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In a brief interview that precedes this CD's four bonus tracks--all unreleased gems from the original 1984 sessions--Stevie Ray Vaughan makes the point that "music used to be more based on common everyday occurrences like a train's sound going down the track ... a horse walking." Then he comes on with a version of Freddie King's "Hideaway" that chugs like a locomotive. There's also a heretofore unheard slide-guitar-powered "Give Me Back My Wig" and a blueprint of what became Soul to Soul's radio hit "Look at Little Sister." All those follow the improved mixes of the original CD, which include Vaughan's heartbreak chronicles "Couldn't Stand the Weather" and "Cold Shot"; his first jazzer, "Stang's Swang"; and his initial Hendrix outing, "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)." It's the sound of the guitar hero growing as an artist on his own terms--sidestepping the irony that poisoned '90s rock to stay true to the real-life aesthetic of the blues. --Ted Drozdowski

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 41 reviews)

Great Album! by Alicia Clark (Austin, AR)

5 Stars
August 14, 2009
One of the best SRV albums! There's not too much else I can say about it than it's just an awesome album!

Middle of the Raod by Moog (SFO - CA)

3 Stars
January 27, 2009
Good blues but ultra clean - not a smidge of anything but crisp. Crisp snare, licks, crisp recording, crisp crisp. Its like surgery - sharp and clean. I like it but it's not if hardly on more than once a year. If you like clean blues - this is your clean baby If you like more soulful blues - no its not what your looking for.

The next guitarrist after Hendrix by Glen K. Peterson

5 Stars
January 04, 2009
If ever there was a best-of-genre album for driving rockabilly blues, this is it. This album catches SRV at the top of his game. Fully developed, chemical-free, and not overly commercial or over-produced. People can do other things really, really, well, but no-one will ever top this album on it's own terms. Stevie's guitar playing is soulful and virtuosic, his band could not be tighter, and his vocals add the perfect focus for his songwriting. Even the slow, quiet songs are so high energy that listening to them is like being bathed in intense white light. Scuttle Buttin' is burst of high-speed virtuoso blues energy. The title track shows the band's ease with changing time signatures. Stang's Swang is a credible attempt at electric jazz blues (though serious jazz musicians will complain that he plays IV-V-I over every II-V-I cadence, true rockers will like it better than any jazz they have ever heard). He gives a nod to his blues roots in almost every song (several are blues standards), but none more-so than Voodoo Child. His version is more driving and "perfect" than Hendrix's though somewhat less spontaneous. In fact, I would go so far as to sum him up as "The Next Jimi Hendrix," except that SRV was a composer while Hendrix was an improviser. What I mean by that is that SRV played exactly the same solos in concert as he did on the record. But he plays each note with such conviction that you would never know without studying his discography. At one point, I held that against him and passed up an opportunity to see him perform because the show would be "just like the album" and I thought I could always catch him the next time he came to town. Tragically he died a few weeks later and I passed up the chance of a lifetime. I will regret that decision the rest of my days. Do not wait for something better to come along. Buy this album, clear your schedule, and treat yourself to the best Texas blues ever performed on guitar.

The Best of his Era by Dave Deubler (Pennsylvania)

5 Stars
June 27, 2008
Blues legend Stevie Ray Vaughn tears it up in this, his sophomore effort with backing band Double Trouble. From the electrifying opening track "Scuttle Buttin'" to the jazzy "Stang's Swing" Vaughn shows why he was the premiere axman of his era. There may have been guitarists in the past who were more in touch with the raw emotion of the blues, but nobody can match his technique, his precision, and his fire. Other standouts include the title track (with its unusual timings) "Things That I Used to Do" (applying his lightning fingers to a slower blues) and the delicious "Cold Shot". Throughout, Vaughn does a creditable job with the vocals, and his backing band wisely stays out the way. He fails to come up with anything special for his cover of Hendrix' "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" but then, when has anyone ever managed to improve on Hendrix? A must for aficionados of blues guitar.

Good, but not his best by freedom78 (Indiana)

4 Stars
February 07, 2008
This has never been one of my favorite releases from Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. It's not bad by any stretch, but it never hooked me that way I would have liked. For example, "Scuttle Buttin'" is a decent opener, and a high energy one at that, but I've never thought it to be quite up to some of their other instrumental pieces. And, while a bit of Jimi Hendrix is always appreciated, his treatment of "Voodoo Chile" doesn't really offer up anything new and, so, is a bit disappointing. None of these songs are bad. They just don't grab my attention the way SRV did with his debut, Texas Flood, or would again on later albums. There are some very strong points, however, such as the soulful slow blues of "Tin Pan Alley," which really is a top notch track. This seems like a negative review...but I really like this album! It's just that I have high standards when it comes to SRV, and this one doesn't quite measure up to his best work. But it's still good! The album sounds great, so it gets high marks for the remaster. The bonus tracks are always a nice addition, but they just don't make a big impact on this one. "Hide Away" is relatively mild and "Look at Little Sister" doesn't come across as much different than the version on Soul to Soul. Decent additions...but not much that's above and beyond.

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	Soul to Soul by Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble Guitar lovers will flip over this reissue's new bonus tracks: a conversation in which Stevie Ray Vaughan extols the virtues of Jimi Hendrix's playing and then essays them all in a medley of "Little Wing/Third Stone From the Sun." There's also the brief slide-guitar instrumental "Slip Slidin' Slim." What's breathtaking about these and the 10 remastered cuts that were the original 1985 album are the remarkably live amplifier tones. It sounds as though Vaughan's plugged directly into your...
	Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble This legendary 1983 debut by the fallen torchbearer of the '80s-'90s blues revival sounds even more dramatic in its remixed and expanded edition. Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar and vocals are a bit brighter and more present on this 14-track CD. And the newly included bonus numbers (an incendiary studio version of the slow blues "Tin Pan Alley" that was left off the original release, and live takes of "Testify," "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and the instrumental "Wham!" from a 1983 Hollywood concert)...
	In Step by Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble In Step embraces blues and rock without compromising the primal joys of either. This is Stevie Ray Vaughan's best studio album and the first he recorded sober. "Travis Walk" offers a heady rush of flat-picking, "The House is Rockin'" is full-tilt roots-boogie, "Let Me Love You Baby" and "Leave My Girl Alone" are sweet blues epiphanies, and the nine-minute instrumental "Riviera Paradise" is a truly soulful mix of blues and jazz. By now, just a year before his untimely death, Vaughan had also...
	The Sky Is Crying by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Released after Vaughan's death in a 1990 helicopter accident, The Sky Is Crying collects unreleased studio tracks from throughout the guitarist's recorded career. In Vaughan's early years, he was a stylist who thought nothing of using ten notes when three would have worked. Rock stardom, cocaine, and alcohol did little to temper his tendency towards overstatement, but by In Step, his last studio album (and first clean-and-sober effort), he'd begun to transcend his many influences to forge a...
	In the Beginning by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble This visceral live recording from April 1, 1980, was broadcast on radio from the Steamboat 1874 club in Stevie Ray Vaughan's adopted hometown, Austin, Texas. It circulated among collectors, and his manager used some of the tape as a demo before Vaughan was signed to Epic Records by John Hammond. Young Stevie Ray's performance bristles with uncorked energy. Vaughan is caught improvising on raw slide guitar, growling through Otis Rush's "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)," and pushing his fretboard...