The Last Great Blues Guitarist

I've always considered Stevie Ray Vaughan to be one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time. So when I turned my (no cable) TV to PBS the other day just to try my luck, I was immensely pleased to see the legend himself decked out in a turquoise kimono with a white “British invasion”-style scarf hanging loosely from his neck. I had stumbled across one of the great blues recordings of all time: Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan in session, for one night only.

The session took place in a Hamilton, Ontario studio in 1983 for CHCH-TV and remains the only recording of these blues icons playing together. It's an interesting hybrid of a live and a studio recording. There was no in-studio audience, but the whole session was done in a single take. Stevie and Albert hadn't rehearsed together - they didn't cross paths too often - and Stevie actually admits that he'd never even heard one of the songs they end up playing ("Ask Me No Questions"). The studio setting lends itself to a lot of banter between the musicians, and the intimacy of the session is really special.

The artists are having fun, but there’s no doubt that Stevie is absolutely zeroed-in. He's not nervous or overly serious, but he clearly recognizes the significance of the event and wants to put on a good show. King undoubtedly feels the same way, but his supreme confidence in his status as elder statesman, and his unbelievable chops (which show absolutely no signs of age) are clearly visible in his comfort onstage. A consummate showman, King is a bit more relaxed but no less impressive. The literal and figurative giant is clad in a three piece suit, and we see him variously standing up, yelling, and seemingly loving every minute of it. His name is spelled out boldly across the neck of his axe, lest anyone in the audience forget even momentarily who is the focus of attention. He also refers to his guitar at one point as a guit-fiddle, which is now the only term I will ever use for the rest of my life to refer to that particular intstrument.

Just as valuable as this lexicographical invention and the superb music the two make together is the unmistakable passing-of-the-torch quality in the session. Stevie was 31 years younger than Albert and clearly the most talented blues guitarist (guit-fiddler) of his generation. Fittingly, they duet on songs that Albert had played with the best axemen of his day: "Ask Me No Questions" was originally a duet with B.B. King, and Albert also raps on the recording about playing "Blues at Sunrise" with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin at the Filmore West. Finally, on a track titled "Pep Talk," there's as close to an actual torch-passing ceremony as you'll ever hear between two professional musicians, as Albert exhorts Stevie to respect his craft and keep the music alive.

Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan - Pep Talk

Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan - Overall Junction

The video contains a bunch of tracks that aren’t on the accompanying audio CD, and some of the highlights are found here. My favorite is an old Stevie track, “Texas Flood.” On this slow blues jam, even with the two guitar masters stringing together dazzling improvisations, I can't help but be hypnotized by the bass in the background: as steady, fundamental, and utterly essential as a heartbeat

Tragically, both artists would be dead within ten years - with King actually outliving Stevie, who died in a helicopter accident in 1990. Stevie's death left his generation of "young" blues guitarists (and even he would be 56 if he were alive today) with no heir apparent or even an heir faintly visible. And if one is to rise up, he'd better make himself known quickly. Perhaps no genre of modern music has relied so heavily on the transmission of its secrets from one generation to another than the blues, owing to its origins in African musical traditions and the circumstances of its development in the segregated and poverty-stricken Deep South. Every generation of blues guitarists has prepared the next for greatness, but unless Clapton has some protégé that he’s just biding his time before unleashing on society, it seems like that chain may be broken.

Jazz will go on, you figure. The innovation that has continuously reshaped the sound of jazz leaves the door open for development in any number of directions for years to come, and an iconic artist could step up and grab the mantle. But blues is tougher. At the end of the day, the 12-bar form (or some very similar offshoot) is the rule. The chord progressions are more or less set in stone. A blues player makes his whole living off the 6 notes of the blues scale (albeit with abundant note-bending in every direction). With so many greats having come and gone, how much more could there be to add to the picture? The previous generation, furthermore, lived such an authentic blues experience, really growing up in the Mississippi Delta and that distinct and uniquely American culture.

Of course, besides his abundant skills, Stevie also more-or-less singlehandedly moved blues music into the post-racial era. Can white people really play the blues? Ever since Stevie, the answer has been a resounding yes. He just put an end to that argument. Even a great player like Clapton hadn’t totally settled the matter, as his greatest accomplishments were more in blues-rock and straight rock groups like Cream and Derek & the Dominoes than in the blues. But was the first indisputably masterful white blues guitarist also potentially the last great guitarist of any color? Unfortunately, I tend to think so. I have no evidence for this claim, just a sinking pessimistic sense that the best days of that genre are well behind us.

If that’s the case, it’s a sad thing. But it’s not as bad as it may seem; the greats that came before have left an abundance of material that one could fill a lifetime enjoying and analyzing (it reminds me of this article by sabetmetrics god Bill James in Slate arguing that we don’t produce more great literary geniuses because we don’t really need them anymore). Nowhere is that legacy of musical brilliance, with merit to last through the ages, more evident than in this classic 1983 recording. If Stevie Ray Vaughan was the last great blues guitarist, at least the genre went out on top.