Am I the only one who thinks Stevie Ray Vaughn wasn't a guitar-God?

[Intelsucks]

I like him, but I just don't think he was worthy of the God-like stature that surrounds him. His guitar playing sounded a lot like Albert Collins to me. I really don't think he broke any new ground, which is difficult to do in Blues anyway.

Also, he is not from Austin. He is originally from Dallas. he is Austin's "adopted" son. ;)

[BBradley]

1. No you're not the only one, but you're wrong

imo atleast

[Intelsucks]

3. Wrong, as in?

What?

[jfxgillis]

2. Technically brilliant --

-- but stylistically derivative.

[Intelsucks]

5. Maybe I would feel different had I seen him play live...

Which I never did.

[jobycom]

11. I walked into the local Fry's over Christmas

and they were playing a concert video on a big screen near the front. There were about twenty people just watching him, totally entranced. I stood there about ten minutes, just watching and listening, with a growing crowd. This was during the height of Christmas rush, too.

It's very different watching him live than what you generally hear on the radio.

[mike_c]

4. that would likely be a small club, I think....

The Earth was not yet ready.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

6. i'm pretty reluctant to determine guitar gods

for instance when I read about Satriani or Steve Vai i think about puking, much less when i hear their music. I wouldn't even put Clapton in the god status, since so much of his stuff comes across as reaching too hard for what should be comfortable sweeps. But I'd have to say SRV is a guitar god, the dude just had soul.

[jobycom]

8. You know, that's perfect.

I agree on every point.

[jfxgillis]

9. I am the Lord thy

Jimi Hendrix, though shalt have no other gods before me.

[jobycom]

13. Hendrix is

more than a god. He's like god's god.

[Intelsucks]

14. And he can play the blues too! I like Hendrix - Blues... Great album

n/t

[jobycom]

7. I hope so

He's from Oak Cliff, just like Vanilla Ice.

As for Austin, we claim anybody who hums a song within a ten mile perimeter of the city limits as being from Austin. Janis Joplin, for instance.

On SRV's guitaring status, he was exceptionally skilled, and his concert performances were creative and inspired. As for new ground, no, probably not. But at the time of his death, he was the best thing going for blues. His death was also quite shocking to Texans, which is where a lot of his cult comes from. Like a handful of other incidents, I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard. Like Selena.

[Fenris]

10. I think his records suck

Whether or not he was a guitar god...well, that's in the eye of the beholder. I don't think he should be deified. And his writing was horrible. A little bit better than Robert Cray, but not by much (no one can surpass the absolute shit that is Cray's "24/7 Man" or "Forecast Calls for Pain").

I should note that I hate any blues music not made by a poor black man/woman. I'll take Leadbelly, Howlin' Wolf, Charlie Patton, and Lightnin' Hopkins over Eric Clapton, B.B. King, SRV, and the rest of those awful copyists.

And I say all of this as a Texan mind you. Ever seen the Austin Music Network, Intelsucks? Watch and see all that is wrong with Austin.

[Intelsucks]

12. I like Lightnin' Hopkins.

Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, etc.

I don't watch much TV though.

[GOPisEvil]

34. Hey! Austin Music Network is high quality baby!

NOT! :P

On to SRV, though...if you ever saw him live, you'd think differently. The man had some serious skills. Yeah, he might have been derivative, who isn't? The truth is he applied his craft better than just about anyone I've ever heard.

Oh, and I can verify jobycom's Fry's story. It was strange seeing that big group of people just transfixed by that DVD. I bet they sold some serious product that day.

[jobycom]

61. Yeah, Austin loves high quality music

but we also love glorifying mediocrities, and choose to put them on tv.

So, I wonder if we were in Fry's at the same time!

[BigBigBear]

15. SRV was a great guitarist

I don't think he's in that very top echelon - with Clapton, Beck, Santana, McLaughlin, etc. But when he was good, he was very, very good.

I saw Stevie three times - first time was around '85, next time was 1989 with Jeff Beck, and then the following summer, shortly before his death.

He was a mess on that first show - incoherent, very sloppy, way too loud. Second show, with Jeff Beck, much better (he had cleaned up by then) and his last show (at Fiddler's Green, near Denver) was utterly astounding. He was just completely on it, all night. Breathtaking.

I remember the Guitar Player obit title read: Lost and Found, and Lost Again. Which I think perfectly sums up his career.

[Intelsucks]

17. I hear old time Austinites tell stories of him playing to 6 people

in a club, back when no one knew who he was. I think I was barely a teenager in those days... Too young to go to clubs.

[Kat45]

16. I've seen him live 3 times, and I like him, but I never put him in

that elevated category. :shrug:

[toddzilla]

20. i don't put anyone in that category..

However, he had that rare quality of transcending his instrument, his music poured out of him. If i'm having a good night, i might get 10-15 seconds of that in my playing, he could do it for hours at a time. One of the things that bothers me about his death is when i hear the bullshit line "clapton almost got on that helicopter". clapton is a sell-out, and i never found anything he did after cream to be noteworthy (pun intended).

Stevie had "IT", i think he's in the top ten of all time without a doubt. I'd certainly put him above santana or clapton or beck, simply because he played with guts and gave it his all.

[blackcat77]

18. I'd say demi-god at the time of his tragic death

If he'd lived, he absolutely would have been right at the top of the list, but his style was still a work in progress and we'll never know where it would have led.

[BurtWorm]

19. I'm an atheist.

I lack belief in guitar gods. ;)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

21. I went to see the Moody Blues in Seattle

and good thing I showed up early because the opening act was incredible. I literally could not believe my ears when I heard that guitarist playing Voodoo Chile. Some guy named Stevie Ray Vaughn. Wow.

[Intelsucks]

23. That's why I started this thread...

To find out what people think of SRV, and why.

[jonnyblitz]

22. I saw him live in the 80's and thought he was damn good.

But I don't listen to his music. I have a friend who loathes him.

[billbuckhead]

24. I saw him twice at the Moonshadow saloon.

I don't remember much but he sure sounded good and I was with a girl who looked like movie star. What if Hendrix was from Texas was how I always felt about him.

[jonnyblitz]

25. I saw him with the Pretenders and the Alarm(blech)

at Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, VA.

[proud patriot]

26. He's pretty good

I have his greatest hits CD

[Bridget Burke]

27. Living in Texas, I saw him numerous times--in small clubs.

He was an excellent player & his death was tragic. But while he was far better than the average mediocre white boy playing the blues--of which I've heard far too many in my misspent life--I wouldn't call him a "god".

Somebody here stated that Clapton "sold out" after Cream. I thought he did fairly well on "Layla"--but I'm not sure which playing was his & which was Duane Allman's. Duane might have been a god.

But my pantheon starts with Django Reinhardt....

35. Clapton says

that Duane is playing all the leads and the bird sounds etc. on Layla & all that he is playing is the repetitive hook/rhythm. I read this several years ago, so I don't have a source.

[corporatewhore]

28. Django Reinhardt Jimi Hendrix Charlie Christian my holy trinity

I would say Robert Johnson but he sold his soul to the devil to get his skills so maybe underwold god?

[alwynsw]

29. He surely never matched up to Wes Montgomery.

Different styles, but good is good. Both were good, Wes was better.

A minor deity at best for SRV.

[corporatewhore]

31. Wes Montgomery !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ProfessorGAC]

59. And Wes Was No Tal Farlow

And so it goes. Taste is a difficult thing to debate, is it not?
The Professor

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

30. Guitar god is probably a term for people that don't play or wish

they could play better.

While he is NOT my favorite guitar player, Stevie had a technique of playing with his left thumb and index finger wrapped around the neck of the strat fretting with his other fingers and doing this combination of RAKE and snapping off with his pic when doing his solos that made his playing style very unique. IT's actually a bit difficult to imitate with accuracy...even his student Kenny Wayne Sheppard doesn't have it down.

He used very little in the way of effects other than his own style, a bit of distortion and an occasional flange.

While there are technically more pyrotechnic players, he had a very distinct sound from the tuning down 1/2 a notch and the extra string noise that made, to his right hand techniques. That and the rapid fire chord changes...you can hear these qualities best in COLD SHOT, LENNY, his version of LITTLE WING and DIRTY POOL.

To the poster that compared Vaughn to Albert Collins, they were really polar opposites in their playing style with Collins going for the bright notes moreso.

About the only thing they had in common was the rapid hammer on/ pull off they would use to create the vibrato effect at the end of a phrase...but even in that, they used it entirely differently.

[toddzilla]

32. don't mention kenny wayne in the same sentence..

please!!!

:puke:

fucking hack!

hey, i have an idea, i'll solo over some songs and call the whole band after me!! to top it off, i'll just completely rip off someone else's style without doing anything of my own, and i'll copy their songs too!

[Richardo]

37. NSMA, is there any subject you CAN'T discuss intelligently?

:wow:

You are the coolest! :thumbsup:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

48. there is

I'll PM it to ya :D

[Richardo]

57. Got it - me too...

Which is one of the reasons I was a Poli Sci major...

[ProfessorGAC]

40. Almost Totally Correct NSMA

Stevie did use an echo unit, too. An older MXR, analog delay unit. (I forget which model.)

You can clearly hear it on songs like Crossfire, Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather. It's even more pronounced on live stuff, like the live DVD from Canada.

His tone also came from the fact that he used REALLY heavy strings on a Strat, and locked the vibrato block tight to the body. (He used all 5 springs.) He ran a 0.13 to 0.56 set of strings, which is more like an acoustic set. So, the snap you hear in his attack is due to the high string tension required to get strings that thick into standard tuning on a long scale guitar like a Strat.

He also had said in an interview, that a large part of his tone was based upon the fact that he played REALLY, REALLY LOUD! (His words.) Given the amps he used, it was probably the only way to get that bite without the barky tone.

But, i agree with you on everything else. Albert Collins tone is NOTHING like SRV's, and i think folks miss something when they don't acknowledge how important tone is to the overall message. Good playing and a distinctive tone are what makes guitar players great.
The Professor

42. How much affect does this have?

When I saw SRV he was also playing a left-handed Strat that he had flipped over to play right handed and restrung accordingly, to reproduce the effect of Hendrix taking a right-handed Strat and flipping it over.
Curious what kind of influence that has on harmonics, etc.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

46. It might have two tonal effects depending on how it was strung

Less tension on the high notes, more tension on the low notes and if the strat hed been previously owned by a lefty, the springs for the lows and highs would be worn differntly due to the amount of pressure it takes to use the vibrato bar on thicker and thinner strings thus creating a slightly different tone.

He would also create this tone at times by going for the note he wanted to play 1/2 a step down and "bending up" to the note..

[ProfessorGAC]

52. Minimal

The real reason he liked that was to have the vibrato arm up high. That way he could use his forearm on the bar for some things. He saw Hendrix do it and then got the notion that it would be an advantage to have the bar above the bridge. Even some of his right handed strats were retrofitted with left handed bridges.

The pickups would matter that much, except for the slanted bridge pickup. But, he used the neck and middle pickups A LOT! Since those are straight across, it would matter that much.

Most of SRV's guitar were righty. I think the 5 springs and the heavy strings had more to do with tone than anything else. (That and his hard playing style.)
The Professor

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

47. You are right :-)

I generally start at 10's on a strat..and I ALWAYS wanted to own one of those echo units and combine it with a RATT overdrive.

As it were, I bought a Roland unit that does ALL the effects less crap to carry around, one small rack mounted unit - makes every noise Boss ever put in a pedal and doesn't break my back to transport.


Your last paragraph says it all....whether it's Page, Hendrix or any of the "gods"...what makes them what they are isn't so much the notes they play...hell..when you're talking blues they can hit the wrong frigging note all the time just like Buddy Guy does..(there's no mistakes in rock and roll and blues) but HAVE YOUR VERY OWN SOUND... probably the BEST master at that is BB King...he gets more mileage out of one note than most get out of 100..and you KNOW it's him when you hear it.

:hi:

[jobycom]

62. Hangs head, goes home...

Damn, here I am just analysing guitarists by how they sound...

But, along that line, and with all due respect (and awe) to Shocks and the Prof, and knowing that this is a banal comment on surface though I mean it a bit deeper than it will sound, and while admitting I have none of the knowledge either of you has, I believe that technical innovation and skill-- while tremendously important and noteworthy-- are not the only factors involved in judging quality of music. Vaughn played with something generally called soul or passion, and that is something I don't always hear from others who supposedly have great technical skill. (And yes, I know that often soul or passion are effects of technique, but still, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts).

Now I'll take me and my inadequate understanding of guitar work to another thread for a while, to fight these feelings of inferiority.

Oh yeah, hi sis!

[LibertyorDeath]

33. Yes!

[MissMillie]

36. Saw him in '81

And at that point in his life, he was so doped up (or liquored up, or both) that he should have been embarrassed with himself.

When he cleaned up, he played better, and he was quite amazing.

[phillybri]

38. Not the only one, but you are wrong....

:evilgrin:

[ProfessorGAC]

39. I Don't Do Guitar Gods? But SRV Was A Wonderful Player

Massive emotion and intensity in his playing. I wasn't wild about the "behind the back, playing with teeth" thing though. I hated when Hendrix did it too! I'm all for showmanship, but i prefer watching guys play with enthusiasm while making it look easy.

So, i really like Stevie's playing. His songs are mediocre to good (except for Crossfire, which i think is his truly great song), and he played like he meant it.

Not much to criticize there.
The Professor

[XNASA]

41. Oh boy. Why does this topic come up so often?

SRV is to guitarists what w* is to Americans. He's a divider, not a uniter.

Seems like most players either love him, or hate him. Personally, I think he's way overrated as an artist. He sure was a good mimic though.

[GOPisEvil]

50. *note to self - drag XNASA to the Stevie statue*

I want to see if you'll melt at it's mere presence. }(

[XNASA]

51. He has a statue?

Jeesh. I guess it's more a matter of hero worship than I originally thought. Why the heck does a guitar player need a statue? Don't the recordings stand on their own merit?

A bust, maybe.....but a statue? Then again, it's all about the marketing I suppose.

I wonder if Jimmy Page will get his own statue when he dies?

[GOPisEvil]

53. Yep - on the shores of Town Lake. (Picture included)

[XNASA]

56. I've seen that statue before.......

I always thought it was Rob Schneider in a moo-moo and go-go boots.



:evilgrin:

[GOPisEvil]

60. LOL!!!!

Classic! Yeah, Stevie wasn't much of a fashion plate, was he?

[101 Proof]

43. Jimi Hendrix...

is the only true guitar-god. :hippie:

44. bzzzt (IMO)

You really should at least give Django Reinhardt props also. Just take a look at a picture of his hands after the fire he was in & then try to figure out how he played the way he did....

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?gottlieb:1:./temp/~ammem_BymX::@@@mdb=aasm,ftvbib,berl,lbcoll,tccc,cwband,coplandbib,musdibib,fine,dcm,flwpabib,afcreed,cowellbib,toddbib,lomaxbib,raelbib,gottlieb,scsm,omhbib,vv,mussm,dukesm,amss,varstg,awh,awhbib

[rppper]

54. in that sense, about his hands, one must throw toni iommi into....

...this mix as well....he fits the requirements here, as a blues based electric guitarist with a clearly unique style and sound. and this was done via the removal of the tips of his middle and ring fingers on his fret hand to a machine shop accident. oddly enough, one of iommi's biggest influences was reinhardt, who's disfigured hand and musical brilliance inspired iommi to fit his fingers with leather covered thimbles and re-learn the instrument. iommi is also a superb guitar technician as well, coming up with the idea for a 24 fret, now used universally, as well as designing his own pick-ups and strings. He attributes his dark, bluesy sound to the lack of feeling in his fingertips, as he plays a self described "over vibrato", which iommi feels resulted in a thicker, fuller sound.

58. One I didn't know of... thanks

I do know of others. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise on some level that guitarists might have a lot of energy surrounding their hands.
ones I know of--
Jeff Beck dropped an engine block (or close) on his hands.
John McLaughlin had an accident moving equipment on stage.
Jerry Garcia (if I don't get flamed for mentioning his name) had his middle finger on his picking hand chopped off by his brother with an ax, he said it actually helped him by allowing his ring and pinkie finger to act on their own.

[Beetwasher]

45. Yikes! You Must Not Be A Guitar Player

SRV is one of the best ever...

[progressiverealist]

49. have to differentiate STYLE from ABILITY

Like SRV or not he was a spectacular player.

[INTELBYTES]

55. I'm just tired of hearing him in Austin.

and too boot he has his own statue on townlake!

[jobycom]

63. Me, too, so I listen to him in Dallas or Albuquerque when I get the chance

nt

[mitchum]

64. I only enjoyed him when he was punching the clock on that Bowie record

Never cared for the whole guitar god hype (I actually prefer his singing to his playing) That being said I do own a retro-fitted TS-9, but the SRV fetishism attatched to the box had nothing to do with my purchase