If you happen to be in London these next couple of days, Jimmie Vaughan and his band will be opening for Eric Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall. Longtime friends, Vaughan is also “very excited about doing Crossroads” with him in September in Dallas, which will also feature Doyle Bramhall II, Buddy Guy, Gary Clark Jr, Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck and many more. If you can’t make either of those events, Vaughan and his band is currently on tour in the States through at least September.
If you still want more Jimmie Vaughan, you’re in luck: his brand new album comes out this Friday, March 17th. Titled Baby Please Come Home, Vaughan and his band tear through covers of some of his favorite songs, giving them that undeniably special Jimmie Vaughan touch. “When I was young I didn’t really pay much attention to categories of music. I just heard what I liked and decided to explore that. And that’s really what I’m still doing,” Vaughan said recently. From Lefty Frizzell’s “No One To Talk To But The Blues” to Gatemouth Brown’s “Midnight Hour,” it’s a fun 11 songs that you’ll keep spinning on repeat all day.
Vaughan gained worldwide fame with his band The Fabulous Thunderbirds starting in late 1979 with the release of their first album, Girls Go Wild. 1986’s Tuff Enuff brought on a top 10 single with the title track and along with “Wrap You Up,” they were MTV favorites. They were hot tickets on the road but Vaughan left in 1990 because, “I wanted to find out what I could really do,” he said, “and when I started singing it gave me a whole new side to explore.”
“Playing what you feel has always been my main goal,” Vaughan stressed. His love for blues, R&B, country and rock & roll has found their way into his musical style. Joining the Chessmen in his mid-teens, Vaughan made a name for himself in Dallas before he took off for Austin. In 1990, Jimmie finally recorded an album with his brother, Stevie Ray. The Vaughan Brothers was released a month after Stevie’s death in August of that year. In 1994, he released his first official solo album, Strange Pleasure, he’s had a sizzling musical rapport with Lou Ann Barton over the years and he is still collecting classic cars. But what Jimmie Vaughan loves most is being out there playing in front of an audience.
We talked with Vaughan recently about the blues, seeing Jimi Hendrix, his new album and his latest classic car acquisition.
Jimmie, you’re currently out on the road. How many people do you have out with you right now?
Well, I have a full band. I have B3, guitar, string bass, a drummer and two horns. And these are the same guys with me on my record.
How common is that to go out on the road with the guys who record a record with you?
It’s common for me because I don’t use studio people. I use people that can do both. It’s just better for me.
You are so well-known for your style and your tone. A song can come on and you know immediately that Jimmie Vaughan is playing guitar on it. So when you first started playing guitar, what did you sound like?
Well, I sounded like a little dumb kid, I’m sure (laughs). But when I would listen to one of my favorite people like, well, let’s pick Freddie King, and when I would listen to him I would wonder how they would know what they were going to play when they’re playing. So I sort of imagined that they were all in a room together and then when it got to my turn, what was I going to do? So I sort of figured out in my own mind what I was going to do so I could have my own style.
So you did a lot of thinking about it
I thought about it and I did a lot of guitar playing, trying to figure out what they were doing and why and what was I going to do.
You are known as a “blues guitarist” but there are actually a lot of different influences that show up in your music, from rockabilly to country and doo wop and R&B. Did that start early on?
Well, what I do is I try to do these different songs. I only have to like the song. I don’t care where it comes from or if it’s a country song and that’s fine. I think that a lot of these songs, people were just doing American music at the time. They weren’t really thinking about what category they were in, you know what I mean. So I like to think of it as American.
Was there a special radio station that was playing just blues or was it playing everything?
Well, I’ll tell you, they had a station in Dallas – I grew up in Dallas – and they had the black stations, there were two or three, and then they had the country stations, then they had the popular stations, which played rock & roll or whatever was current, Top 40, and then at night they had a show come on about 10:00 that was called Cat’s Caravan and they played local stuff but blues. And that went on till about midnight. I had a little transistor radio under my pillow. So I would flip over to WLAC out of Nashville because it came in really strong. So I would listen till late at night and then I would switch over to Wolfman Jack, XERF in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. Really, everything was on the radio.
You got to see a lot of the old blues players perform live. Were you watching them to learn or would you make a point of trying to ask them questions?
No, I really didn’t ask them too many questions. Eddie Taylor showed me what he was doing and he corrected me and taught me how to do it the correct way, the way he did it. So he would show me pointers but for the most part I was just a fan like everybody else and would just enjoy it and admire their records and whenever I could see them in person.
Your new record is not your first time as a producer. Why take on the extra work and the extra stress when you could just be a musician?
I enjoy the idea of the whole thing from the beginning to the end and I like to produce my own stuff because nobody else really knows what I’m going for like I do. You know what happens if you have a record producer, most of the time you’re just arguing with them anyway (laughs).
But when you worked with Dave Edmunds …
Well, Dave Edmunds, Nile Rodgers and Nick Lowe were the exceptions. If you have a lot of respect for them, then you can sort of get on the same plane and work together. But a lot of times in the old days you would have these record producers who would be trying to make a Top 40 hit or something and they didn’t know what to do with you. And they didn’t care what you think or where you’ve been or where you’re going or any of that.
On your new album, your versions are not all exactly how the originals were. I was listening to the original Lefty Frizzell song, “No One To Talk To But The Blues,” and he has these very fifties-ish country harmonies and you chose not to do that.
Right. I sort of Jimmie Vaughan everything up and I have my own version of it. I will pick a song because I like the notion of the song or maybe there’s a riff in the song that I like or maybe I just want to do it because I’m not supposed to (laughs).
Like we were saying, everybody knows you as a blues guy but you are so much more than that
I think that Lefty Frizzell and BB King are closer than everybody else thinks. I mean, really, it’s the same thing.
So what did you like about the Frizzell song?
It was a little bit strange and I just relate to “No One To Talk To But The Blues.” I just loved everything about it. (singing) “Last night I came home, you wadn’t there!” All that stuff, you know.
And what about the T-Bone Walker song, “I’m Still In Love With You”?
Well, the T-Bone Walker song, I’ve always been a huge, absolute T-Bone devotee and he’s from my area of Texas. He’s also the first guy to play the electric guitar on the blues, if you can imagine that. So I’m a big T-Bone fan and I got to meet him when I was a teenager.
What was he like?
Oh he was so cool. When I met him, he had his two little granddaughters with him and they were twins and they walked up. I was at this club in Dallas and I couldn’t get in because I wasn’t old enough. Everybody had already gone in and I was out there by myself and T-Bone walked up with these two little girls and stood there and talked to me for ten minutes. When he walked up, I said, “T-Bone Walker!” (laughs) and he was like, “Yes, Son, what are you doing out here?” I said, “Well, I’m too young to get in.” And he says, “Well, let me go in there and I’ll talk to Harold and I’ll get Harold to let you in the side door. But don’t tell anyone.” I was like, “Okay.” So he got me in.
You cover the Fats Domino song, “So Glad.” What appealed to you about that song to put it on the record?
Oh I love all that Louisiana stuff. I went to the first grade in Jackson, Mississippi, and my father used to work all over Louisiana. He was an asbestos worker and he would work in all the paper mills and the power plants. So we were around south Louisiana, and northern Louisiana too, when I was a kid and I heard a lot of that kind of music around there when I was a kid and I’ve always loved all that.
To Jimmie Vaughn up a song, to find the little differences that you want to add and tweak, is that through playing it live or sitting in the studio or at home?
It’s both. If I like something about a song, like the riff or the lyrics or something like that, I try and make it my own. I basically steal it and pretend that it’s mine (laughs). I sort of have a way that just sort of comes out naturally and I sort of blues them up. I’ve done like Hank Williams songs. I don’t always do it but every once in a while I’ll find one that I can sort of give them my treatment.
You got to see Jimi Hendrix. What you remember about that night?
Well, we opened the show and I remember I was the biggest Hendrix fan in the world at the time and I couldn’t believe that I actually, much less being on the show, I couldn’t believe that I actually got to meet him and he was so cool. I remember like the stuff that he did when he first came out and he was tuning his guitar and just trying to warm up and get the amp to work right. I remember everything about it and I was just in awe. I was only fourteen or fifteen so the whole thing was a thrill from the beginning to the end.
Which band were you with?
It was a band called the Chessmen and I was like fifteen or something like that.
What were you guys playing?
You know, they were twenty-one, they were older than me, so they made their money by playing mostly at fraternity parties and things like that and they really made a lot of money and they were very popular at colleges. They hired me because I could play all the latest stuff that was out at the time. You know, I was a little weird guitar kid (laughs) but I guess I was an asset. But they did everything. They did The Beatles, and when I got in the band, we did Hendrix and things like that. We did whatever was popular on the radio.
Did you ever record anything?
I didn’t record with them, maybe once, but nothing ever came of it. They had a 45 out right before I got in the band. You know Doyle Bramhall was in that band, the dad.
I was going to ask you about his son. I’ve talked to Doyle a number of times and he’s talked about how you and Stevie were like uncles to him when he was growing up and being such big influences on him. What did you see in that young kid?
Well, I was there when Doyle was born so I’ve known him and his sister their entire lives. Of course, I played with his dad for years and years and years, so he was just sort of there as a little kid. Then when he got old enough and started playing guitar himself, I got him in the T-Birds and he was in the T-Birds for a while. And now he’s a great artist and a great songwriter, a fabulous musician and what a voice! He’s an incredible artist.
You started playing guitar after you got hurt playing football, correct?
Yeah, it’s true. This guy told me at school, he said, “If you want to have a girlfriend you’re going to have to play football.” So I said, “Okay, well I better get down there!” (laughs) So I went down there and went out for football. At practice the first day, I went out for a pass and I caught the football and then they tackled me and somehow I broke my collarbone. So I had to go home for three months to recuperate and that’s when I started playing guitar all the time.
What was that first guitar?
My dad bought one for fifty bucks, I think it was, or somebody gave me one. It was somebody my dad knew. And the first guitar was just an acoustic guitar with three strings so it wasn’t a real guitar. I mean, it was a real guitar but it was broken. So I played on that one for a couple of months and then he went and got me an electric – a Gibson, three-quarter guitar, like a small one. It was a real thin one and had one pickup. It was a real starter model. It was sunburst, no cutaways.
What made you a Strat man?
A friend of mine’s dad had a Telecaster and when he was at work I would go over there in the summertime and knock on the guy’s door and say, “Can we get your dad’s guitar down? Can I play your dad’s guitar while he’s at work?” And he’d say, “Okay but don’t tell anyone.” (laughs) But that’s how it started.
When you first started learning to play guitar, what was the hardest thing for you to get the hang of?
Let’s see, you know I never thought of it that way. I just started playing and the first thing I thought of was, gee whiz, if I really get good on this maybe I can make a record and buy a car and split (laughs). That’s basically the motivation right there.
What was the first song you obsessed over learning to play?
I think it was “Honky Tonk” by Bill Doggett. You’ll know it if you hear it.
Do you remember the first song Stevie tried to play?
Well, you know, I’m four years older than him and I started playing first and I brought the guitar home and started getting records and all that so it was probably the same, whatever the records that I had was the same thing he was listening to.
Are you a gadget guy?
Oh no, no, no, I don’t have any of that stuff. I have a tremolo and a reverb that I use occasionally but most of the time I like the way the guitar sounds through the amplifier. I like the way the guitar sounds. I’m not much of a gadget guy.
It’s been announced that Clapton is doing a new Crossroads Festival in Dallas, so that’s your backyard.
Yes and we’re very excited about doing Crossroads and also we’re going to play in London at the Royal Albert Hall with him for three nights. It’s very exciting.
Are you planning any more new original music?
Yeah, I’m working on writing stuff now. I’ll do another album whenever I get enough material that I like.
Do you still collect classic cars?
I do indeed
What is your latest one?
I got a 1940 Ford that I’ve been working on, driving around.
You drive them around?
Oh yeah
You’re not worried about driving them around?
Well, if the weather is good I do, yeah
Do you work on them yourself?
Yes, I know just enough to get in trouble (laughs)
I love those 1930’s Packards. You don’t happen to have one of those do you?
I do not have a Packard but I do have a 1932 Ford 5-window coupe. I’ve had it for about twenty years. You know, I’ll decide that I want, say a 1940 Ford and I’ll go look for years until I find the one I can afford and that I like.
As an artist, what are some things you are still striving for?
You know, it always changes a little bit so you’re always looking for that next thing. Even my guitar style sort of changes slowly. But it’s always, for lack of a better word, it’s always evolving into something else. It kind of goes over here a little bit, goes over there a little bit. You may recognize what I do but it’s still changing. And that’s life. You don’t want to stay the same anyway. I mean, you may recognize my style but it’s always changing. I think that’s the way you keep it fresh.
Live photos by Mary Andrews
