(above) The Vaughan family circa 1960
The Vaughan Brothers history in Dallas:
Born and raised here
Jimmie L. Vaughan and younger brother Stevie Ray Vaughan were both born and raised in the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff. They grew up on Glenfield Avenue, near Kiest Park with father Jimmie Vaughan and mother Martha.
Oak Cliff boomed during the post-war era, when thousands of GIs returning from World War II looked to start a family and own a home. Angus Wynne, the man who also brought us Six Flags Over Texas, began building affordable homes in an area of Oak Cliff called Wynnewood. Besides the thousands of tract homes, there was one of the first shopping centers in the nation, Wynnewood. Oak Cliff enjoyed a boom of two types: the home-building one and the babies born to those families, the baby boom.
While a student at Brown Middle School, Jimmie started his first band, the Swinging Pendulums. They played for dances at Sunset High and the sock hops held at the middle schools, or skating rinks. At age 15 he became the lead guitarist for the hottest band in Dallas, The Chessmen. Following the tragic drowning death of Robert Patton, their lead guitarist, the Chessmen held auditions at Lu Ann's, a popular nightclub at Greenville Avenue and Lover's Lane, for his replacement. Jimmie Vaughan showed up and played a popular instrumental for that time, "Jeff's Boogie" and got the job. The only problem was that he was too young to drive, so drummer Doyle Bramhall was assigned to pick Jimmie up and drive him to their gigs. One of them was opening for Jimi Hendrix during his Dallas appearance, where Hendrix had to buy a wah wah pedal from Jimmie to replace one Hendrix had broken. At 15, Jimmie was making over $300 a week and earning a name as one of the hottest guitar players in a Dallas music scene that included the Bricks and the Mystics. Jimmie later moved to Austin where he started the influential blues band, The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
The Fabulous Thunderbirds were one of the most influential, and admired, bands of the late 70s and early 80s. Carlos Santana had them play with him for the album Havana Moon. The T-Birds were on the bill with ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones for "the Concert of the Decade" on Halloween Night in the Cotton Bowl. Their weekly gigs at the Rome Inn in Austin were immortalized in the ZZ Top song, "Low Down in the Streets," and just about every major rock star, from Bob Dylan to Led Zeppelin, came to their gigs to soak in the T-Birds bent on the Texas blues. The Fabulous Thunderbirds introduced the rocking blues to a world-wide audience, causing several folks (like Charlie Sexton) to emulate them. Along the way they had their songs included in major Hollywood sound tracks ("Tough Enough" in Tough Guys with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, and "Powerful Stuff" in Cocktail with Tom Cruise.) Whenever they played, you could almost count on seeing someone famous in the audience, like the time Howard Hessman (Johnny Fever on the hit TV show WKRP in Cincinnati) dropped by in Dallas or Belinda Carlisle of the Go Go's.
The Fabulous Thunderbirds were probably one of the coolest bands to emerge from Texas. They may not have had the record sales of other artists, but everyone wanted to hang out with them, even Eric Clapton.
Stevie Ray Vaughan was inspired to pick up the guitar by his older brother, Jimmie.
"Stevie admired and looked up to Jimmie very much," recalls bandmate Scott Phares. "We once tried to drive from Oak Cliff down to Austin to see Jimmie's first gig there, but we broke down in Waco."
Stevie's first band was formed at Kimball High School in Oak Cliff. The band was called A Cast of Thousands and contained famous Hollywood character actor Stephen Tobolowsky as a member. Stevie later played in the Dallas bands Liberation and the Nightcrawlers. Scott Phares recalls that when Stevie showed up to audition for Liberation, they were looking for a bass player, because Scott was already playing lead guitar. "After Stevie played, I told him I would play bass and he could play lead," recalls Scott.
Stevie soon followed older brother Jimmie to Austin a few years later. After several lineup changes, he wound up with the band we know as Double Trouble—Chris Layton on drums and Tommy Shannon on bass. When David Bowie heard Double Trouble perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival, he asked Stevie to play lead guitar for Bowie's "comeback" album, Let's Dance. You can hear Stevie's distinctive, searing guitar work on the title song "Let's Dance" and a very underrated "Cat People." Now everyone was asking, "Who is that guy?" Double Trouble released their debut LP, Texas Flood, soon after and the dam burst wide open. Stevie became an international star, releasing best-selling records and winning Grammy Awards. Finally, he teamed up with brother Jimmie for their long-awaited collaborative album, Family Style.
Sadly, just before Family Style's release, Stevie was killed in a tragic helicopter crash, He was buried in Dallas’ Laurel Land Cemetery. His funeral was attended by Jackson Browne, Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt.
