Free Music Notes for In the Beginning

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - In the Beginning

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Free Music Notes for In the Beginning

Free Music Review: Great Live SRV!
Hit: 4 Stars

A strong live effort from a still young and less-than-famous Stevie Ray Vaughan, In the Beginning hints at greatness to come. 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. 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!

Free Music Review: before texas flood
Hit: 5 Stars

I first heard of SRV in the winter of 1982. 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. 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.

Free Music Review: Wailing!
Hit: 5 Stars

If you like rockin blues this is for you! Stevie pulls out all the stops and just plain wails for the entire album. 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. 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.

Free Music Review: Disappointingly Raw
Hit: 3 Stars

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). I was excited that a live album from his early period was put out, but became disappointed after repeated listings. 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.

Free Music Review: Fantastic playing
Hit: 4 Stars

As a longtime fan of Stevie Ray Vaughan, I had the priviledge of seeing him play live at one of his last gigs. As always, he was brilliant. As time went on throughout his career, he began to experiment and expand a bit with new ideas, musicians, etc...

But not here. This album is raw, unadulterated, straight-ahead, ballsy blues guitar playing from a young Stevie Ray, who emerged onto the music scene fully formed and ready for business. Listening to IN THE BEGINNING, I feel like I'm right there in the audience. It confirms that Stevie Ray's playing was more than just something he learned to do. It's who he was, 24 hours a day.

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