In November of this year Jimmie Vaughan rolled into town for the second time in as many months.  Three sold out Southern California club dates were preceded by a unique evening with this Lone Star ambassador of cool and his great band. The two year old Grammy Museum in Downtown Los Angeles is the home to the intimate, 200 seat Clive Davis Theater. The small auditorium looked like it could be the site of a college lecture. Instead on this Tuesday night it served as a venue for a swingin’ evening, where Jimmie Vaughan gave a post graduate dissertation on American Roots music.

The legendary guitar player sat down with Robert Santelli, the director of the Grammy Museum and author of more than a dozen books on American music. For about an hour Jimmie discussed his life, his career and his background in the world of music Americana…Texas style.

Vaughan talked about musicians as seemingly disparate as Bob Wills and Gene Ammons. Jimmie also spoke of Blues men as contrasting as Jimmy Reed and Jimi Hendrix. He talked fondly of sitting next to a radio as a youth growing up in the 1950’s and listening to music in the living room as his relatives played dominos.

Vaughan spoke with emotion of his long association and friendship with Eric Clapton. He shared in this intimate setting their joint personal tragedy and his thoughts on living with loss.

After a Q & A from the audience, his band joined him onstage for a preview of what fans could expect from the three Southern California dates that would close out his 2010 tour. These dates included Vaughan and his Tilt-a-Whirl Band doing nearly two hour sets of mostly vintage Blues and R&B gems with a few Vaughan originals tossed into the mix. The current ensemble features new band mates, sax men Greg Piccolo and Doug James on tenor and baritone respectively. These two New Englanders have played together off and on for over forty years.

The other new member of Vaughan’s band is the great bassist Ronnie James Weber.  Weber, along with long time Vaughan drummer George Rains, and guitarist Billy Pittman form the tightest, swingiest rhythm section in Blues music today. In this setting Jimmie is allowed to stretch out and improvise to a greater degree than he has in any of his previous bands. He doesn’t however take advantage of this musical freedom to engage in self- indulgent guitar meanderings but plays his instrument in service of the song and with a rhythmic dynamic that is unequalled. His legendary tone, timing, taste, phrasing and creativity remains in as full effect here in 2010 as it has been throughout his long yet somewhat disjointed career.

Vaughan again shares vocal duties with Lou Ann Barton who takes the band right into a Texas roadhouse with her great interpretations of tunes by Jimmy Reed, Lazy Lester, Slim Harpo and others.  

Jimmie Vaughan’s latest album entitled Jimmie Vaughan plays Blues Ballads & Favorites finds the consummate musician doing what he loves to do, which is play Blues, ballads and favorites, of all things.  The album also features a new Vaughan original instrumental which is always cause for celebration. That tune Comin’ and Goin’ served as the perfect upbeat show opener. More than half of his 21 song set at the Brixton in Redondo Beach on Saturday, November 13, were songs pulled from this Shout Factory Records, July 2010 release. 

As he told the small gathering at the Grammy museum earlier in the week, he initially had trouble trying to figure out which of the gems he first heard as a youth growing up in Dallas to put on the record. When the 59 year old Vaughan talks about an old record, his eyes light up like a kid in a candy store. Fortunately for audiences, Jimmie’s favorites are not, in most cases, standards we have heard covered over and over by others. Vaughan described to the interviewer in Los Angeles how he wanted the record to sound like an old jukebox. He turns every performance into a 1950’s juke joint. While listening to this record or seeing Jimmie perform these songs live, it isn’t hard to imagine a couple swing dancing in the corner between the restroom and the pool table, their smiles lit up through the haze of burning Pall Malls by a neon light that reads Shiner Bock.

There is no smoking or Shiner Bock at the Brixton in Redondo Beach, California, but an old fashioned dance party broke out anyway, as several couples fell victim to the infectious rhythms Vaughan and his cohorts provided. He seemed genuinely pleased that after all these years the music of his youth can still bring people joy. From the stage, he acknowledged the crowd’s unbridled enthusiasm by saying: “This is great. I usually look out (into the audience) and see a bunch of guitar players staring at me.”

As far as those guitar players are concerned, Jimmie gave notice that you are still in his rear view mirror. He is still at the wheel of a vintage American Muscle car and can put the hammer down any time he wants and watch you disappear as he guns it out of town like a cool breeze.

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