In Step - Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble (1989)

It’s hard to separate Vaughan from his obsession with Jimi Hendrix. Both men combined blues with jazz and psychedelic rock. Both, despite being limited singers, understood the balance between vocal and guitar timbres very well and always seemed to know which served the song better. If there’s a major difference, it’s that Vaughan always involved his band, even when he could easily have dominated a track. Hendrix, for as great as he was, often seemed to have other musicians on the stage as a courtesy only.

An appearance at the Montreaux Festival in 1982 landed Vaughan both a job playing a rather famous guitar solo on a rather famous David Bowie song and an offer of studio time from Jackson Browne. They turned that recording time into their first record, and off they went.

Vaughan died tragically in a helicopter crash while touring the year after In Step was released.

Despite making several great records, this final full-band studio effort by Vaughan was his best, and only shows us a glimpse of how much we got robbed of in the future. It’s solid electric blues mixed with soaring Hendrix-ian jams in places, and Vaughan’s own brand of tight, melodic soloing in others.

Is Tightrope a good track?

It is. In fact, it’s one of the best songs named Tightrope imo

Tracks I Liked

Crossfire - I could write another whole post on this one track. Not only one of my very favorite songs, but also easily one of my favorite guitar solos ever recorded (I’ve written up a couple of others on that list and probably never will get to one of them since it’s basically just a single). On both the mid-song solo and the outro, listen to how much expression and lyricism he fits into the melodically simple structure. He plays the same figures over each other at different speeds, almost like a blues canon. I don’t have perfect pitch, but I assume the low notes he drops to are the open E string to match what the organ is doing underneath. The track is flawlessly recorded, flawlessly played, and absolutely a gem.

NOTE: Vaughan did not, in fact, play the solo on Huey Lewis & The News’ Power Of Love, but it sure sounds like it. That’s The News guitarist Chris Hayes doing a furiously good Stevie Ray impression.