You all (y'all – we're talking about Texas blues here) know the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan and his stupendoues command of blistering blues licks, shimmery intricate chord work and inimitable glassy Stratocaster tone. But – do you know who he credited as his biggest influence? His older brother, Jimmie.
Born in Dallas, Texas in 1951, Jimmie begain playing in his early teens and his first band played Dallas' Hob Knob lounge six nights a week, giving the young guitar okayer a through grounding in the rigours of live performance. In 1969 he got a big break, opening the show for Jimi Hendrix at Fort Worth – this show would see Jimmie lending Hendrix his Vox wah pedal, which Hednrix broke! However, in return, Hendrix gave him his own touring wah pedal. Not a bad trade.
Jimmie's next move would see him hitching across country to Austin, Texas and eventually finding success with The Fabulous Thunderbirds. After a troubled start – the bands' first four albums were a critical, but not commercial, success – ther career peaked with a top 40 single “Tuff Enuff” that featured in the 1986 film “Gung Ho”. A couple more commercial albums followed, but Jimmie left in 1990 to form a duo with his brother Stevie Ray – sadly this would be all too short lived as Stevie would be killed in a helicopter crash on August 27 of that year.
Since 1994 Jimmie has pursued a solo career, releasing his first album containing the song “Six Strings Down”, dedicated to Stevie's memory, and he continues to perform to this day.
Jimmie's style is, unsurprisingly, pentatonic based, and he is a spare, unflashy player with a gift for hitting just the right note at the right time. Indeed, Stevie Ray once attributed his own high octane style to being unable to successfully emulate Jimmie! There is nothing particularly technically difficult here, but instead try to listen and grasp the “storytelling” aspect of these licks:
This is based on the G minor pentatonic theme from the SRV/ JV collaboration "D/FW".
C minor pentatonic intro from "Boom Bapa Boom"
And opening bars of the solo.
Each of these follows a coherent “call / response” or “call / response / call / conclusion” pattern. This is something you can carry over to all aspects of soloing, regardless of genre.
Right, next month we're going off schedule and checking out the great and now very sadly late Peter Green – see you then!
