From: laurecr@eng.auburn.edu (Chase R. Laurendine)
Subject: Re: SRV fans
Organization: Auburn University, AL
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 19:08:38 GMT




Hello SRV fans,

   For those of you who have called Wild Man Steve's, I am ashamed to admit it,
but yes I did pay $89.95 for the 3 CD set.  I'm guilty, I had a little birthday 
money and couldn't think of anything I would rather have, so I gambled a little.
It was worth it, there were a few tunes that I hadn't heard before and versions
of others that were much better than any others I had ever run across.  You get 
a much better feel for his live performances from these live recordings than from 
LIVE, ALIVE.  He has a lot more dialog with introducing songs and introducing the 
band members, he also has some brief discussions from an interview about different
blues licks.  He introduces the band on COULDN'T STAND THE WEATHER were each member
takes his turn at center stage with his own solo, in particular, Reese Wynan, the 
keyboard player, gives an increadible solo that's a little jazzy, does anyone
out there know of any solo albums or other bands that Reese plays in, I would
love to hear them. 
   On a different topic, when I was at Wild Man Steve's the last time, he had
some fantastic music playing in the background, I asked what it was and he said 
it was the new Bela Fleck & The Flecktones CD.  What would you call this music,
blues, bluegrass, jazz,...  I think I might buy one of there CDs next, any 
suggestions as to the best CD of their's to buy?
   Back to SRV, on the song LIFE WITHOUT YOU the band plays a great version of
what I was already familiar with and then the band starts to slow down the tempo 
a little bit and Stevie Ray stops playing while the band carries on quietly in the
background and he says the following:

    Right now, the most important thing in my life is to make sure that you
    understand that first of all ...  I thank God I'm alive today, and I mean 
    that  ...  You see I spent too many years of my life thinkin that -ah-
    the big party was the whole thing  ...  it took me quite a while to find
    out that the real deal is to be able to be enough of a person on your
    own to know when somebody loves you and cares about you ....  You see,
    we are here as far as I can tell, to help each other, our brothers, our
    sisters, our friends, our enemies .... thats to help each other,  not 
    to hurt each other  ....  and sometimes to help them, we've got to help
    ourself so that we'll know that they're around in the first place ...
    are you listening to me ? [big applause] thank you, I'm glad to hear that
    ... you see its a big world out there, there's enough pain and misery
    in it without me going around helping it out by hurting myself and
    consequenses, [corrects himself] consequently,  those that care about me ....
    what I'm trying to get across to you is ... please take care of yourself and
    those that you love ... because that's what we are here for, that's all
    we've got ... and that is what we can take with us .... ARE YOU WITH ME?
    [huge applause]

then he joins the band again and plays a BEAUTIFUL solo like I've never heard
before, it is full of emotion, he even does some trick with the guitar which
makes it sound as if it is crying, its wonderful. 
   If you're also a big Jimmy Hendrix fan, then you'll really like this 
collection,  he plays his versions of LITTLE WING, 3rd STONE FROM THE SUN and
two performances of VOODOO CHILE (SLIGHT RETURN).  SRV really had his Jimmy
Hendrix down (I sure hate using past tense about these guys),  I listened to 
SRV's and Jimmy Hendrix's version of 3rd STONE FROM THE SUN back to back, wow!
I understand SRV had to turn off all of his guitar effects to be able to control
the feedback from his amps for this song (read that in the GUITAR LEGENDS tribute 
to SRV, also a must for SRV fans, you can find it in your local book store in the
magazine racks, it's an entire magazine about Stevie).
   The second CD set that I bought from Wild Man Steve ($30) was a single CD 
called STEVE RAY VAUGHAN - THE FIRST THUNDER recorded live in Austin, Texas,
           ^ not a typo
during 1979 performances of the band.  The first 6 were recorded live with 
Soundcheck in Austin, April 1979. Songs 7 through 13 were recorded live at 
Austin Blues Festival with Lou Ann Barton, May 1979. The last two songs were
recorded live at the _Peona's_, October 1979, with Johnny Reno on Sax.  The
recording quality of these songs isn't as good as the first set I described, but
it's still a good CD.  Note that the first few songs on this CD weren't
released on any LP until 1983 with Texas Flood, I wonder how long he played
some of those tunes before they were actually released.  Here is the song list.

 1  Rude Mood (2:53) 
 2  Dirty Pool (5:20)
 3  I'm Crying (3:43)
 4  You're Gonna Miss Me Baby (2:49)
 5  Pride and Joy (3:14)
 6  Love Struck Baby (2:12)
*7  Natural Born Lover (3:44)
*8  Tina Nina Nu (3:00)
*9  Scratch My Back (4:06)
*10 I'll Change (3:18)
*11 Shake A Hand, Shake A Hand (4:39)
*12 Oh Baby (3:43)
*13 Sugar Coated Love (3:41)
 14 Love In Vain (4:31)
*15 You Can Have My Husban But Please Don't Mess With My Man (5:18)
?16 My Baby's Gone (2:49)

*-Lou Ann Barton is singing

(funny enough, Lou Ann Barton seems to be the lead singer but SRV introduces the
band??)  my favorite is LOVE IN VAIN.  I don't know if it was the recording
equipment or if they played it this way but the first ten or twelve songs sound
like they were played in slow motion.  At first I thought that maybe the tape 
player was playing slow when they mastered it, but when I pulled out my guitar
to play along with the ones I was familiar with, they were tuned perfectly with
SRV's regular tuning of E-flat, so maybe they did just play it a little slower
then.  Regardless, it sure makes picking out some of those licks a lot easier, 
especially on RUDE MOOD.
   The other two sets ($60 each!) at Wild Man Steve's that I didn't buy looked 
pretty good too,  I heard a few tracks from one and the recording quality was great, 
I didn't see any songs on it that I hadn't heard before (partly why I chose the 
other sets that I bought).  The Wild Man told me that the other CD set wasn't as good 
a recording quality (something about the recording levels), but it was recorded on
his European tour (don't remember what year) mostly in Germany and a few tracks
recorded in Tokyo.  This particular CD set has some neat black and white pictures 
of SRV in his Indian costume on the CD insert.  If anyone's interested I could see 
if the Wild Man would let me borrow the insert to scan, I can scan to TIFF, PIC or
EPS formats. 
   Would you beleive that I even received e-mail from a SRV fan in St. Augustin,
Germany about these CD sets.  I printed the e-mail and showed it to Wild Man
Steve and he said he wouldn't have any problem shiping to Europe if he received
an international money order first.  He said that he has dealt a lot with overseas
parcels to Russia, Japan and a few European countries (Hm, I wonder where he's 
getting some of these disc sets?).  I was surprised that it would only cost about 
US$12 to ship CDs by air to Europe and it wouldn't take more than a week to get there.
He said he was trying to start an international CD exchange and has an account
on PRODIGY with an ID BGSB37F (didn't know PRODIGY was international) if any of you 
are hooked up to that network, he would be glad to add you to his mailing list.
   Sorry to be so long winded, but this is my last topic.  With mixed emotions I 
am graduating this summer quarter and I must return to the real world (yuk!) after 
a year long educational leave of absense in graduate school here at Auburn 
University.  Unfortunately I won't have this convenient internet connection any 
more.  It's nice to see so much blues traffic on this newsgroup, I'll really miss
it.  Does anyone out there know if Genie or Compuserve or any other commercial
BBSs have access to this newsgroup and to internet e-mail (note that I will be 
moving around alot and would like to avoid long distance charges if possible)?
Anyway I have 2 more days until I am packed up and out of here, so if anyone
wants to get in touch with me about these CDs while I'm still in Auburn, here's 
your last chance.



  
P.S. if you're wondering why I'm able to respond so fast at 3:00 in the morning.
it's because that's when a lot of us crazy graduate students get most of our work
done.  I think I surprised the fellow in Germany!



Chase Laurendine              "Be good and you will be lonesome.", Mark Twain
Auburn University
laurecr@eng.auburn.edu