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Stevie Ray Vaughan - deservedly elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 along with his band Double Trouble - is sorely missed. Sadly, Vaughan left us more than a quarter of a century ago with a discography that's limited in size due to his early passing in a tragic helicopter crash. In Step was the fourth and last studio album Vaughan recorded with Double Trouble, and it was the last one to be released in his lifetime. It went to #33 on Billboard's top 200 album chart. SRV's actual final recording was Family Style , an album on which he shared equal billing with his brother, Jimmie, who is best known for his work with The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Another excellent set, The Sky Is Crying , was issued posthumously two years later, but it was assembled from unreleased tracks found in the vaults. In Step is a fine record, and it opens with a blast. "The House is Rockin'" is nothing fancy, just good old fas...

Stevie Ray Vaughan, center, with Double Trouble & John Hammond on right It took over a year for my wife and I to clean out my late father-in-law's house that was loaded with five decades of possessions he never threw away. It was extremely time consuming. Just like everyone else, we've been stuck at home lately so we decided it's now time to clean out our house. We want to do it now because in the future, when there is possibly only one of us, the survivor will not have to spend more time than necessary getting rid of stuff that is no longer needed or wanted. We were also inspired to purge -  believe it or not - by Ringo Starr. A few years ago the drummer and his wife decided to sell a lot of his memorabilia including the famous drum kit he used while rising to international superstardom with The Beatles. It was the set you see in hundreds of pictures, the one he used to record many of their early hits. It's the one he played on The Ed Sullivan Show . I decided that...

Any serious musician must have some knowledge and appreciation of the blues to have any credibility, even if it's a genre they don't work in regularly. As proof, you can hear the blues in the songs of a ton of musicians who don't have any real connection to the genre: stars such as James Taylor ("Steamroller Blues") or even Carole King. Surely you can hear Bessie Smith or Susan Tedeschi belting out "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet" without a whole lot of effort. No blues satisfies my soul more than slow burning blues. These songs, many with extended, improvised guitar solos that often unfold at a snail's pace allow the finger-picker to stretch out and show off his chops. Intense but smoldering guitar work played by virtuosos, often supported by jazzy organ or piano fills and understated vocals, are a hallmark of the genre. Electric blues sounds like rock music to many people and acoustic blues is often thought of as folk music but real music f...

Five years after his brother's death Jimmie Vaughan organized a tribute concert to Stevie Ray that was broadcast on Austin City Limits on May 11, 1995 before it was released to the public on CD. In the CD's liner notes (it was also issued on DVD) Jimmie said, "Doing this has been in the back of my mind for a long time. But I wanted it to be far enough removed from Stevie's passing (August 26, 1990) that it could be a happy, celebratory event." Vaughan's timing was perfect because the concert became a giant blues party. In addition to Double Trouble (Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon, and Reese Winans) everyone who played with Stevie on stage during his last concert just a few hours before he died was there: Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Jimmie. Also invited to pay their respects were Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, and two keyboard players, Art Neville and Dr. John. Your first reaction may be, "Why get this CD when you can get the real thing?...