An Evening With Jimmie Vaughan

Join Bob Santelli, Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum^® at L.A. LIVE, for an intimate conversation with blues/rock guitarist and artist, and brother to the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmie Vaughan in the Sanders Soundstage at GRAMMY Museum Mississippi.  Vaughan will discuss his illustrious career and share memories of his brother, Stevie, as we celebrate the legendary guitarist’s musical legacy with the opening of Pride & Joy: The Texas Blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Following the interview, Vaughan will take questions from the audience and perform a special acoustic set of select songs.

Note:  Tickets for this event are non-transferable.

Jimmie Vaughan is far more than just one of the greatest and most respected guitarists in the world of popular music. As Guitar Player Magazine notes, “He is a virtual deity–a living legend.” After all, Vaughan provides a vital link between contemporary music and its proud heritage, as well as being a longtime avatar of retro cool.

Since releasing his first solo album in 1994, he has set the standard for quality modern roots music. Throughout his career, Vaughan has earned the esteem of his legendary guitar-playing heroes and superstar peers along with successive generations of young players. His musical ethos and personal style have had an impact on contemporary culture, from spearheading the current blues revival with The Fabulous Thunderbirds to his longtime, innate fashion sense of slicked-back hair and sharp vintage threads (now seen throughout the pages of contemporary fashion journals) to becoming a premier designer of classic custom cars. But for Jimmie Vaughan, none of it is part of a crusade or a career plan. It’s just his natural way of living his life and pursuing the interests that have captivated Vaughan since his youth.

When he was sidelined by a football injury at the age of 13, a family friend gave Vaughan a guitar to occupy him during his recuperation. From the moment Jimmie’s fingers touched the fretboard, it was obvious that he was a natural talent. He also began tutoring his younger brother Stevie, who would cite Jimmie as his biggest inspiration and influence throughout his own career.

In 1969, Vaughan helped found Texas Storm, a group that eschewed Top 40 covers for blues and soul with a Texas accent. The band eventually migrated to Austin, where they won over the college crowd and the Black and Chicano communities on the Capital City’s East Side. Vaughan also helped jump start his brother Stevie’s career when the younger Vaughan joined Texas Storm on bass.

Determined to create an ideal vehicle for blues music that was both modern in its impact and appeal yet true to the tradition, Vaughan founded The Fabulous Thunderbirds with Kim Wilson in the mid-1970s. When Antone’s nightclub opened in Austin in August of 1975, the Thunderbirds became the house band, sharing the stage and jamming with such blues greats as Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Albert King and a host of others, all of whom recognized Vaughan as the man who would keep the music they developed alive for future generations.

On the strength of such hits as “Tuff Enuff,” two GRAMMY Award nominations and years of worldwide touring, The Fabulous Thunderbirds brought the blues back into the pop charts and the contemporary musical lexicon, sparking a blues revival that continues unabated today. Prior to leaving the group in 1990, Jimmie had joined up with his brother Stevie to record Family Style, an album that reflected their mutually deep musical roots and maturing modern artistic sophistication. Then in August, 1990, just a few weeks prior to the album’s release, Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin. The tragedy devastated Jimmie, who retreated from touring and recording, though he continued to play guitar every day, as he has throughout his life.

Eventually, Vaughan’s friend Eric Clapton invited him to open a series of 16 special concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall. After the warm reception for his solo debut at the Clapton shows in early 1993, Jimmie started recording his first solo album. The resulting disc, Strange Pleasure, was produced by Nile Rodgers (who worked with the Vaughan brothers on Family Style), featured 11 songs written or co-written by Jimmie, and was dedicated to Stevie Ray and the recently deceased Albert Collins. It debuted at Number One on the Billboard Heatseeker Chart, was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Blues Album and garnered reams of critical acclaim as Vaughan also stepped out on tour as a solo artist and bandleader. His next album, 1998′s Out There, solidified Vaughan’s status as a solo artist, thanks to a GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance (for the song “Ironic Twist”).