STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN IN HIS OWN WORDS

One of the world's greatest blues guitarists, Stevie Ray Vaughan had a meteoric career, assisted by a high-profile collaboration with David Bowie, before his life was cruelly cut short in a helicopter crash in 1990 when he was only in his thirties. This tribute book prints extracts from interviews from Guitar World magazine, not only with SRV but also interviews with friends and collaborators including his bandmates bassist Tommy Shannon, drummer Chris Layton and keyboardist Reese Wynans. A highlight of the book is the "lost interviews" with Vaughan between 1986 and 1989 when he spoke revealingly to Andy Aledort. At the time he had just left the rehab centre which also helped his friend Eric Clapton. SRV reminisces about his first records by Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters and B. B. King. He describes how addiction had let his self-centredness and ego get out of control, particularly when everyone was telling him he was wonderful. The lyrics of blues numbers tended to emphasize hurt and pain, but Vaughan eventually found that some songs are kinder than others. On the road, he describes repeated technical problems with amps, and Vaughan ended up with a combination of a Dumble, a Marshall, a Bassman and a Super Reverb. He reminisces about the Montreux Jazz Festival of 1982 when Bowie said "Stevie was so complete, so vital and inventive with the form" and asked him to play on his next record, which turned out to be the smash hit Let's Dance. Bowie said their collaboration was one of the greatest musical experiences of his life. Vaughan's last show was opening for Clapton at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin. He hitched a lift home with some of Clapton's team, who were all lost in the crash. 254pp, a Backbeat paperback, photos.