His main influences were Eric Clapton and Albert King!
Stevie grew up on a diet of the old blues masters (particularly Albert King) and the British Blues Boom, led by Eric Clapton.
He released his debut album, Texas Flood in June of 1983. This was the same year as Let’s Dance by David Bowie dropped. From these two albums, Stevie Ray Vaughan became world famous.
With awesome tunes like Couldn’t Stand The Weather, Love Struck Baby, Testify, Lenny, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Crossfire, Tightrope, and covers of Jimi Hendrix‘s Little Wing and Freddie King‘s Hide Away, SRV quickly established himself as one of the all-time greats.
Pride & Joy, Texas Flood
Perhaps the most taught modern blues song, Pride & Joy is for some reason the go-to standard blues track taught by guitar teachers worldwide.
Is it the open Hammer-On and Pull-Off licks that just lend themselves to be put on repeat? Or is it because this is a great introduction to hitting the guitar with some proper force, essential in order to sound great? Maybe it’s both!
Perhaps not as known as Pride & Joy, Texas Flood is the title track from the debut album. As always, SRV delivers a delicious tone, much cleaner than most blues players would set their amp.
But it’s not just his tone we can learn from, there is plenty to learn from this awesome tune in terms of note choices and phrasing.
As always, dig deep, copy those licks in-depth and you will be greatly rewarded. Sandy Buglass recorded both of them for Spytunes in 2010, follow the links below to find out more.
Stevie Ray Vaughan Tunes | Related Pages
Let’s Dance
You can learn how to play Let’s Dance by David Bowie (and Nile Rodgers) using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, and the original recording.
| Bb7sus4 | N.C | Bbm6 | N.C |
Let’s dance. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues…
Pride & Joy
You can learn how to play Pride & Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, and a Spytunes video guitar lesson.
| E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 |
Well, you’ve heard about love givin’ sight to the blind…
Texas Flood
You can learn how to play Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, and a Spytunes video guitar lesson.
| G7 | C7 | G7 | G7 |
Well, it’s floodin’ down in Texas, all of the telephone lines are down…
Tube Screamer
The Tube Screamer is the world’s most copied overdrive pedal. Ironically, it started out as a copy itself and wasn’t even built by Ibanez.
Check out the playlist in this article comparing all the different versions of the Tube Screamer pedal, as well as detailing its complex history.
Stevie Ray Vaughan on the web
Artists & Bands
Behind every single tune you learn, there’s an artist or band with an entire catalogue of music, waiting to be discovered.
Find out more about these great Artists & Bands, and let their tunes guide you to success.
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was an article about Stevie Ray Vaughan tunes, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
