In the early 90’s, I was in sales and Austin was a part of my territory. As such, I was able to frequent the clubs on 6th St fairly regularly and soon found that it was music heaven. One night, I was sitting in Joe’s Generic listening to 3 old black dudes jam. Dude walks in with a guitar in his hand, they acknowledge him and let him sit in with them. Said his name was Jimmie Vaughan. As in brother of Stevie Ray. What a night. Jimmie doesn’t get the recognition that his brother has gotten but the boy can flat out play the guitar. That is one of my cherished memories, although this many years later, the sound has most likely combined with a thousand others to produce a symphony.
I reminisced about that night as I sat in Katie’s tonight listening to Mark May and his band. Like I said earlier, one of the best guitarists in Houston. Unbelievable talent. And no cover, no crowd. Houston isn’t much of a music town but then again, the blues have fallen out of favor. Were this another era, I think that perhaps Mark could have been a bigger name in the business. As it is, he’s still pretty young and has many years left to hone his craft, which is what real blues is about anyway. He still has a penchant for adding where less would be more but that is very much a learned skill. His technique is not in question and he has found a good tone. His sidekick is a very good player in his own right but is young and hasn’t quite found the blues. Methinks his hero must be Steve Vai or perhaps Yngwe, both of the fast fingers. Nice tone though, playing through a Naylor combo, looked like a 4-8 setup. Interesting. And nice.
Off to bed now, with dreams of blues hopping through my head. Awesome.
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