Stevie Ray Vaughan Live

Stevie Ray Vaughan at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1982

Don’t know if you are a blues or jazz fan, but one of my favorite artists of all time is Stephen “Stevie” Ray Vaughan (also known as ‘SRV’). Like many things I “discover”, I didn’t know who this guy was until I started working in 2000 for the dotcom darling and content management company, Vignette (based in Austin, TX-based company and now part of OpenText).

While on one of my many visits to corporate, a bunch of my colleagues were heading down to the clubs on 6th Street (the entertainment avenue in Austin and a music capital only second to Nashville) and started telling me stories about all the great musicians they’d seen and heard over the years. Knowing I loved the blues and jazz, they asked me if I had any of SRV’s music and sheepishly I said ‘no’. 

At that point the iPod wouldn’t come out for over a year so I stopped at a local record store and bought one of SRV’s CDs to play that night in my Sony Discman. I was hooked and became a fan that summer night in 2000. 

The bummer is SRV died in 1990 at the age of 35 in a helicopter crash two years after he sobered up and was on a roll toward even more success. Read more about SRV and his life here. 

My friend Mike just posted this video on Facebook of a live concert where SRV is playing one of his best known songs: Riviera Paradise. I’ve found several videos with SRV performing but had never heard or seen Riviera Paradise played by him live. His guitar licks are amazing to behold and I wish I’d been able to see him perform live.  Thought you’d like to see it: 

Here is another fabulous audio-only rendition of Riviera Paradise and is described by the poster this way, “This song is performed by Stevie Ray Vaughan and appears on the album In Step (1989) This is a soulful instrumental. After a full day of recording material for the album, Stevie asked his producer to leave the tape running and to turn down the lights. All alone, he recorded the guitar track on his Fender Strat. Double Trouble added the backing later, including an organ foundation from Reese Wynans. (Video effects ( photo effects) and audio effects – EQ + Dolby Digital 5.1 By Rony Nerozzi”).”