and then he goes off and...
The way you can get mad
at your brother or something,
but not big, but just, you know.
I found out when I woke up
in my hotel room.
I got a call from the guy
who was managing me then
saying Stevie
didn't make it back.
And I said, "What do you mean?"
He said the helicopter--
his helicopter flew
into a kind of ski slope
mountain thing.
So at 6:00 in the morning,
I get a phone call.
"Well, we found Stevie and them.
They crashed in the helicopter,
and they're all dead."
Is what they tell me.
So you can imagine the rest.
-[news jingle]
-There's been a major blow
to the rock music world.
A deadly helicopter crash
early this morning
in Wisconsin.
Five people have been killed,
including rock guitarist
Stevie Ray Vaughan
and other members of rock star
Eric Clapton's band.
Clapton, however,
was not aboard the helicopter.
[Christian] It was
about 2:00 in the morning.
I got a phone call
from a lady who said
that he had passed away.
Of course, I didn't believe it.
And as the news broke that day,
my phone just rang off the wall.
Somebody said something
about let's all get together
in Kiest Park,
and I said, "Let's have
a candlelight vigil."
And that's what we did.
We came out here,
and we sat at this tree.
And we came here
just to celebrate his life
and a place
where we all could mourn.
And this is
where we ended up being.
And it's...
kind of surreal being here,
actually.
And Stevie also died
on the same day as my father,
four years later.
And I had to call my mom
and tell her.
And she thought I was calling
to tell her that--
'cause it was the anniversary
of my father's death.
You know,
she thought I was just calling
her and to say, "I'm sorry.
You know, I know you're--
it's bad day for you."
But I had to tell her, you know,
Stevie died, too.
The worst bit for me was
going with Jimmie
to identify the crew,
and I couldn't do it.
I was required to help identify
the guys that we lost.
And Jimmie had to go
and identify his brother.
And I, you know,
I can't imagine
what that was like.
[narrator] Stevie was laid
to rest in the family plot
in Laurel Land Cemetery
in Oak Cliff
next to his father.
Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt,
and Stevie Wonder sang
at his funeral.
I once was lost
But now I'm found
I didn't come there
to sing, you know,
it was very spontaneous.
I mean, at one point,
Bonnie and I were standing
next to Stevie Wonder,
and he just sort of like...
like leaned over and was like,
"We're going to sing
Amazing Grace."
"Okay, here we go." You know,
he just started singing.
So we sang it with him,
you know.
Was blind
But now I see
[Jimmie] When we had the opening
of the display over there
at the Bob Bullock,
I finally said, and it occurred
to me days before that,
that I'm not going to
get over this,
and it's okay if I don't
get over it.
You always think as a human,
you're going to grow up
and accept whatever it is,
right?
But it ain't going to happen.
It is completely unfair.
It's unbelievably--
it's a loss for everybody
that he was cut short.
And I mean, I lost another
friend in that crash, too,
Bobby Brooks
was a friend of mine.
My agent and Stevie's agent.
And, you know...
you know, it's just a tragic,
tragic loss.
I was devastated
when they went off to do
that gig with Clapton,
and two brothers left,
and one brother returned.
[narrator] For Jimmie,
the loss of his brother
almost brought his life
and career to a standstill.
He oversaw the final production
ofFamily Style,
watched its release,
and saw one of the songs,
"Tick Tock,"
climb up the Billboard charts.
Remember that tick-tock
Tick-tock
Tick-tock people
Time's ticking away
[narrator] Then he crawled back
into his own world
and didn't come out
for two years.
He was finally brought
out of his funk
by Eric Clapton.
I just couldn't
picture myself
going out and playing a gig
with all the people
wanting to know
what I thought about it...
you know?
So I just waited a couple
of years, three years,
I don't know how long it was,
but I waited until I couldn't
stand it anymore.
And then I--
Eric invited me to go play
at Royal Albert Hall.
And I thought to myself,
"If I don't do this,
I'm a chickenshit."
I had the chance to get
a big chunk of time
at the Royal Albert Hall.
And we got 24 nights and I--
and I just,
I was thinking,
"What-- what am I going to do?"
I didn't realize that
he hadn't worked before that.
I mean, that wasn't my motive.
It wouldn't have been--
I don't think it was my motive
to get him out.
I hadn't realized, actually,
that for all of that time,
he wasn't doing anything
at home.
So it was purely
a musical idea.
I thought he ought to be there.
The point was he was
the representative
of my kind of experience
of the blues.
You know, Jimmie had to be
a part of it. Had to be.
[narrator]
A newly energized Jimmie
started recording again,
then touring with a group
of musicians he called
the Tilt-a-Whirl Band.
After a while, he started
performing a song
he dedicated to Stevie called
"Six Strings Down."
Art Neville and his brothers
wrote it.
They wrote the first verse,
and they sent it to me.
And I was trying to figure out
what in the world...
what in the world could I tell
my mother
to ease her mind?
Right?
What do you tell them?
There's nothing
you can tell them.
So when Art Neville
and the Neville Brothers
sent me this song...
"Alpine Valley in the middle
of the night,
six strings down
on the heaven-bound flight,
he's got a pick, a strap,
and a guitar on his back.
Ain't gonna cut the angels
no slack.
Heaven done called another
blues stringer back home."
And I was like--
when I played that, I was like,
"There it is!"
They had another verse.
"See the voodoo child
holding out his hand?
I've been waiting on you,
brother.
Welcome to the band.
Good blues stringin',
heaven fine singin',
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
been listening to their playin'.
Heaven done called another
blues stringer back home."
So I thought,
"Okay, this is it."
So I called him and said,
"Look, can I just make
my own verses
for the end and not use
the bridge, is that okay?"
And they said, "Sure,
whatever you want to do."
So, I made up
the rest of the song,
and I put all those blues
singers in there.
So it was-- it was sort of
like blues heaven.
You know Hillbilly Heaven?
We've all heard that.
Maybe some of us have.
And it's about
all the country singers
that have gone
to Hillbilly Heaven.
So-- And so--
When I heard the song
by the Neville Brothers,
I thought "Six Strings Down,"
that's, you know--
and then I put all these
other guys in there with Stevie.
So then I can play it
for my mom.
You know, Albert Collins
Is up there
There's Muddy and Lightning
Too
Albert King and Freddy
They're playing the blues
There's T-Bone Walker
Guitar Slim
Little Shawn Jackson
And Frankie Lee Sims
Heaven done called another
Blues stringer back home
You know, James Cotton's
Up there
He's with Muddy Waters
Too
I've been waiting on you
Brother
Welcome to the band
There's good blues stringin'
Heaven's fine singin'
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Been listening to their
Playin'
[Jimmie continues playing]
Lord, they called
Another blues stringer
Back home
Lord, they called
Another blues stringer
Back home
Lord they called
[crowd]
Another blues stringer
Back home
[cheering]
[mellow music]
[narrator] Back in the 1970s,
there was a guitar dealer
in Dallas named Tony Dukes.
He sold vintage guitars
to Billy Gibbons,
Elliot Easton of The Cars,
Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick,
and a 1959 Gibson Les Paul
that Don Felder used
for the guitar solo
on "Hotel California."
Tony once said, "There are two
kinds of people in this world,
those who are hip
to the Vaughan Brothers
and those who aren't."
Well, that pretty much
sums it up.
I kind of miss Tony,
he was quite the wordsmith,
and he could put expressions
in such a hard-hitting manner.
That pretty much sums it up:
two types of people,
those that know
the Vaughan Brothers
and those that don't.
Stevie just worshipped
Jimmie.
I mean--
and I think Jimmie
was probably a little--
felt a little competitive
of his little brother.
But you could tell they loved
each other,
but there was definitely
a rivalry there.
I think everyone pretty much
knew that.
So... But obviously he loved
Stevie very much.
And they kind of
got sober together.
And I think they bonded then.
The thing that was
so peculiar to me
is that there was, like,
not even a hint of animosity.
It was exactly the opposite.
It was almost hero worship.
Like, it was clear that Jimmie
was Stevie's big brother
and Stevie idolized him.
And, you know, Jimmie was
the guy who started
playing guitar first.
And as Jimmie would say,
it was cool,
he says like, "He picked up
my guitars and whatever.
And then he went off somewhere
and he came back,
and he was like,
"God!" He was like,
"Man, where did that come?"
[Jimmy Wallace] Seeing Bugs,
seeing Seab Meador,
seeing Jimmie Vaughan,
I mean-- and Stevie
as he grew up,
it was an incredible experience
to see all these guys,
because that's a pretty high
standard, you know?
[Mike] A lot of folks kind of
like-- since Stevie's style was
a lot flashier,
they said, "Oh, Stevie plays
circles around Jimmie."
Jimmie played like he played,
and it was perfect.
It was what it was supposed
to be.
Jimmie made every note count.
Yeah.
So that's my that's my take
on it.
[Jackson] I can't imagine
either one of them not having
been a guitarist.
If it wasn't Stevie, you know,
glomming on to Jimmie's guitar
and, you know,
it would have been someone
else's guitar.
I think with Stevie and I,
we were just desperate.
And, you know, If you want to
do something real bad,
you can have talent,
and you can have gumption
and means and everything else.
But if you really
want to do something,
you got to be desperate.
I once asked Jimmie, I said,
"Where did it all start?"
And, uh, it was a family thing.
But then, like so many
musicians that were leaning
to improving their style
or their skill,
it seems that
so many of us were drawing
from the similar influences.
I mean,
the list of blues players
that...
laid the way for us to follow
would be lengthy.
And Jimmie and I
still talk as if it were
the day we were starting,
because the originators
of the blues allowed us
to become interpreters.
And I think that Stevie fell
right into that same groove.
And to this day,
I think it would be fair to say
that a lot of guitar players...
are attempting to traverse
that same path,
and very few make it
with such technical dexterity
as Jimmie and Stevie.
They have cracked the code.
They know how to do it.
I think because
he really was one of us.
He went other places,
he traveled the world,
but when Stevie
got out of rehab,
he came back to Dallas,
and he lived with his mother
in Oak Cliff.
And how many people
who played at Carnegie Hall,
and won Grammys
and all of the awards
that he's won, world renowned,
would intentionally
come back
and live in this little
frame house in Oak Cliff?
[indistinct chatter]
[narrator] Just recently,
the city of Dallas approved
funds to erect an artwork
honoring both Jimmie and Stevie
in Kiest Park,
only four blocks away
from their childhood home.
On this very spot right here,
I don't know how
the people that put
this artwork here knew this,
but when my mother and father
were dating,
he pulled his brand-new car--
it was a couple of years old,
'47 Ford Coupe.
He pulled it right here,
and I got a picture of my dad
standing on the front bumper.
[narrator] For two boys
who came from nowhere,
they both wound up somewhere,
and now
they will be immortalized
in their hometown of Oak Cliff
near their childhood home
forever more.
[Eric] Look out
for the Vaughan brothers,
'cause they're seriously
dangerous people.
[laughs]
They just got that thing, man.
That Texas thing.
Just so badass, you know,
just such great players.
And, you know...
[chuckles]
["Life by the Drop"
by Stevie Ray Vaughan]
Hello there, my old friend
Not so long ago
It was till the end
We played outside
In the pouring rain
On the way up the road
We started over again
You're livin' our dream
As though you're on top
My mind is aching
Lord, it won't stop
That's how it happened
Living life by the drop
Up and down the road
In our worn out shoes
Talking 'bout good things
And singing the blues
You went your way
And I stayed behind
We both knew it was just
A matter of time
Livin' our dreams
As though you're on top
My mind is aching
Lord, it won't stop
That's how it happens
Living life by the drop
No wasted time
We're alive today
Churning up the past
There's no easier way
Time's been between us
A means to an end
God, it's good to be here
Walking together, my friend
Livin' a dream
My mind starts achin'
That's how it happened
Livin' life by the drop
That's how it happened
Living life by the drop
That's how it happened
Living life by the drop
[blues music]