Tommy Shannon Reminisces About Stevie Ray Vaughan

What was Stevie like when you first met him, as a person and as a player? I met Johnny and Stevie at the same small club, the Fog, in Dallas. When Uncle John Tuner and me left Johnny's band, we flew back to Texas and I was standing outside the club talking to some people and I heard his guitar playing that just grabbed me. I said, "I have to go in and hear this," but instead of finding the older musician I expected to see on stage there was this little pigeon-toed kid with big ears playing his ass off. Steve was already great, although he got a lot better. He had a magic touch. But even with that, he was very humble and awkward. The other musicians treated him like a little pest because he followed everybody around. He wanted to learn so bad, from everybody he could. In the first band we played in together, Blackbird, he was just 16. Then we were in a band called the Krackerjacks.

When you, Stevie and Chris got onstage in the Double Trouble years, it often seemed like magic happened. So much of our playing was intuitive. We were like a family and Stevie was my best friend in the world. I don't know how to explain what used to happen. Stevie wasn't the kind of guy who'd tell you he was going to play a new change or go somewhere with a song we'd never gone before. He'd just do it, and we went there with him. We never had any hand signals or cues. We just went. Stevie and I were always very spiritual, even when he was just a kid. We talked about spirituality a lot. And that naturally became part of the music. You get to a point where you're playing and everything's good and grooving and you're all locked in together � and something starts playing through you. And you get out of the way and let it play. I think it's those times that all musicians are reaching for. It's like some energy takes over your body, and you starting playing things and going to places you've never gone before. - Read more here

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