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To buy this recording from Amazon.com, click here: Texas Flood __________________________________________________

STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN AND DOUBLE TROUBLE
TEXAS FLOOD

Texas Flood was Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s blistering debut album, released in 1983.  Already local legends in Austin, Stevie and the band – a power trio with Chris Layton on drums and Tommy Shannon on bass – became the first unsigned and unrecorded act to ever play the Montreux Jazz Festival.  Eventually they caught the eye of legendary A&R man John Hammond, who signed them to Epic.  The tunes on Texas Flood comprised Double Trouble’s sets during those early days, and are played here with the same unrelenting passion heard in those Austin clubs.


1. LOVE STRUCK BABY
-S.R. Vaughan-
rec: November 24, 1982

2. PRIDE AND JOY
-S.R. Vaughan-
rec: November 24, 1982

3. TEXAS FLOOD
-L.C. Davis-J.W. Scott-
rec: November 22, 1982

4. TELL ME
-C. Burnett-
rec: November 23, 1982

5. TESTIFY
-writer unknown-
rec: November 24, 1982

6. RUDE MOOD
-S.R. Vaughan-
rec: November 24, 1982

7. MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB
-B. Guy-
rec: November 24, 1982

8. DIRTY POOL
-S.R. Vaughan-D. Bramhall-
rec: November 24, 1982

9. I’M CRYIN’
-S.R. Vaughan-
rec: November 23, 1982

10. LENNY
-S.R. Vaughan-
rec: November 24, 1982

– Bonus Tracks –

11. SRV SPEAKS
Excerpts from “In Step With Stevie Ray Vaughan” edition of ROCK LIVES: THE TIMOTHY WHITE SESSIONS courtesy of Timothy White and Westwood One Radio Networks.  Taped in October 1989 at Sound On Sound Studios, New York City.  Co-produced by Andy Denemark and Timothy White.  Executive Producer: Norm Pattiz.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.  The ROCK LIVES series is based on the book ROCK LIVES: PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS by Timothy White, published by Henry Holt & Company.

12. TIN PAN ALLEY (aka Roughest Place In Town)
-R. Geddins-
rec: November 24, 1982
note: previously unissued studio recording from the Texas Flood sessions
(P) 1999 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

13. TESTIFY (Live)
-writer unknown-
rec: September 23, 1983

14. MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB (Live)
-B. Guy-
rec: September 23, 1983

15. WHAM! (Live)
-L. Mack-
rec: September 23, 1983
__________________________________________________

Tracks 1-10:
(P) 1983 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

Tracks 12-15:
note: previously unissued live recordings from The Palace, Hollywood, California
(P) 1999 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

All bonus tracks previously unreleased
__________________________________________________

Executive Producer: John Hammond

Produced by: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Richard Mullen and Double Trouble


Guitar & Vocals: Stevie Ray Vaughan
Bass: Tommy Shannon
Drums: Chris “Whipper” Layton


Recorded at: Down Town Studio, Los Angeles, CA; Riverside Sound, Austin, TX

Mixed at: Media Sound, NYC

Recording Engineer: Richard Mullen
Recording Assistant: James Geddes

Mix-Down Engineer: Lincoln Clapp
Assistants: Don Wershba and Harry Spiridakis

Vocals on “I’m Cryin’” recorded at: Media Sound with Lincoln Clapp

Mastered at: CBS Studios, NYC by Ken Robertson


Cover Art: Brad Holland
Tray Card Photo by Don Hunstein
Art Direction: John Berg, Allen Weinberg


Special Thanks to: Frances Carr, Chesley Millikin, Jackson Browne, Charlie, Mick and Ronnie, David Bowie, Jerry Wexler, Claude Nobs, Charles Comer, Cutter and Peggy Brandenberg, Charlie Wirz, C-Boy Parks, Louis Wheeler, Byron Barr, Nick Ferrari, Roddy, Roger, Wayne and all the Continental Club Cats, Antones, The Nova Group, Jimmie Vaughan, Edi Johnson, Frank Cooksey, Al Staehely, My Loving Wife Lenny, Ray Henning’s Heart of Texas Music, and the Rest of Texas.


Dedicated With Love to Big Jim and Martha Vaughan

“Mary Had A Little Lamb” Dedicated to “Rockin’” Robin – Born 10/31/82
__________________________________________________

Stevie’s wife Lenny once told me how she’d be wakened in the night by Stevie playing in his sleep: His fret hand and pickin’ hand moving hard and fast, his face scrunched up the what it was on stage.  He rarely put his guitar down, even in his dreams.

Later Stevie told me he dreamt that Jimi Hendrix taught him secret chord changes; then, Stevie said, he’d wake and couldn’t remember the lessons.  “There’s no easy ways, man,” he said.  “You gotta learn the hard parts for yourself.”

Stevie decided to call his debut album Texas Flood, and to feature that song, for good reason.  Circa 1960, an all-but-forgotten Houston bluesman named Larry Davis wrote “Texas Flood” and made it a minor local hit on Duke Records.  Dig up Davis’ version: It’s almost Stevie’s voice in timbre, rasp and inflection.  I can see Stevie as a wraith of a boy, intense as he always would be, playing that record over and over because somehow Larry Davis’ voice sang especially to him and guided him toward his own style.  Stevie never forgot whom he owed, musically or any other way.  Titling Texas Flood, he paid Larry Davis the highest tribute – and let the rest of us know where he was coming from.

In Austin we first heard Stevie in the winter of ‘75-‘76, playing with Paul Ray & the Cobras.  That was a band – the hottest in Austin at the time, easily winning “Best Band” in the city’s first music poll.  Paul Ray’s supple voice was influenced by Bobby “Blue” Bland.  His Cobras featured an infectious rhythm section, a sax, and two lead guitars: Denny Freeman, who’s since become something of a legend in his own right; and the thin kid with the piercing eyes and the mashed nose and the peacock tattoo, just nineteen or twenty, whose playing made you crazy.  Some pent up thing was coming out of that kid, and it got to you.  It was clear that Stevie Vaughan (without the “Ray” in those days) had made a secret pact with his guitar – a secret you could dance to.

It wasn’t much later that Stevie formed his first band, Triple Threat, with blues chanteuse Lou Ann Barton and singer/guitarist W.C. Clark.  Weirdly, they played to almost empty clubs; maybe Austin’s night people resented the breakup of Paul Ray’s band.  But whatever the reason, soon Triple Threat was shorn of Barton and Clark.  It became Double Trouble, the name Stevie Ray Vaughan’s band kept until he died.

The tunes on Texas Flood comprised Double Trouble’s sets during those early days, and are played here with the same unrelenting passion we heard in those Austin clubs.  He’d blast the night open with “Love Struck Baby” and “Pride And Joy,” then bring it down to a slow groaning grind with “Texas Flood,” then juice up the joint with “Tell Me,” “Testify,” and “Rude Mood.”

This first edition of Double Trouble was just three guys – Stevie, Tommy Shannon on bass, and drummer Chris Layton (both would play with Stevie until the end) – but they made an overwhelming sound.  At gigs, there’d be hardly a pause between tunes.  Stevie was relentless: It was as though he had to pour his music out until the audience was drenched with it.  Sometimes he played for hours without stopping.

Like that night at Antone’s, in Austin in ‘81.  Stevie called a break, Shannon and Layton left the stage – and he pulled out an acoustic twelve-string.  I heard Lenny say, “I never saw that guitar before.”  Stevie jumped off the bandstand, asked someone for a chair, took it back up to the mike, sat down hunkered over the twelve-string.  Closed his eyes.  Played.  Like he was all alone.  The club was packed, but it got real quiet.  And stayed quiet.  While Stevie went deeper and deeper into that twelve-string sound.  “Throw it all to the firewall,” a woman near me said softly.  I didn’t know quite what that meant, but it sounded exactly right.

After a long while he gently put the guitar down.  Nobody applauded, and few people moved.  “It’s like church,” said the same woman.  Then everyone applauded.  Wildly.  But Stevie wasn’t finished.  He went to his guitar case for his beloved vintage Fender.  He sat in the chair again and played the pretty melody that ends this album, “Lenny.”  I remember Stevie hunched over the Fender looking at Lenny, whose head was resting on her arms at the foot of the bandstand.  The rest of us stood rapt, eyes closed or heads down, the music taking us far into ourselves.  The recorded version of “Lenny” lasts five minutes, but you lose your sense of time while you listen, as we did that night – Stevie draws you into a timeless, beautiful world of sound.

That night, when he was done with the tune, he still wasn’t done playing.  Stevie called Double Trouble back and rocked us home.  Played non-stop for more than three hours.

I went back the next night. Something had happened.  Stevie played with a desperation that was unusual even for him.  Scary.  I was still there after the place had closed.  The chairs were up on the tables, and suddenly here was Stevie walking haltingly across the dance floor sobbing – sobbing and talking, talking quickly and to himself, about love.  How important it was to him, that through his playing people would know that he loved.  He loved them.  That’s what the music was for, he said, it was for love.  I cannot duplicate on the page the shudder with which he said the word.

Soon after I wrote some words about him, the truth of which never changed, not for me and not for his music.

He plays like an angel who’s run with the devils, seen too many devils and seen through them to a music so fast and clean, so soft and harsh together, and piercing not because of how loud it was but because of what he played.  One guy hits a note on a guitar and you hardly notice, you dance on, it’s part of the scene.  Stevie Ray Vaughan hits the same note and it goes right through you, it’s got blood and memories on it.

– Michael Ventura
(Michael Ventura is a columnist for The Austin Chronicle and the author of eight books.  He lives in West Hollywood, California.)
__________________________________________________

– Reissue Information –

Executive Producer: Tony Martell

Reissue Produced by Bob Irwin

Mastered by Vic Anesini at Sony Music Studios, NYC

Track 12 mixed by Danny Kadar at Sony Music Studios, NYC

Dialogue edited by Darcy Proper

Research Assistance: George Deahl, Al Quaglieri, Matthew Kelly and Jon Naatjes

Art Direction: Josh Cheuse

Editorial Direction: Andy Schwartz
__________________________________________________

Originally issued as Epic album 38734


EPIC

LEGACY

© 1999 Sony Music Entertainment Inc./ (P) 1983, 1999 Sony Music Entertainment Inc./ Manufactured by Epic, A Division of Sony Music/ 550 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022-3211/ “Epic,” “Legacy” Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. Marca Registrada/ Epic is a trademark of Sony Music Entertainment Inc./ WARNING: All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.


EK 65870


This package contains previously released material.

Also available on Epic:

On CD and Cassette

Greatest Hits  (66217)
Greatest Hits 2  (65873)
Soul To Soul  (65872)
Couldn’t Stand The Weather  (65871)
In Step  (65874)
The Sky Is Crying  (47390)
Live Alive  (40511)
In The Beginning  (53168)
Live At Carnegie Hall  (68163)
A Tribute To Stevie Ray Vaughan  (67599)
Family Style  (46225)

On Video

Pride And Joy  (49069)
Live At The El Macambo  (49111)
Live From Austin Texas  (50130)
A Tribute To Stevie Ray Vaughan  (50144)

For more information, go to the following web addresses:
sonymusic.com (keyword: SRV) or
srvdoubletrouble.com

For information regarding Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble merchandise, go online: ssi.sony.com