4x Grammy Winner!
Jimmie Vaughan
and the Tilt-A-Whirl Band
(with very special guest Lou Ann Barton)
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"Can’t Say No"
Founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds & the late Stevie Ray Vaughan’s older brother - Jimmie Vaughan is far more than just one of the greatest and most respected guitarists in the world of popular music. As Guitar Player Magazine notes, "He is a virtual deity--a living legend." After all, Vaughan provides a vital link between contemporary music and its proud heritage, as well as being a longtime avatar of retro cool.
Since releasing his first solo album in 1994, he has set the standard for quality modern roots music. Throughout his career, Vaughan has earned the esteem of his legendary guitar-playing heroes and superstar peers along with successive generations of young players. His musical ethos and personal style have had an impact on contemporary culture, from spearheading the current blues revival with The Fabulous Thunderbirds to his longtime, innate fashion sense of slicked-back hair and sharp vintage threads, to becoming a premier designer of classic custom cars. But for Jimmie Vaughan, none of it is part of a crusade or a career plan. It's just his natural way of living his life and pursuing the interests that have captivated Vaughan since his youth.
When he was sidelined by a football injury at the age of 13, a family friend gave Vaughan a guitar to occupy him during his recuperation. From the moment Jimmie's fingers touched the fretboard, it was obvious that he was a natural talent. "It was like he played it all his life," his mother Martha Vaughan later noted. He also began tutoring his younger brother Stevie, who would cite Jimmie as his biggest inspiration and influence throughout his own career.
At age 15, Vaughan started his first band, The Swinging Pendulums, and was soon playing the rough and tumble Dallas nightclub scene many nights a week. By the time he hit 16, Jimmie joined The Chessman, who became the area's top musical attraction, eventually opening concerts in Dallas for Jimi Hendrix. After hearing Muddy Waters and Freddie King play in Dallas, Vaughan began to delve deep into the blues, melding his many influences into a style that was clean, economical and highly articulate, concentrating on rhythmic accents and lead work that relies on the power of his less is more approach.
In 1969, Vaughan helped found Texas Storm, a group that eschewed Top 40 covers for blues and soul with a Texas accent. The band eventually migrated to Austin, where they won over the college crowd and the Black and Chicano communities on the Capital City's East Side. Vaughan also helped jump start his brother Stevie's career when the younger Vaughan joined Texas Storm on bass.
Determined to create an ideal vehicle for blues music that was both modern in its impact and appeal yet true to the tradition, Vaughan founded The Fabulous Thunderbirds with Kim Wilson in the mid 1970s. When Antone's nightclub opened in Austin in August of 1975, the Thunderbirds became the house band, sharing the stage and jamming with such blues greats as Waters, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Albert King and a host of others, all of whom recognized Vaughan as the man who would keep the music they developed alive for future generations. As Jimmie recalls, "One time when we were playing Antone's, opening for Muddy, I thought, okay, I'm going to do this Muddy Waters-style slide thing and see if I can get a reaction from him. And the next night I did it again. And he came out behind me and grabbed me around the neck, and said he liked it. And he told me, 'When I'm gone, I want you to do that, and show everybody that's what I did. I want you to do it for me.'"
Vaughan recorded eight albums with The Fabulous Thunderbirds: Girls Go Wild on Tacoma/Chrysalis; What's The Word, Butt Rockin' and T-Bird Rhythm on Chrysalis; and Tuff Enuff (certified platinum), Hot Number, Powerful Stuff and Wrap It Up on Epic. On the strength of such hits as "Tuff Enuff," two Grammy Award nominations and years of worldwide touring, The Fabulous Thunderbirds brought the blues back into the pop charts and the contemporary musical lexicon, sparking a blues revival that continues unabated today. Prior to leaving the group in 1990, Jimmie had joined up with his brother Stevie to record Family Style, an album that reflected their mutually deep musical roots and maturing modern artistic sophistication. Then in August, 1990, just a few weeks prior to the album's release, Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin. The tragedy devastated Jimmie, who retreated from touring and recording, though he continued to play guitar every day, as he has throughout his life. Meanwhile, the success of Family Style further enhanced Jimmie's reputation as a distinctive musical stylist.
Eventually, Vaughan's friend Eric Clapton invited him to open a series of 16 special concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. After the warm reception for his solo debut at the Clapton shows in early 1993, Jimmie started recording his first solo album. The resulting disc, Strange Pleasure, was produced by Nile Rodgers (who worked with the Vaughan brothers on Family Style), featured 11 songs written or co-written by Jimmie, and was dedicated to Stevie Ray and the recently deceased Albert Collins. It debuted at Number One on the Billboard Heatseeker Chart, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Blues Album and garnered reams of critical acclaim as Vaughan also stepped out on tour as a solo artist and bandleader.
His next album, 1998's Out There, solidified Vaughan's status as a solo artist, thanks to a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance (for the song "Ironic Twist"). As The Boston Phoenix noted in a four-star rave review, Out There featured "his best playing ever, bringing rich-toned exuberance to the familiar trappings of rippling blues and shuffle beats, soul grooves, and vocal arrangements that tap the celestial richness of the glory days of doo-wop."
As Jimmie Vaughan emerged as an artist in his own right, his reputation as a master musician became even more apparent, thanks to the admiration of blues legends like B.B. King and Buddy Guy, such guitar superstars as Eric Clapton and Z.Z. Top's Billy Gibbons, and rising talents like Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. As Clapton notes, "The first time I heard Jimmie Vaughan, I was impressed with the raw power of his sound. His style is unique, and if I've learned anything from him, it's to keep it simple." Likewise, Buddy Guy once proclaimed: "He's unbeatable when it comes to the blues. He just plays it like it's supposed to be played." Even Stevie Ray Vaughan acknowledged that when people would compare his playing to that of his brother, there was really no contest. "I play probably 80 percent of what I can play. Jimmie plays one percent of what he knows. He can play anything."
Jimmie Vaughan is more modest in assessing his abilities, though very clear when it comes to his approach. "I try to speak with my guitar in sentences," he explains. "The people that I enjoy and the music that I enjoy are not about just a bunch of licks strung together. If you just play a bunch of guitar licks that aren't connected, it's like throwing a lot of words into a bowl. It doesn't make any sense. It's just words. "When I listen to Gene Ammons, the great saxophone player, I get the feeling he's telling you a story. That's how I'd like to play guitar someday, when I grow up. That's the goal. That's what I enjoy. That's what makes me get chill bumps--when you listen to music where the phrasing comes out and it speaks. That's the conclusion I've come to after 37 years of playing."
Yet for all his accomplishments and the admiration he has earned, Jimmie Vaughan remains modest when it comes to his life and work. "I'm just trying to have fun like everyone else," he concludes. "I've been playing since I was 13. I play every day. I've never stopped. I can't imagine that I could exist without it."
His first album, Blues with a Vengeance, is what he called his "celebratory redemption." After struggling through years of extreme hardship and nearly losing himself to the streets, the remarkable John Lee Hooker Jr. overcame the adversity to begin a rapid emergence into the blues spotlight. Released in April 2004, Blues with a Vengeance certainly lived up to its name by wrapping up 2004 with a Grammy nomination in the Traditional Blues Album category and a nomination for a distinguished W.C. Handy Award as Best New Artist Debut. The California Music Awards (formerly the BAMMYS) named Blues with a Vengeance 2004's Outstanding Blues Album of the Year, and the Bay Area Blues Society presented John Lee Hooker Jr. with the 2004 Comeback Artist of the Year award, as he performed alongside world-class musicians Jimmy Reed, BB King, Bo Diddley, Lenny Kravitz, Taj Mahal, Koko Taylor, Charlie Musslewhite, Etta James, and John Lee Hooker.
Cold As Ice, Jr. Hooker's second album, was released in June of 2006 and showed his progression as a contemporary blues artist. Blending his roots with a modern sound, his style is indicative of his Motown base. Music enthusiasts describe his style as R&B, Jazz, Funk, and "down home blues". While the record did not gather as much attention as his debut, it received positive reviews across the board and solidified Jr. Hooker as one of blues' rising stars. Epitomizing the synthesis between traditional blues and the new age funk, the record at times pays homage to his father while at others it blazes a trail of its own.
From the gravely blues of the Detroit streets to a new era of sound; from the shadow of his father's accomplishments to standing apart from his namesake; from criminal to crime-fighter; from San Quentin to the Red Carpet, its no wonder the album is called All Odds Against Me. John Lee Hooker Jr. has built upon his colorful past as he continues to distinguish himself as a contemporary "Bluesman."
She has performed live with such legendary artists as Levon Helm, Delbert McClinton, Bonnie Raitt, Kirk Whalum, Marcia Ball, Tommy Castro, Al Anderson, Asleep at the Wheel, Lee Roy Parnell, and many others. Her voice is featured on albums by Kirk Whalum, Randy Newman, Tommy Castro, Lee Roy Parnell, Walter Trout, Stephen Bruton, and Glen Clark, among many others. She has sung for television and movie soundtracks; she and her band can be heard in the Disney movie, "HOLES".
“Turner and his band brought the house down at Blues Alley and a slew of other clubs throughout the D.C. metropolitan area. Turner has developed something of a cult following, dazzling crowds with his frantic fret work and a compulsion to jump, dance, and play the guitar in unusual positions. Turner and his band have developed a reputation for making dancers sweat!"
