The latest Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble release, entitled “Live at Montreux, 1982 and 1985,” is a scorching testament to Stevie’s rise to fame and how that occurred for a little kid from Austin, Texas. Stevie had been playing bars and nightclubs in and around Texas since the early 1970s and was considered a local guitar hero for his un-polished demeanor and for playing some of the best Texas blues ever to come from the fingers of a skinny white boy.
Because of their reputation, Double Trouble was asked to play “Blues Night” at the annual Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. Looking for their big break, they happily went.
Double Trouble is a stripped-down blues trio consisting of Chris “The Whipper” Layton playing a four piece Tama drum kit, Tommy “the Freak” Shannon on the Fender bass, and, of course, Stevie Ray playing a variety of late 50s and 60s Fender Stratocasters amplified by two Fender Vibroverbs.
The album is a two CD set. The first disc is the band’s first performance at Montreux on July 17, 1982. The second consists of Double Trouble’s return to Montreux three years later on July 15, 1985.
Disc one starts off with an introduction of the band, and you can hear the approval of the audience when the announcer states Double Trouble’s origin of Texas. After the intro, Stevie hits a few notes on his ’59 Stratocaster and begins a rendition of Freddie King’s “Hide Away,” a Texas instrumental that has the rhythm of a horse trot.
Without break, they start to play a future SRV staple, “Rude Mood,” an instrumental as well, but more raw than the previous. Then Stevie plays three more soon to be classics, “Pride and Joy,” “Texas Flood” and “Love Struck Baby.”
Double Trouble’s unrefined sound shocked the staid European audience and with each song played, the boos and hisses from the audience grew. Confused, Double Trouble goes on and finishes the set with a Hound Dog Taylor song called “Give Me Back My Wig,” which Stevie executes without hindrance, considering the state of the audience. They finish with an Albert Collins instrumental named “Collins Shuffle,” a jumpy Texas blues boogie, which Stevie literally played as if his life depended on it. But they were greeted with more boos. Double Trouble left the stage heart-broken.
Two people in the audience that night that would prove to be essential to Stevie’s career saw his talent and approached the band after the show in the underground musician’s bar at Montreux. These people were David Bowie and Jackson Browne.
Bowie asked Stevie to play guitar on his upcoming album “Let’s Dance.” Stevie accepted the offer, and “Let’s Dance” became the best-selling album of Bowie’s career.
Jackson Browne and Double Trouble jammed all night at the musician’s bar, and afterwards Jackson Browne invited Double Trouble to record an album’s worth of music free of charge at his studio in New York. This “album’s worth of music” would become Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s first album, “Texas Flood.”
Three years and three albums later, Stevie returned to Montreux for an encore performance on July 15, 1985. This performance appears on Disc two of the set. The audience, now familiar with Double Trouble, was very appreciative of the music. This set is just as intense as the 1982 performance, if not more.
The set begins with three fiery new songs off their latest album, “Soul to Soul,” and proceeds into a rendition of Buddy Guy’s “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” The performance ends with “Couldn’t Stand The Weather,” a soulful original written by Stevie.
The audience worshiped the performance, and there was not one boo in the whole venue.