Can’t get enough stories about the early melting pot as Austin became the Blues Guitar ground zero for the likes of the Vaughans, ZZTop, Johnny Winter and opened the scene again for guys like Buddy Guy, Albert King, Albert Collins and Hubert Sumlin…largely impacted by the legendary club Antones – it was really the perfect storm of talent, inspiration, experience and desire and out popped an incredible blues reincarnation.

Here’s one of my favorite interviews with Stevie Ray Vaughan – he was clean, sober, happy and you can see the true man in every response to these questions…watch this

By the way – if you haven’t picked up both volumes of the Craig Hopkins “Day By Day, Night After Night” inside SRV story, you MUST pick this up. There are so many personal stories, original family/friend pictures, private stories from his earliest friends, gig posters and thorough gig lists…I couldn’t put it down.

Two things I pulled out of these volumes…

1. SRV was NOT an overnight success, he put in years of nightly gigs to pay his dues and learn the blues -by the time Texas Flood was released he was likely more experienced than most professional musicians at the end of their careers
2. He was, in many ways, a genius – gifted with an amazing ear and a passion for the guitar that dwarfed anything else in life…just as Steve Jobs obsessed over technology, SRV obsessed over the blues guitar. The books were incredibly insightful and interesting.