As Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble entered Dallas Sound Lab to begin recording their third album in March 1985, they were nearing the end of a remarkable two-year run.
After years of grinding on the Texas blues circuit with a series of near misses, including almost signing with the Rolling Stones’ record label, the band burst onto the national scene with Texas Floodreleased by Epic Records in June 1983.
They followed that up less than a year later with Couldn’t Stand the Weather. They had toured the world, played with many of their heroes, and had videos in heavy rotation on MTV.
It was an incredibly productive 24-month period, but the band was on shakier ground than anyone on the outside could have realized. The frenetic lifestyle made it hard to work on new material and spurred an alarming increase in their substance intake, both of which became a problem as they started work on what became 1985’s Soul to Soul.
“In the studio, you’re under a microscope, and have to confront what you really sound like,” says Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton. “Soul to Soul was difficult to make. It was like trying to run a race when you’re very tired. You might make it and even get a good time, but it feels like it’s going to kill you.”
The sessions, which were produced by the band and longtime engineer Richard Mullen, needed a boost. That’s why Vaughan called on three stalwarts of the Texas blues circuit to lend a hand: saxophonist Joe Sublett, keyboardist Reese Wynans, and songwriter Doyle Bramhall.
The latter, a great drummer and singer, was an old friend of Vaughan’s, not to mention his vocal inspiration. As bandmates in the Nightcrawlers a decade earlier, the two had co-written Dirty Poolwhich appeared on Texas Flood. “Stevie needed songs and knew Doyle had them,” Sublett says.
The group recorded two Bramhall songs, Change It and Lookin’ Out the Window. Wynans, who had just given two weeks’ notice to singer Delbert McClinton, was originally brought to the sessions to add piano to Look at Little Sisterbut he couldn’t hear himself in a room that was set up with a massive wall of amps and a full PA, a setup that only made sense to Stevie, who wanted to recreate the feel of a live performance.
“You could not hear a piano over the roar, so I suggested we try a Hammond organ, where I could isolate the Leslie cabinet,” Wynans says. “I think my organ playing and the energy it added surprised them.”
Sublett faced the same issue, which was resolved by Mullen setting him up in an iso booth with a clean track to avoid audio bleed.
“Richard had a lot of common sense,” says Sublett, who described the volume in the main room as “painful,” noting that the loudness “came from Stevie, who had a Frankenstein wall of amps.”
On Wynans’ first night in the studio, the band worked until seven in the morning, and recorded Change Itthe instrumental Gone Homeand Say What!which bassist Tommy Shannon says had evolved out of a jam based on Jimi Hendrix’s Rainy Day, Dream Away.
In the studio, Vaughan suggested breaking the song down and singing “soul to soul,” which would eventually provide the album title. On that song, Vaughan used a wah wah pedal that had belonged to Hendrix, and which older brother Jimmie had swapped with the guitar god in 1968 when his band opened for the Experience.
As the sessions proceeded, it became apparent that Wynans was doing more than contributing keyboard parts; he also was aiding in arrangements and helped keep things moving. When Stevie showed the band a new song, the slow burner Ain’t Gone ’N’ Give Up on Lovea Wynans contribution helped lock the tune in.
“He came up with the great walk-up part in the bridge, which I thought was one of the coolest things about the song,” Shannon says.
Late one night, Shannon adds, with everyone “hanging out, high and drinking,” Vaughan abruptly asked Wynans if he wanted to join the band, much to the shock of Layton and Shannon. It was never discussed beforehand, but, Layton says, “We knew we had reached a point where we needed some help.”
The previous year, Vaughan wanted to add guitarist Derek O’Brien, in part to free him of some chordal duties so he could focus on soloing and singing. O’Brien played a run of Texas shows before manager Chesley Milliken nixed the idea, not wanting Vaughan to give up any spotlight. Stevie didn’t ask for permission this time.
Vaughan decided to record Empty Arms early one day when he and Shannon were alone in the studio. “We like to play bass and drums together,” Vaughan told Andy Aledort in 1986. “We were just messin’ around.”
Recalls Shannon, Stevie said, ‘Let’s do Empty Arms real slow’ and sat down behind the drums.” Assuming that they were just messing around or establishing an arrangement, Mullen didn’t bother rolling tape until Vaughan insisted he do so.
“They had a little argument, then Richard turned it on – and that’s the take we kept,” Shannon says. “Stevie knew exactly what he had in mind, and he was a great drummer – if he could last through the song. On a shuffle, his arms would get tired.”
The song began at such a slow tempo, Vaughan recalled, that it was “hard to keep going at the same speed. We sped it up 13.5 percent with the Varispeed and recorded the rest of the song to it.”
Vaughan’s playing on Empty Arms did not represent the only drumming-related hijinx on the album. On Looking Out the WindowLayton and Bramhall played together on a single kit.
Recalls Layton, “Instead of playing on two drum sets, (Doyle) pulled up a stool and sat right next to me, and the two of us played one kit!
“I played the ride cymbal and the snare, and he played the hi-hat. So there’s a 4/4 thing going on the hi-hat, but a 6/8 thing with the ride and the bass drum. We tried to sit on the same drum throne, but we kept falling off! We just wanted to be able to say that we played the same drum set at the same time.”
Vaughan took a left turn with Life Without Youa moving soul ballad written for and dedicated to his close friend, guitar maker Charley Wirz, who had died suddenly in February 1985. The song also reflects Vaughan’s passion for soul singers like Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway.
“He was so scared to sing Life Without You because it was so personal,” Shannon says. “He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to do it right.”
The song was largely finished when Vaughan presented it to the band, but they struggled to seamlessly play the form, which had “a lot of chord changes” and two different bridges.
He was so scared to sing Life Without You because it was so personal. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to do it right
Tommy Shannon
An astute suggestion by Shannon helped the song fall into place. The original moved down chromatically from the A chord to an F, and Shannon thought it would sound better resolving on a minor chord, so Vaughan switched it to F minor.
The bassist also suggested that the song had too many walks, going up from A to C, again up from B to D, and then a walk-down from D to B. They pared those down, then Shannon suggested that “it would sound cool” if Vaughan played a solo reminiscent of Hendrix’s Bold As Lovestarting with a slow whine. Those changes locked the song in.
“The first time we ever played the song all the way through, we got to the solo section, and all of a sudden, the song became massive,” Wynans says. “It had seemed so tentative up to that point, then it was like we could all relax, and he just let go.”
That, says Layton, was just the band’s normal operating procedure: “Business as usual.”
Ultimately, four of the album’s 10 tracks were new Vaughan compositions: the simmering, sultry slow blues Ain’t Gone ’N’ Give Up on Love, Empty Arms, Life Without Youand Say What! He was also oddly credited with the swinging instrumental Gone Homea slightly reworked cover of a song by jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris.
Soul to Soul also included Bramhall’s Lookin’ Out the Window and Change It; R&B star Hank Ballard’s Look at Little Sister; the Willie Dixon-penned Howlin’ Wolf tune, You’ll Be Mine; and New Orleans bluesman Earl King’s Come on (Part III)which Hendrix had recorded on Electric Ladyland.
With the help of Bramhall, Sublett, and Wynans, the band had pulled together an excellent album, one that was destined to serve as a marker for the end of the first era of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s national career.
With the album largely complete, the band returned to the road as a four-piece.
“I initially thought I was just going to play on the songs I had played on the record until the first show, when Stevie told me I was playing on everything,” Wynans says. “He didn’t want to play rhythm all the time so he could concentrate more on singing. Chris, Tommy, and I focused on the groove and forming a tight three-piece rhythm section. They were a great band without me, and I just wanted to add to it.”
Soul to Soulthe band’s third studio album in just over two years, was released September 30, 1985, and it reached Number 34 on the Billboard 200 chart, with the music video for Change It receiving heavy rotation on MTV.
Stevie Ray Vaughan had risen from the gritty Texas blues circuit to become a mainstream artist, but Soul to Soul would peter out, selling less than each of the first two albums. Their record label was concerned that the group was losing steam, but they had bigger issues to deal with.
Stevie would introduce the new quartet by saying, “They’re no longer Double Trouble; now they’re Serious Trouble!” Whether or not he was making a sly joke, Vaughan was expressing a deeper truth than most fans realized.
The drinking and drugging were out of control; Crown Royal and cocaine were the preferred substances, and Stevie and Tommy were the most serious abusers
The drinking and drugging were out of control; Crown Royal and cocaine were the preferred substances, and Stevie and Tommy were the most serious abusers. The band’s performances were becoming increasingly frenetic and chaotic, which would eventually make the recording and compiling of their 1986 live album, Live Alive!excruciatingly difficult.
By the following fall, the castles made of sand began to crumble. On October 2, 1986, Stevie collapsed on a London stage and entered a rehab facility for drug and alcohol treatment. He wouldn’t record another studio album until 1989’s In Stepa recording that reflected Vaughan’s sobriety in the lyrics of songs like Tightrope and Crossfire and in the clean flow of his playing and singing.
It seemed like a glorious beginning to an exciting new era in SRV’s career. Alas, it was to be the last album he ever recorded with Double Trouble.
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