Stevie Ray Vaughan & Friends - Solos, Sessions & Encores

An SRV-with-friends for fans

This latest collection of SRV material captivatingly opens with a real curio, as the consummate blues-rock guitarist joins Albert and BB King and Paul Butterfield in a live-wire version of The Sky Is Crying from the Ebony Showcase Theater in Los Angeles, 1987.

Vaughan was always ready to jam, and tape was nearly always running, as this 1978-88 compilation of 14 selections (six previously unreleased and six more live) reveals. Also included is Vaughan’s historical 1984 jam with Jeff Beck at the CBS Records Convention in Honolulu, along with smart album session tracks with the likes of Marcia Ball, Johnny Copeland, Dick Dale (on the surf classic Pipeline), AC Reed and Bill Carter. Other cuts have Vaughan going to town with Gulf Coast pianist Katie Webster, Bonnie Raitt, Lou Ann Barton and Lonnie Mack, as well as tearing it up with fellow Texan Albert Collins on the smouldering Albert’s Shuffle. Fittingly, things rock to a close with the song and incandescent solo that transformed Vaughan’s career: the album-length version of David Bowie’s 1983 smash Let’s Dance. Not essential but a must-have for fans.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Epic/Legacy | 82876 87231 2

Reviewed by Gary von Tersch
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