by Alan Paul
Austin’s Auditorium Shores, 7-15-81. (Watt M. Casey Jr.)
SHANNON: Skip Willy’s was this big, horrendous, corrugated steel place outside of San Antonio that no one went to.
LAYTON: It looked like a warehouse, and it was on a two-lane road out in the middle of nowhere. The sign out front was one of those little marquees you pulled around in a trailer, and it said, “Saveeni Vaughan and the Double Troubles.”
GILES: We arrived close to 1:00 a.m. and slopped through spilled beer just in time to hear a scrawny guitarist say, “Thank you very much. Good night!” Twenty people straggled past us, and there we were in an empty club, stranded by departed cabs.
I knocked on the dressing room door, it opened a crack, and Stevie, shirtless, skinny, and sweaty, said, “It’s a girl!” I told him I was from Alligator Records and that I had agents from around the country with me. The door opened wide, Stevie grinned, shook my hand, turned to Chris and Tommy, and said, “Boys, put on your shirts; let’s give this lady a show!” They lined up five chairs right in the middle of the beery concrete floor and with full house lights on, dead tired, played a riveting forty-minute set. Their show was full bore, no matter they had just played three sets. They played “Texas Flood,” and I slowly turned my head and saw all my friends wide-eyed and speechless. My head was swirling by “Little Wing,” and he sat on the edge of the two-foot-high stage as they closed with “Lenny.” It was so beautiful I was crying. I called Bruce [Iglauer, Alligator founder] at 4:00 a.m. raving about Stevie and the band. Of course, I had woken him up out of a dead sleep, and he was pissed.
Four months later, Giles had a chance to introduce Vaughan and Iglauer, a meeting she hoped would lead to a signing. Double Trouble played Musician magazine’s private party at the Chicago NAMM convention, opening for Albert Collins. Giles also arranged for Vaughan to play a second, more intimate showcase the next night at the tiny Tut’s club, hoping that her boss would sign him to the country’s leading blues label, which to that point had put out virtually no artists who were not African American Chicago club stalwarts. Stevie Ray was excited about the prospect of being on the same label as Albert Collins and Son Seals. It wasn’t to be.
Stevie opened for one of his heroes, Albert Collins at a Musician magazine party. It was supposed to be a showcase, but nothing happened. (Courtesy Joe Priesnitz)
BRUCE IGLAUER, founder and president, Alligator Records: The first showcase was in some huge hall where I was a million miles away from him at a round table with bad hors d’oeuvres and overpriced drinks. I kept thinking, “Boy, this is the loudest Albert King interpretation I’ve ever heard.” I didn’t get it as being special. The next night, Mindy arranged a showcase for Stevie in a very small bar right in my neighborhood. He set up in a booth where they removed a table, and mostly I remember that it was incredibly loud.
GILES: They were so powerful and loud, part of the presentation was rock-arena level, even in small clubs, but their dynamics were real, too. When he would bring it way down on something like “Tin Pan Alley,” I was hanging on his whispered vocals. They weren’t “just a blues band.” But they were blues.
Tut’s, Chicago, 6/28/81, showcase for Alligator Records. (Paul Natkin/ Photo Reserve Inc.)
SHANNON: Iglauer didn’t like us.
LAYTON: Stevie was in kind of a tough place. His success, as meager as it was, was based on his position within the Austin blues scene, bolstered by the fact that he was Jimmie’s brother. Playing anything other than traditional blues was severely frowned upon by the people in that scene, and Stevie had great respect for them all—even though his instincts were telling him that he had to go beyond the confines.
IGLAUER: With my taste at that time, it was just way too rocked out for me. I was very hard-core; blues is black music performed by black people, and I didn’t necessarily think that blues and rock and roll were a natural mating.
LAYTON: Alligator’s passing didn’t seem to matter to Stevie. He didn’t seem too concerned about any of that. We were a band making our way earning some sort of a living, and he wasn’t going to change to get signed, whether that meant going “more blues” for a label like Alligator or abandoning blues for a major label. He wanted to do his own music.
Iglauer’s dismissal represented a consistent problem Vaughan and the band faced; some blues purists rejected them as too rocked out, while a wider rock audience was not thought to be seeking a new blues/rock guitar hero. By then, however, Chesley was firmly stating that the band needed to be signed to a major label. He didn’t want them tagged as a blues act and had a much bigger vision than a deal with a niche label. He instructed publicist Charles Comer to strenuously avoid having the band labeled as blues.
“We all kind of agreed with Chesley that we should be on a major label as opposed to just anyone who was willing to sign us,” says Layton. “Yet I constantly wondered if we were ever going to have a record deal. I never doubted the greatness of what we were doing, but I certainly doubted whether it would ever succeed.”
Some remnants of the old, sketchy business deals continued to haunt Stevie and presented challenges to Chesley. One was over the investment made on the John Dyer / Joe Gracey recording session in Nashville in 1979.
BRANDENBURG: We had a couple of shows at Al’s Bamboo in Dallas [June 5–6, 1981], and Stevie seemed upset. I asked him why, and he said, “I can’t believe you let those guys in the club.” He pointed them out, and I went over to them, but they saw us talking and got up to leave. Stevie was upset because one of the guys had invested some cash in a studio recording [the Nashville sessions] and never got a return on his investment. There were some threats made to Stevie and Chesley about this tape being released, which Stevie didn’t want ’cause it wasn’t a good recording.
These goons would show up and bother Stevie, but we didn’t think much more about it until the end of the show. James Arnold went to get the truck, came back a few minutes later, and said, “Cee, you ain’t gonna believe this, but the van has four flats.” All the tires had been slashed. As I was looking at the tires, there goes those goons, waving, smiling, and driving off. Man, did those flats hurt us at a time when we could not afford tires.
In December, the Double Trouble crew doubled when Brandenburg brought his old friend Donnie Opperman on board as Stevie’s guitar tech. Opperman and Brandenburg had become close, working with Jo Jo Gunne and Ian Hunter. Their paths crossed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when Stevie was opening for George Thorogood on December 8, 1981.
“We hung out before the show, and Stevie was real humble and soft-spoken,” says Opperman. “I’d been around rock-and-roll guys for a long time, and he didn’t strike me as that type of guy. I walked into the show, and from the first note, Stevie sounded just as powerful to me as Jimi Hendrix, who I had seen twice. I was floored. Cutter asked me to join, and I said, ‘I’m in.’ We were all paid the same; the money we made was split equally five ways, which never happens. That’s how Stevie wanted it to be, which says a lot about how unusually generous a person he was.”
Opperman’s addition was another step toward professionalizing Double Trouble. He was fresh off the road with Joe Walsh, who was riding high on the Eagles’ Hotel California peak and a thriving solo career based around songs like “Life’s Been Good.” Opperman brought Stevie some of his accumulated wisdom, including introducing him to Ibanez Tube Screamers, a pedal which would remain essential to the Vaughan arsenal throughout the rest of his career.
“Stevie had a very simple setup, just two Vibroverb amps and no pedals,” says Opperman. “For the Hendrix stuff, Cutter would plug in a wah for the one tune. One of the first things I did was to show Stevie this trick I had picked up from Joe Walsh, who used a Tube Screamer in conjunction with his wah as a boost to make it sound more expressive, switching the Tube Screamer on and off as he saw fit. Later, we added an MXR A/B Box/looper to Stevie’s setup, which allowed his guitar to bypass the pedals as he preferred. By using that, we created what is now common on pe
dals: true bypass. I made him a little pedalboard on a piece of scrap aluminum, just big enough to fit the pedals, switching box, and a stock Fender vibrato/tremolo switch.”
11
A SWISS MISS
Early in 1982, several events conspired to give the band a feeling of momentum. “Stevie never failed to impress, and that finally started to pay off in a tangible way,” Layton says. “It felt like some things were moving in our favor that promised to take us beyond the bars in Texas.”
In February, Millikin gave a VHS tape of Double Trouble to the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, who was shopping for a horse at Manor Downs with his girlfriend, Jerry Hall.
On March 8, 1982, Double Trouble played the Continental Club, one of their monthly Monday shows there, scheduled, says Opperman, “as close as possible to the full moon.” These shows were regularly sold out and so packed that Opperman had to set up his work station and Stevie’s backup guitars in the alleyway, with people standing on the ledge all the way around the room as much as three hours prior to showtime. That performance was witnessed by Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler, who had worked with Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers Band, and many others, and was in town for the next night’s record release party for Lou Ann Barton’s Old Enough, which he coproduced with the Eagles’ Glenn Frey. That night ended with a big jam featuring Stevie, Jimmie, Lou Ann, Doug Sahm, and others, but Wexler had already had his head turned by Double Trouble.
“Wexler was dancing to our music and told Chesley, ‘This band is great and should be playing the Montreux Jazz Festival. I know [festival founder]Claude Nobs. I’ll call him,’” says Layton. “That got the ball rolling.”
Continental Club calendar indicating the March 8, 1982 show witnessed by Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler. (Courtesy Gary Oliver)
On April 22, 1982, Double Trouble flew to New York for a one-off gig at Danceteria, which was an audition for Rolling Stone Records. “Mick had seen the tape and been impressed, and Chesley said, ‘You’ve really got to see these guys live,’” Layton says. “The next thing we knew, we were playing a private party for the Rolling Stones in New York. It was a gas.”
Guests at the party included Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Johnny Winter, and Andy Warhol. A postshow photo of a sweaty Stevie smoking a cigarette on a couch next to an elated-looking Jagger made it into Rolling Stone’s Random Notes section, and rumors swirled that the band would be signed to the Stones’ record label.
LAYTON: It was a bizarre gig, not really a party. Danceteria had different bands and other things happening all night, with constant turnover. For one of those segments, we closed the club off and showcased for the Stones. There were only a few people there.
BRANDENBURG: Stevie and the guys pulled no punches, performing like they knew how important this was. They only had about forty minutes before the club would open to the public. Chesley fought with someone who was trying to shut it down while Mick and Ronnie were out in front dancin’ and hollering. Some guy started pulling the curtain shut, and I pulled them open; Mick, Ronnie, and Chesley joined me in this tug-of-war.
OPPERMAN: As soon as Stevie started playing, Ron Wood grabbed a chair, straddling it right in front of Stevie. He stared at Stevie the entire time, hypnotized. During “Texas Flood,” Stevie spun around, unbuttoned the guitar strap from the butt of the guitar, and swung the guitar behind his back. Doing that, he pulled the strap pin right out of the body and was struggling to get the guitar hooked on again. I ran out with part of an old guitar string, jammed it into the buttonhole, and screwed the strap button back in as fast as I could.
LAYTON: We played a short set, met them, the photographers took some shots, and then everyone was gone. It was like a drive-by showcase for Mick Jagger. Charles Comer made that photo happen. Jagger and Ron Wood came backstage, and photographers jumped in and began shooting. Then, just like that, it was over. It was exciting meeting Mick Jagger, and Charles got the shot published in Rolling Stone, which ended up getting us a lot of attention and spread rumors we were going to sign with their label.
STEELE: I ran into Stevie right after he got back from New York, and he said, “I’ve never seen so much cocaine in all my life. I think Ron Wood had cocaine in every one of his pockets. And it was some good shit—my heart was pounding!” He added, “Mick says he wants to sign us to Rolling Stone Records, and he’s talking to Chesley about it, so let’s see what happens.”
LAYTON: The story goes that Mick Jagger told the guy running the label, “I like them, but everybody knows that blues doesn’t sell.” So they passed.
SHANNON: Still, it was cool that we were starting to get attention from people like Jerry Wexler and the Rolling Stones. We couldn’t help but feel that something good was going to happen.
LAYTON: It seemed undeniable. We were playing Skip Willy’s for four drunks, and all of a sudden Mick Jagger wanted us to play for him in New York. It seemed like there were too many heavy things going on for it to all mean nothing. This huge momentum seemed to be building.
The band’s forward motion hit some turbulence when they opened the first of two shows by the Clash at Austin’s Coliseum on June 8, 1982. The rough reception was indicative of how out of step with the contemporary music scene Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble were, even in their own hometown.
SHANNON: That was a nightmare. The audience was totally crazy. We were up there at home with people yelling, “Fuck you, Stevie Ray Vaughan! Get off!” It was horrible. We were supposed to play again the next night, but we said no.
LAYTON: It was traumatic! To walk out into the lights and see people throwing shit at us and shooting us the rod was awful. It was venomous. Stevie was like, “What is this shit?”
SHANNON: It wasn’t the right bill for us, to say the least. Management was trying to get us in front of a large audience, but it was the wrong audience. The Austin punk scene was exploding, and we had never seen any of these people after years of living in town. We talked to the Clash backstage, and they were cool guys who thought we were great. We appreciated that.
LAYTON: Stevie thanked Joe [Strummer] and said, “I guess I don’t understand your audience. We’re not accustomed to this, and we can’t do tomorrow night.” Strummer was real apologetic, a great guy.
Any hard feelings or doubts the band may have harbored from the Clash fiasco didn’t last long. Following up on Wexler’s recommendation, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble were booked to play the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 17, 1982, reportedly the first unsigned band to do so.
“Seeing [Stevie] at the Continental Club was almost an out-of-body experience,” Wexler told The Austin Chronicle’s Raoul Hernandez in 2000. “I called Claude Nobs at Montreux the next morning [and] said, ‘You gotta book this musician … I have no tapes, no videos, no nothing—just book him.’ And he did.”
EDI JOHNSON: For all the people who took credit for the Montreux gig, it would have never happened if Frances had not put up the money to get them there and back: airfares, hotel, ground transportation, per diems, et cetera. It was a tidy sum of money on top of an already large amount of debt.
LAYTON: Chesley had some brilliant insights into dreamer-type moves, and they often paid off. When he talked about playing free gigs in Switzerland, I was like, “Why would we do that when can make good money in clubs here?” He said, “I have a feeling that great things will happen,” and sure enough …
SHANNON: I played Montreux in 1969 with Johnny Winter and remembered how great it was. I was really looking forward to it. It was like a magical thing.
OPPERMAN: We all felt like this was going to be something really big. Cutter told me they could only take one of us, and he wanted me to go because he thought Stevie would need me.
LAYTON: I had never been to Europe and thought it was pretty amazing that though we were pretty much broke, we were flying from Central Texas to Switzerland, basically just to do a single gig. We were booked on a night that was primarily acoustic music, and we came out hig
hly amplified. It was like we had interrupted something, and some people starting booing.
SHANNON: We were so excited about this show, and suddenly, we thought we’d blown it. The truth is, there were really only about eight or nine people booing …
LAYTON: But it sounded like eight or nine hundred! It was bewildering. It was like, “God, we came all the way over here to get booed off the stage?”
OPPERMAN: The booing didn’t seem so bad; people were dancing, and someone up in the balcony was waving a Texas flag. But it was hurtful.
SHANNON: The rest of the audience was just quiet, clapping politely. It wasn’t an inspiring environment, but we played our best and didn’t back down. As we walked off, Stevie turned around and said, “I don’t think we sounded that bad. I don’t think we deserved that!”
LAYTON: We walked back to our dressing room feeling dejected. We’re sitting there real quiet, and someone from the fest came in and said, “David Bowie would like to meet you.” We were, of course, excited, and met him downstairs and talked to him for quite a while. He was blown away by us and called Stevie the best urban blues player he’d ever heard. We all hung out in the musicians’ bar for an hour, and he told Stevie that he was doing an R&B record and he’d love to have him take part in the recording sessions and have us as the opening band on the subsequent tour. Stevie said, “Sure, give me a call.” Meanwhile, the next night, we were booked to play in that same bar, and we ended up jamming with Jackson Browne and his band all night.