This album is unbelievable
This is the true sleeper hit for the SRV fan that might be familiar with his studio albums and some videos. I've actually owned this CD for a number of years, and it's a favorite I come back to again and again. This is what you give them when they are ready for the "next step" of delving into the mastery that is Stevie Ray Vaughan. I saw a review that said it was "too raw. " Ha ha, doesn't that immediately sell you?! This recording is from Austin in 1980, a full three years before Texas Flood, but you wouldn't know it from how blistering a young Vaughan is. It's all there In the Beginning. What an awesome pun. Anyway, I enjoy this album also for the airy sort of summery live quality it has. It really comes off as a fantastic recording from right in the room, without the polish of the studio. I'm a huge SRV fan, and I have a great deal of fondness for this album. It might just be my favorite.
Great Live SRV!
Much of the album focuses on SRV's harder rockin' blues side, but it's on the soulful, slow blues of "Tin Pan Alley," underneath Vaughan's incredible guitar work, that his abilities really shine. A strong live effort from a still young and less-than-famous Stevie Ray Vaughan, In the Beginning hints at greatness to come. For me, these slower blues numbers that really allow a player to pour out emotion into the music, and to take it slowly or play faster over the slow beat, are the ones where talent really shines. It's really an incredible rendition, and alone makes this album one worth owning.
Of course, it's not all about "Tin Pan Alley," and a rockin' performance of "Love Struck Baby" is also memorable.
Great SRV! .
before texas flood
There was a terrible movie on cable called "Cat People"; the only noteworthy thing about it was a David Bowie song called "Putting Out Fire With Gasoline" with some incredibly incendiery guitar playing. I first heard of SRV in the winter of 1982. Came to find out a young Texas blues guitarist named Stevie Ray Vaughan played guitar on Bowie's entire "Let's Dance" album. Soon Vaughan and his band Double Trouble had some product out, the "Texas Flood" album, and a new hit single, "Pride and Joy. " My friends and me caught him live at Bill Graham's nightclub, The Stone in San Francisco around May of '83. I stood on a chair against the wall behind my table and watched his hands all night. He did "Love Struck Baby," "Pride and Joy," "Mary Had A Little Lamb," "Texas Flood," "Testify," "Wham!" and on and on. But when he played "Manic Depression" and segued into "Third Stone From the Sun," my jaw must have hit the floor and stayed there. We knew he had that Johnny Winter southern gunslinger thing down but we had no idea he played Hendrix or that he played Hendrix so well. I saw Stevie play many times after that but nothing ever matched the energy and connection of that first time. His material got better and more varied and his band grew more professional over the years but nothing compares with that first time around on a national tour with a new record blasting out of everybody's radio (and for me "discovering" somebody new that was that good). So anyway, onto the cd review:
Years before I had ever heard of Stevie RAY Vaughan, there were people living in and around Austin, Texas who could experience Little Stevie Vaughan nearly every night, burning down local blues clubs with his rhythmm section, Double Trouble. This cd is taken from a recording made on one of those nights, a midnight show recorded on two-track, and simulcast on Austin radio station KLBJ-FM. Vaughan and DT rip through nine frezied tracks in about 45 minutes here, three SRV originals and six covers of old blues and r&b numbers. They open with a rousing rendition of Freddie King's "In the Open," Stevie growls his way through Eddie Jones' "Guitar Hurricane," and plays incredible harmonics during Otis Rush's "All Your Love I Miss Loving. " Stevie burns the house down during an eight minute "Tin Pan Alley" that puts the version on "Coudn't Stand the Weather" to shame. Then they roar through "Love Struck Baby," Howlin' Wolf's "Tell Me," a very funky version of Willie Dixon's "Shake For Me," and "Live Another Day," which was called "I'm Crying" on the "Texas Flood" release. All these songs are so much better than the cleaned up versions recorded in the studio a couple years later for national release. Both the guitar and vocal are so much rawer and more spontaneous, maybe because of the excitement of playing live in front of the awestruck audience, or maybe because by the time they got to the studio they had been playing the songs so long they were going through the motions. And Stevie's playing is great too, because in this power trio format that Double Trouble had until 1985, Stevie has to fill up the sound with his guitar. In the studio he can use overdubs (hello Jimmy Page), but live he has to play rhythm and lead, and he and Hendrix were the two best at embellishing hot lead licks while still keeping his chord pattern. As far as whether you should buy this cd, well, it depends. If you don't have any other SRV discs and you're mostly pop-rock oriented, forget about it. Buy the Essential set and you'll have most of his radio hits and a few good live blues tracks. But if you just want to hear a hot guitar player killing his audience with the best r&b a white man has ever played, this is the one to get. I just wish there was more.
Wailing!
Tin Pan Alley is the standout track, which although is slower than the rest, rocks with seering vocals and a blistering extended guitar solo where Stevie truly shines. If you like rockin blues this is for you! Stevie pulls out all the stops and just plain wails for the entire album. The stripped down sound jumps out at you and makes you realize what a raw talent Stevie truly was. The passion and energy on this live disc is unbelievable and lacking on a lot of blues albums. Buy it and prepare to be dazzled.
Disappointingly Raw
I was excited that a live album from his early period was put out, but became disappointed after repeated listings. I'm a huge SRV fan and enjoy Stevie's early more pure blues work more then his later more rock influenced music (which is still great). My disappointment stems more from the band then from Stevie. This is the Layton\Shannon Double strouble we have come to love as Double Trouble. This album features Jackie on base it is just no comparison. Steve could be Stevie because DT was so GOOD. To understand how great and tight Doubel Trouble is just listen to Texas Flood. This is for hard core SRV fans only. Better live albums can be found in Live at Carniage Hall and Live at Montreux are much much better. .
You can see a complete list of all Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble discography, or go back to the Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble tabs
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