Jazz, soul & blues
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954-1990), a Texan guitarist, was one of the great architects of the blues revival. It was in Montreux that his career turned: booked in 1982 for the Montreux Jazz Festival’s blues night while still unknown and unsigned, he was both booed by part of the audience and noticed by two onlookers who would change his fortunes, David Bowie and Jackson Browne. Three years later he was back on the same stage as a headliner. His two appearances are gathered on the album “Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985”.
1982: the blues night that split the crowd
On 17 July 1982 the Montreux Jazz Festival booked, for its blues night, a Texan band nobody knew outside Texas: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Jerry Wexler had recommended them to Claude Nobs, describing the guitarist as “a jewel, one of those rarities who comes along once in a lifetime”.
The set was incandescent, but the electric trio jarred in an evening leaning toward the acoustic: boos rose from part of the crowd. Vaughan, then unsigned, was hurt by it. He could not have guessed that, in the hall, two men had just been bowled over by what they had heard.
Two encounters: “Let’s Dance” and “Texas Flood”
The first was David Bowie, amazed, who would say he had seen nothing like it since Jeff Beck played the blues in the 1960s. The two men talked at length about Texas blues that night; a few months later Vaughan recorded the guitar parts for “Let’s Dance”, which became Bowie’s biggest commercial success. The whole story is told on David Bowie’s page.
The second was Jackson Browne. After the show he joined Vaughan and Double Trouble for a jam until dawn in the Casino bar, then offered them three free days in his Los Angeles studio. The band moved in during November 1982 and cut, in three days, its debut album “Texas Flood”, released in June 1983: the record that brought it to the world’s attention.
1985: back as a headliner
Three years after the boos, on 15 July 1985, Stevie Ray Vaughan returned to the Casino de Montreux, this time as a headliner and cheered. By then Double Trouble had become one of the most popular blues bands in the United States.
The two concerts, the difficult night of 1982 and the triumph of 1985, were gathered in 2001 on the album “Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985”. Killed in an accident in 1990, Vaughan would have only a handful of years at the top, but it had all begun on the shores of Lake Geneva.