SRV >27th August 1990

[Michael Messer]

Posted by my brother, Alan Messer, on Facebook today >>
AUGUST 27th, 1990 is a day many of us will always remember.
STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN'S music lives on and those who knew him as a brother and friend may never forget.
We only met twice, he was a really lovely man, full of fun and music.
© Photograph by Alan MESSER |





Alan shot a handful of photographs of Stevie that became iconic images of him. The National guitar "In Step" photo was the result of a conversation about me, National guitars and brothers.

Shine On
Michael

[jono1uk]

Wow Michael..you met him!!
he was probably the main reason i picked up guitar!!

[Michael Messer]

Oops...Jono, no that post was written by my brother and I have not edited it correctly.

I was actually due to meet Stevie on his next UK visit, which sadly was never to be.

Shine On
Michael.

[ezra1]

I met him at Poor David's Pub in Dallas,Texas just prior to In Step.
He sat in with Anson Funderberg's band.
Anson took a smoke break.
He didn't sing any.
None of the Hendrix stuff.
Anson's Strat straight into a Blackface Super Reverb.
It was the best straight electric blues I have ever heard.
I spoke with him at length afterwards about tubes ,Albert King,BB King and Clapton. We knew some of the same people.
He was humble and a very nice guy.
This was before he spoke out about his rehab publicly but he had completed it.
He told me you could be in the music bizness and not do drugs.
But that it was difficult.
He seemed like a regular person and that was a very special moment in my life.

[leeophonic]

I bought in step from my local woolworths based on Alan's photo of SRV holding the Duolian, the closest I ever came to seeing him was watching Jimmie with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, now there is another thread, who links to who???
Lee

[Deleted]

I met Jimmy Vaughan at the famous Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin--one of the last gigs there with Rockpile before it closed a couple of weeks later. Really nice guy,so laid back he almost fell over!

[creolian]

I first heard SRV at Tipitnas In the early 80s. It was a week night and I was working shows 3-5 nights a week and the last thing I usually wanted to do was go to a smokey barroom to hear more music. Probably less than a dozen people there, time stood still for all... After he gained a bit of popularity I saw him play a show with both Albert and BB King. This was on the USS president, an old side wheel showboat on the Mississipi river which became legendary for the NOLA jazz fest night shows. I can say without reservation that this was the most incredible night of music I've ever experienced.

At the time, electric guitar based blues-rock was all but dead in the USA. Punk and New Wave were Passe', Metal hair bands were becoming du jour and music seemed as mean as the twits playing it on stage. I was very happy to see Stevie develop fans in their teens and I think he was a big part of the resurgence of Blues music popularity in the mainstream. I was a proud father when my teenage daughter " borrowed" my old Hendrix records.

I worked the last show of the clapton Tour on Which Stevie perished. It was maybe two weeks later and Clapton came out and in a workmans fashion played an extraordinary set. Although the band was rockin', The crowd was somber with candles, flowers and signs memorializing Stevie. The band played an encore and it looked like that was it... Until EC came out solo on acoustic and dedicated the last song of the tour to the dear friend(s) he lost. I'm tearing up thinking about it...


Edit; I had to look it up but it was the last show of the second usa leg of the slow hand tour... Sept 2, gulf coast coliseum, Biloxi ms.

[twang1]

I met Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1985, the day after Live Aid at Umbria Jazz, a big jazz festival in Italy. I drove for a day with some friends just to see him. He played like a demon for two hours, closing the festival. Everybody started to leave and we started chatting. He called me up on stage while technicians were packing. An interviewer from a music magazine was there too and we sat on three chairs on stage during the interview during which at one point Stevie put his hat on my head…
Well, after that he had some time to kill before going to catch a flight and I started asking guitar questions and how to play correctly Scuttle Buttin’. He showed it to me and pass me his Number 1 guitar to play it. Then he asked a tech to bring another guitar and in a couple of minutes we were both jamming plugging into a Fender Super. We jammed on some kind of Pride and Joy shuffle, some kind of Love Struck Baby Rock and Roll, a jazzy 12 bar blues and some kind of guitar boogie. His manager was always pestering him that he had to leave but he was having so much fun playing… They had to shut the amp down and literally take the guitar from him while he was still shaking those notes…!!! We hug and he was taken away while still talking! I was never an autograph guy but he signed a piece of paper for me and said good luck one another…
He loved playing, couldn’t stop playing and he took time to jam with a perfect 20 year old stranger til 3 in the morning! He played, smiled and sweat all the time… He had a huge vibrato, played hard but precise and soulful, and the crazy glue story on his nails it’s true…
For a couple of years I learned anything I could from his records and then I realized I had to get away from that aiming for a more personal style. I got more and more into Gatemouth Brown and T-Bone Walker, dropped the pick for good and got more into acoustic guitar.
Frank