Austin’s Pride and Joy: Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Blues

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s climb to the top of the blues genre was one deeply interwoven with the turbulent racial climate of the 1970s. As the titan scaled the charts alongside his Black analogs, critics wondered whether SRV’s disconnect with Blues’ historical origins made him worthy of his glory. As Charlie Parker argued, “if you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”  

Written by Veronica Martin

Photo courtesy of Robert Knight

Few can pull off the eccentric silhouette of a black felt wide-rim hat, but fewer yet could ever master the sunburst Fender Stratocaster as could Austin’s crown jewel: Stevie Ray Vaughan (SRV). Stephen “Stevie” Ray Vaughan’s ascent to musical mastery was an exponential one, marked by strong familial influence from his older brother Jimmie and an indefatigable musical inclination that was evident beginning at just seven years old. Vaughan’s navigation of the blues scene as a white man in Austin, a city where racial tensions were unfolding dramatically, created a unique niche for his artistry that arguably tightroped between appropriation and assimilation. Frequently incorporating artists like Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Jimi Hendrix in his rhythms and instrumentation, he forged his path through the predominantly Black genre with the sounds of the legends that came before him. However, the blues kingpin would come to be a short-lived phenomenon, passing away at just 35 and at the peak of his stardom. The ephemeral superstar would come to revolutionize the genre as we know it, changing the Austin music scene for decades to come and leaving an indisputably seminal legacy on the blues.

At just 17, SRV had already formed his own blues band, Blackbird, and shifted gears from his hometown of Dallas down to Austin — a vibrant music scene that touted greats such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Bruce Springsteen. As Vaughan traversed the new and electrifying domain, he hopscotched between smaller bands like Paul Ray and the Cobras in 1975, Triple Threat Revue in 1977, and most successfully, Double Trouble in 1979. Serving as lead singer of the latter throughout the ‘80s, Double Trouble would come to catapult SRV into the field of vision of some of the time’s most prominent artists. In 1982, the band’s performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival caught the attention of David Bowie, who asked Vaughan to do lead guitar for songs on his up-and-coming album, Let’s Dance. Let’s Dance would come to be Bowie’s best-selling record to date. 

From the 1950s to the ‘70s, blues music navigated the difficult task of facilitating racial integration throughout Austin. In 1928, before the city had undergone desegregation, city planners developed what was known as the “Negro District” in Eastern Austin to segregate along what is now I-35. By the 1950s, Black-owned clubs had popped up throughout the district, fostering Black enclaves where culture and community thrived and blues would make its vibrant debut. Legends such as B.B. King and Tina Turner frequented East Austin around this time as well, fortifying its status as a blues powerhouse. However, with desegregation looming, competition forced a myriad of blues-owned clubs into bankruptcy, being compelled to compete with the growing popularity of white-owned venues as Black blues artists sought more frequent and higher-paying gigs. Even as the East Austin blues scene began to deteriorate, white artists such as Vaughan continued to profit with their own blues interpretations to mixed-race audiences. In a genre that had been built and sustained by a Black population but was sidelined under economic contingencies, Vaughan was left pigeonholed between his artistry and the racial tension that undercutted his stardom.

Some blues pundits assert that there’s an unspoken element to true blues playing that gives it, as some might say, soul: culture and heritage. Matthew “Bluesboy” Hubbard and Matthew Robinson — both East Austin blues legends — “evoke blackness as a prerequisite for blues authenticity.” This rhetoric introduces an interesting line of thinking — that white artists may be able to perfect technique and artistry but lack the cultural component that makes the genre what it is. SRV’s influence, outside of the sphere of his global reputation, begs the question of where he lies in the genre and whether his fame was warranted and truly belonged to him.

With authenticity comes credibility, and with credibility, experience. The struggle of Southern Black artists laid the groundwork for the birth of the blues. With origins dating back to slavery, the combination of African rhythms and work songs sung on plantations by enslaved people set the foundation of the genre. In fact, some middle-class, educated Black people considered the blues to be “low-class” music that wasn’t worthy of documentation, meaning that records of its performance at all are few and far between. As such, in this sense, the credibility of blues music comes with Black heritage and Black culture, both derivatives of the Black experience. Joel Rudinow of Sonoma State University argues that “white musicians cannot play the blues in an authentic way because they do not have the requisite relation or proximity to the original sources of the blues.” That is, that white people don’t have the “experiential access” to play blues in a way that does it justice from a place of understanding. In the Stevie Ray Vaughan realm of the argument, many say that the verdict is no. His racial status afforded him access to the blues scene from a place of privilege, not barred from certain clubs because of his race or relegated to certain city areas for the same reason. There was a certain aspect of his stardom that, of course, included the struggle of his humble beginnings, but the cultural element that’s integral to the development of the blues was entirely absent. The debate thus ensues: can Stevie Ray Vaughan even be considered a true blues artist?

When analyzing Vaughan within a racial framework, time matters. A substantive part of grievances with white artists’ legitimacy within the genre relies on relation — that blues artists perform the way they do because of the things they’ve experienced. However, the experiences shaping blues have changed. Struggle, certainly, is still prominent, but is it the same struggle? Vaughan had his fair share of naysayers during his career, many of them doubting his abilities because of his whiteness. Even as Black musicians like Buddy Guy and Albert King welcomed Vaughan into the genre with open arms, dissenters remained. The debate thus continues as to how deserving SRV was of his fame, and more, whether critics were warranted in their dissension or misguided in their criticisms. 

It’s safe to say that exclusion of white people from a genre that was constructed from Black struggle has merit, but with some limitations. The SRV debacle gains complexity when considering his expertise and his artistry. Some attest that artists gain more cultural legitimacy if their talent warrants so, or more, that skill outweighs cultural relevance. What’s clear is that musical interpretation is not a debate of intellectual property — musical artistry is meant to be creative, versatile, and innovative for those who appreciate it. To force Black blues artists in the box of their legitimacy based on historical experience is limiting and reductive to their skill and expertise. And more, placing barriers to entry on a genre that was created via exclusion puts all current artists in proverbial limbo. All this to say, blues have a complex and variegated history, one that is uniquely riddled with racial tensions that rear their ugly heads to this day. The blues are unique in that their origins are integral to their performance and content, something that allows them more depth than others, but dually more intricacy. 

As the experiences shaping the blues change, the blues are changing with them. New artists incorporate fresh harmonies, storylines, and rhythms that exude the flesh and bone of what made the blues so enthralling since its inception: soul. One of many reasons Vaughan was able to achieve his musical status in such a short amount of time stems heavily from the fact that his audiences felt he exuded this element: that he was more than just adept at striking chords or strumming his Stratocaster, but that he was guided by a “je ne sais quoi” that set him apart. His solo album, Texas Flood, displayed his technical prowess, captivating stage presence, and nonpareil improvisational ability as he carried the album through frenzied guitar chords and inimitable smoothness. He was difficult to keep up with, but even more difficult to dislike. He only further vies for his spot in the ranks with the release of Couldn’t Stand the Weather and In Step. While Vaughan’s isolation from the heritage of the blues makes him a likely candidate for criticism, what ultimately prevails is the spirit of the blues, the soul that cannot be learned or inherited. The legacy of the blues should be a history to revere, not a method by which to exclude. The musicality of the blues is not tethered to the notes on the page: It is incumbent on the blues artist to bring the soul that makes it into what has resonated with audiences for over a century, a requirement that Stevie Ray Vaughan delivered.