by Alan Paul
LAYTON: Stevie found it attractive that I wasn’t a dyed-in-the-wool blues player. He had this yearning to not be just another blues guitar player, but he was expected to be faithful to the blues because of his brother. He was fascinated with me because I had never played blues, not in spite of that.
He didn’t offer me the gig right away, and I went out to see them at Soap Creek. Fredde was back, but he had a bad speed problem and wasn’t reliable. Fredde would ask if I wanted to sit in, then leave and sometimes be gone for two weeks! Lou Ann came up and said, “Are you gonna join our goddamn band or not?” Stevie added, “You wanna play with me?” and I said, “I do.”
JOE PRIESNITZ, Austin booking agent and manager, booked Vaughan, 1979–1983: I booked Greezy Wheels, who were making good money. One day, I saw Chris and Joe Sublett walk by my office a few times before coming in. Chris, staring at his feet, said, “I’m thinking about leaving Greezy Wheels.” I said, “You can’t do that! We’ve got so much going on!” He said, “Yeah, well, I’m thinking of teaming up with Stevie Vaughan.” My jaw dropped, and I said, “Really? Can you make any money doing that?” And he said, “We’re gonna give it a go!”
LAYTON: I was getting a $350 weekly check, which was really good money. When I told Cleve Hattersley of Greezy Wheels that I was quitting and why, he put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Kid, you’re making a big mistake.” Everyone thought I was nuts to quit a good, steady gig to go out on the road with this drug-crazed, unfocused guitarist. But Keith Ferguson said to me, “I’m glad you are with him. He really needs you.”
BARTON: I liked Chris as soon as we met, and I wanted him in the band. I told him, “When you get up there, just pop the snare. Hit it hard every time!” And he got up there and did it. He and I were very close.
SUBLETT: No one ever told a drummer, “Hey you didn’t play enough licks tonight.” It’s all about the groove, and Stevie worked with Chris to build that. On off nights, he would call Chris and me to meet at some little dive like the AusTex Lounge, very often with just Chris and Stevie playing. There was a lot of learning going on.
LAYTON: I’d like to say those gigs were because we were learning to play together, but it was because Stevie was so disorganized that he’d forget to give the other guys enough notice, so no one else could make it! We’d play for free to about five people! The AusTex was a real dump with no windows.
Shortly after I joined the band, Stevie invited me to jam at Hole Sound, a small studio in a church basement. I walked in and was surprised to see W. C. Clark there with Stevie. I sat down at the drums, and W. C. said, “Play a shuffle. I’m gonna talk over your shoulder, but just keep playing.” He started talking in my right ear: “Play really, really lightly.” He knew I was from Corpus Christi and began talking about the ocean: “Think about being down at the beach watching the waves come in and break on the sand.”
CLARK: I said, “You know the way the waves just roll in on the shore? That’s what you should be thinking of when you’re playing this groove.” Chris said it helped him to not push the beat.
LAYTON: He kept describing metaphorical imagery as I played along, and something changed in the way I thought about and played a shuffle. Stevie grinned and picked up his guitar, and we jammed for a while. I truthfully hadn’t heard a lot of the great blues drummers.
CLARK: Chris had been playing in a country band, and he hadn’t played very many blues shuffles, and we were just getting that together. I helped him understand how to play what he wanted to play and make it right in the category of what we were doing because of the mathematics of it.
LAYTON: Talk about a great music lesson and the conversation had nothing to do with music. That experience gave me a different perspective on playing. A lot of learning to play an instrument involves approaching the instrument from a technical perspective; on the drums, there is an idea that if you practice rudiments enough, you will be a great drummer. But that’s not really true. Same thing on the guitar: you need to know your scales, chords, inversions, but ultimately, you have to apply it all to making music. Playing music is not just the technical side of studying an instrument. This key had been put in and unlocked the door to a new perspective.
Around this time, Stevie’s increased drug consumption and erratic behavior had drawn his bandmates’ concern and criticism. He responded with a letter, stating, “If band members are so dissatisfied with my leadership of the band they should make matters more to they’re [sic] advantage and go on they’re [sic] own. I will be more than able to carry on with my career—recording, working gigs and on a much higher level. I do understand some of the complaints concerning my health—actions, etc. But also understand all circumstances involved and evolving because of them.”
LAYTON: The letter came from his belief in his talent and that if we just played our asses off, the business would fall into line. But there was so much insanity that rational people had to make a distinct choice between “I can’t hang around here” or “I’m gonna join the party.” This played out in every part of his life: his personal relationships, the way business was conducted, the drugs and the alcohol. I was fucked up, too; I had to be.
Stevie was deep into speed, staying up three or four days straight and not bathing. He was crashing with me and Joe, but he was like an alley cat; he’d show up to eat, then vanish for a week. One night, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and heard someone walking around. I go downstairs and there’s Stevie in his underwear, sitting in a lotus position, staring at an office organizer plastic set of drawers. I asked what he was doing, and he looked up at me with these wide, wildcat eyes and said, “Trying to get organized.”
8
TROUBLE IS KNOCKIN’
Layton’s first gig with Double Trouble was September 10, 1978, at the Rome Inn, and the band played seventeen more shows the rest of a busy month. Layton was a stabilizing presence, musically, socially, and business-wise. He was almost twenty-three, a year younger than Stevie, upbeat, outgoing, and less grizzled than many in their orbit, taking on some of the duties of both a manager and booking agent. Layton, whose father owned a successful Chevrolet dealership, had a bit of business sense and had put in some time at Del Mar Community College.
Double Trouble, which now included Layton, Jackie Newhouse, and Johnny Reno backing Stevie and Lou Ann, had established themselves as regulars at a handful of Austin clubs while traveling north to Dallas, Fort Worth, and Waco, south to San Antonio and San Marcos, and east to Houston and Nacogdoches.
“The band wasn’t exactly packing them in when I joined,” Layton says. “It was actually in disarray. Johnny lived three hours away in Fort Worth and did not want to come down for low-paying gigs, and Stevie sometimes gave us a few hours’ notice, which led Lou Ann to refuse, and sometimes Jack wasn’t available. People recognized Stevie as a great player, but it’s not like the world was following him to whatever gig he did. People wondered if the band would even show up.”
One of the things Layton addressed was the lack of a band vehicle. “When I got in the band, we didn’t have transportation, and I said, ‘Look, it’s crazy to have everyone finding their ways to gigs however they can,’” he recalls. “I took the little credit I had, went to a bank, took out a loan, and a got a Dodge van so we could drive to gigs together. I cosigned for the band, and we all committed to making a monthly payment. When we eventually crashed it, it was hard for me to explain to the other guys why we had to finish the payments!”
In the summer months before Layton joined, Stevie had started dating Lenora “Lenny” Bailey, who would become his longtime love interest and wife and the muse for several great compositions, starting with “Love Struck Baby.” They met at the home of Lenny’s then-boyfriend Diamond Joe Siddons, a guitarist whose abundant supply of drugs attracted musicians like Stevie into coming over to play with him, according to Mike Steele. It backfired when Stevie left with his girl.
“Lenny was a real trip, and I never did see what Stevie saw in her,” says Craig. “E
very time I saw them together, I thought it was crazy and that he was getting far deeper into cocaine. I’d known Stevie for years, and suddenly he was always asking where the blow was coming from.”
Early in 1979, Vaughan did some recording, backing W. C. Clark on both sides of a single in January, adding guitar to “Rough Edges” and “My Song.” In March, he and Double Trouble cut a full album-length demo, eleven tracks recorded in the basement of country station KOKE on a four-channel mixer and produced by Joe Gracey. A popular DJ who was no longer on the air due to voice problems, Gracey was a Stevie believer looking to help.
“Everything was done live with four microphones and all of us in one tiny room,” recalls Layton. The recordings included blues classics sung by Barton, including “Shake Your Hips” and “You Can Have My Husband,” as well as the first recorded versions of three Stevie originals that would remain at the heart of his repertoire: “Love Struck Baby,” “Pride and Joy,” and “Rude Mood,” the blistering instrumental based on Lightnin’ Hopkins’s “Hopkins Sky Hop.”
A few months later, Reno left the band, which pushed on as a four-piece. Later that year, with financial backing from Austin businessman John Dyer, Gracey took the band into producer Jack Clement’s Nashville studio, where they cut ten tracks that Stevie hated and refused to allow to be circulated, even as a demo to get gigs.
One of the first Double Trouble promo photos, with Lou Ann Barton, Chris Layton, and Jackie Newhouse. (Courtesy Joe Priesnitz)
BARTON: None of us liked the recordings. We went there to get a Sun Records–style old sound—raw, playing in one room—but it sounded tinny, with no depth, and all the songs were way too fast. It’s easy to guess why that was the case. We didn’t get what we were after.
NEWHOUSE: There were a lot of bad habits going on, and we all had them. But as long as you could get Stevie to the gig, it would be great!
LAYTON: We had all kinds of problems, but Stevie not playing his ass off was not one of them. That was the bedrock anchor of how the band could continue under out-of-control and unmanageable circumstances. If Stevie was in the building, everything was good. But the question often was, “Where is Stevie?” There were countless times I had to hunt him down on a gig night. At 7:00 or 8:00, I’d ask if anybody had talked to Stevie, and the answer often was, “Fuck no!” He didn’t have a place to live, and I’d have to track him down an hour beforehand.
STEELE: Poor Chris was like the border collie that had to herd Stevie, and later Tommy, nipping at their heels, running around barking and chasing them to get their shit together.
LAYTON: One night, we had a big show at Antone’s, and I found Stevie completely unconscious on Mike Steele’s couch. He’d been up for two days on a speed high and crashed. I knew that once I got him in the building, he would tear it up. I never knew anyone else you could jar out of a total speed crash, get him upright, strap a guitar on, and he’d play his ass off. He finally came to, stood up, and looked at a pile of clothes on the floor. He was naked and picked up a scarf and started walking around. I said, “Stevie, what the fuck are you doing? We’ve got a gig at Antone’s in forty-five minutes!” He’s got the scarf in one hand and grabs the ironing board and tries to plug the iron in, and I’m yelling, “Fuck that! Let’s go!” It was kind of hilarious in a tragic way how his life was totally unmanageable and chaotic.
NEWHOUSE: Despite it all, Stevie was a really sweet, funny guy and pretty easygoing as a bandleader; he never told me what to play.
Layton was well aware of Stevie’s big brother, Jimmie, but had not had much interaction with him until Stevie suddenly said, “We’re going to my brother’s place for a party.” Walking into the crowded bash, Layton recalls being excited and intimidated to meet the guitarist he had heard so much about. After Stevie introduced Layton as his new drummer, Jimmie instructed him to stay put, left, and returned with a copy of the Junior Wells live album, It’s My Life, Baby!
“He stuck it in my chest and said, ‘You need to listen to this!’” says Layton. “He thought listening to that record would help me out, and it did. It’s one of the greatest live blues records ever made.”
By 1979, the Fabulous Thunderbirds had begun establishing themselves nationally, which also impacted Stevie and Double Trouble, as all of their names began to be known by blues fans outside of Texas. In April, Joe Priesnitz of Rock Arts began booking Stevie and Double Trouble, and six months later, in October 1979, The T-Birds’ eponymous debut album, often referred to as Girls Go Wild, was released by Takoma Records. Both bands finally had some forward momentum.
“Getting an agent was welcome relief,” says Layton. “Booking our own gigs, handling our own gear, playing the gigs, and then getting down the road was exhausting. And having somebody say we were worth caring about on a business level was a good feeling.”
Double Trouble played the San Francisco Blues Festival in August, their first big show outside of Texas.
TOM MAZZOLINI, founder and director of the San Francisco Blues Festival: Word had spread about the Austin scene, and I booked the red-hot Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1978. They were a sensation whose impact could be felt on many bands here, with musicians cutting their hair and dressing cooler. We wanted to bring more acts from Austin, which led to booking Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble featuring Lou Ann Barton the next year.
The band played San Francisco and Berkeley around the San Francisco Blues Festival, August, 1979. (Bill Narum)
LAYTON: I helped book all these gigs around the San Francisco Blues Festival, and none of them paid more than two hundred bucks. We only had enough money to buy gas for the van and loaves of bread and bologna. We couldn’t afford to eat a square meal, but it was a lot of fun.
MAZZOLINI: No one had heard of Stevie Ray Vaughan out here. He was a complete mystery, and what took place was a stunning performance. The crowd was overwhelmed and asking, “Who are these people, and where are they from?” I sensed that there was a kind of destiny happening, that something was about to change the direction of the blues. Barton gave a gut-filled Texas roadhouse set alongside Double Trouble’s driving sound, and on a day of many great performances, theirs was the most memorable. Vaughan was the real surprise: so young, yet so sophisticated and inventive. How fortunate we all were to have experienced someone who would change the direction of the blues!
MARK WEBER, photographer: I was drinking beer with Stevie and Lou Ann in front of an old blue Cadillac when the promoter drove up in a van with [Muddy Waters’s guitarist] Jimmy Rogers and [Muddy Waters’s and John Lee Hooker’s guitarist] Luther Tucker. Jimmy was just getting back on the scene, and I’d heard him play the day before, and I said to Stevie, “That’s Jimmy Rogers.” For those of us that know, that’s all I had to say, and Stevie only said, “Oh, man, oh, geez, that’s Jimmy Rogers!”
LAYTON: We played the festival and did a live radio broadcast on KFOG in Palo Alto, where we opened up for Robert Cray, who was starting to have a big name on the circuit out there.
ROBERT CRAY, musician, friend of Stevie’s: It was actually early in our own California touring as well, and we didn’t have a turnout. One of the shows had nine people in the audience. Stevie was, of course, a great guitar player, and we all had fun hanging together.
LAYTON: We became good friends and started to make a name for ourselves, because anyone who saw Stevie wondered who the hell he was.
CRAY: We didn’t know anyone who wasn’t from the West Coast, and they were different in the way they looked and dressed and acted. We had a day off in Santa Cruz and were invited to a barbecue at a friend’s house and invited them all. I knocked on Stevie Ray’s door, and he answered wearing an Afro wig and a black kimono with a sash around it, looking like Jimi Hendrix. He went to the party like that and stayed in character the whole time. He was a total character, as was Lou Ann Barton and her cat-eyed glasses, and we loved them. They were easy to have a lot of fun with.
NEWHOUSE: Stevie bought his first kimono in San Francisco. He really b
ought it for Lenny, but ended up borrowing it and some of her other clothes; they were the same size.
Stevie and Lou Ann on the Santa Cruz boardwalk, August, 1979. (Courtesy Lou Ann Barton)
BARTON: Stevie borrowed my kimono and scarves a few times and returned them drenched in sweat, and I said, “You can have it. I don’t want it back!” That California trip was a sweet time for our band.
During this whole era, we all had nicknames and alter egos. We were just a bunch of kids getting road crazy and having fun, going back to Triple Threat. I became Maw then Mudda, and Mike Kindred was Paw. Stevie had three personalities: Patrick, Brady, and Ed Roy, Brady’s retarded cousin. Chris was Harold, and Jackie was Buford. This is just infantile, sixth-grade humor, but it was good fun. Other friends all wanted in and got names, too.
LAYTON: We’d slip into our alter egos to keep ourselves from going crazy. Brady or “Bwady” was kind of a good-hearted goofy redneck: “Brady play geetar reel good!” We wrote Brady songs like “Hangnails and Boogers.”
PRIESNITZ: Chris would check in from the road and tell us how things were going. He called and said, “Hey, it’s great out here, but we are out of money.” I thought we’d had it planned out where they’d be able to make it there and back, though it would be tight. We wired some money, even though we didn’t have much ourselves. They managed to play a couple more shows on the way home to make it work out.