May 15th, 1984, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble released their sophomore album “Couldn’t Stand The Weather.” The first difference that jumped out at me between the first album “Texas Flood” and this album was the amount of time they had in the studio to record. When I asked about that Chris immediately responded, “That’s a trick question.” He explained further that for “Texas Flood” they were just recording, not intending to make a record yet simultaneously not intending to not make a record “Then officially we went in to make a record “Couldn’t Stand The Weather.” The difference really between the two albums was taking more time to try different takes on the songs for “Couldn’t Stand The Weather.” “Obviously, this was well before Pro Tools or any of that kind of thing, and either you played it, and you go it or you kinda didn’t.”
People have suggested that with this album really was more like a debut album since the previous album was really the band’s live set captured in the studio. Chris saw that as simply a semantic argument. He went on to speak about bands preparing their entire life writing songs until they record their debut album. Then there is a lot less time to prepare for that second album. He felt that the label expecting this album within 12 months of their debut album “Colors the whole process differently.” “Now it becomes like a real business of a record career.” Chris went on to comment that part of this album’s differences were guest musicians on it, like Stan Harrison played a sax solo, Stevie’s brother Jimmie Vaughan added rhythm guitar to some tracks, and Fabulous Thunderbirds drummer Fran Christina played on “Stang’s Swang.”
With the first album Stevie and Double Trouble basically recorded their live set, yet for this album they were not playing these songs in their shows. Chris did comment that maybe they played the Guitar Slim tune “Things I Used To Do” live. “But that was all kind of part of you know, our repertoire choosing covers of other artists, artists that you know we liked for years anyway.”
The title track “Couldn’t Stand The Weather” was only played once. Chris told me it was recorded as an instrumental and they put the lyrics on later. He said people often commented that it “Sounds really cool, there’s something about it.” He said “The something about it is we never played it. We had just played it, we only played it once.” When it came to the vocals on that track, and the album in general, I felt that was a way of seeing how much more seriously they were being taken. Chris remarked “That’s kind of a chicken, egg kind of thing.” One of the songs I really wanted to discuss with Chris was “Cold Shot.” Mostly because the groove on that track is absolutely amazing and I’ve heard many people comment on it over the years. Chris told me that he fell asleep on the couch outside the studio. “Stevie comes and wakes me up at, I don’t know, three O’clock in the morning and says ‘C’mon, I wanna do Cold Shot,’ and I go, well how does it go? He said, ‘We’ll find out when we get in there.’ And then we just started playing. I was still probably half asleep.” “I don’t know, we just kinda played the song. It’s kind of mysterious.”
We also spoke about John Hammond being there in the studio looking over the band. Chris commented that John was not just a Stevie fan, he was a fan of the band. “He was like a spiritual advisor or something.” His description of John in the studio with them is something I have heard from many artists who worked with him. Yet somehow, Chris seems to really capture what he did for the artists he worked with. Chris spoke about John telling them a story about Gene Krupa and how his skills were destroyed by drugs. Chris did say “We were deep off into all of that.”
“Couldn’t Stand The Weather” opens and closes with instrumental tracks. I told Chris that was bold for 1984 and I asked if that was meant as a statement. That clearly made him think a bit before responding. After he gave it some thought he did say “I don’t see that as trying to make one because we, we did them.” “I know that the philosophy of the band, between Stevie, Tommy, and I, we were, we were just who we are. It doesn’t matter if we’re standing on a stage or making a record, this is just who we are.” Chris had spoken earlier in our conversation about a recent conversation he had with Mitch Mitchell who played drums for Jimi Hendrix. I used that to segue into talking about the Jimi cover on the album “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).” Chris told me a story about the first conversation he and Stevie had before he was even in the band, that Stevie was surprised that Chris liked Hendrix.
On this album it is clear to hear Blues, Jazz, and Rock. I asked if that was that the longer the band was together if they were just expanding their sound. Chris felt that was a fair statement. He told me that there were a lot of things that they liked as influences that wasn’t evident early on. He shared that the night Stevie died before he got on the helicopter that “He said I got a bunch of wild ideas for our next record. Some things have come to me, like strings and horns.” “We’d listen to big band stuff; we’d listen to all kinds of things.” Right about here Chris said, “We were a kind of in the moment band.”
From there we discussed Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble as a trio. That being a reason why adding musicians to what they did worked very easily. Chris talked about the band covering songs that had more happening musically on the original versions that inspired them to cover the songs in the first place. We also spoke about how in trios’ individual members usually need to play a little more, but when you have more players in a unit, you have the opportunity to play less. Chris then mentioned that adding Reese Wynans to the band starting with the next album “Soul To Soul” brought in a new voice and new influence. Chris said that Stevie was a different kind of guitarist when they first started playing together. When they became a trio “Something does have to happen, he brilliantly and like immediately incorporated that style that sounded like, like maybe we were a four-piece band.”
In 1984 MTV was a big part of the business of music. We did briefly turn our conversation to speak about that as well. Chris was clear, “I didn’t like the idea of the advent of MTV, music television. But I went, this is a necessary thing.” He did though express some gratitude that because the channel was 24/7 and there weren’t that many videos, they got played often.
As we turned things to cover the band’s trajectory, Chris told a story of meeting Huey Lewis in an elevator. Huey was a fan who ended up bringing Stevie and Double Trouble on his “Sports” tour as an opening act. They even began doing the encore together.
Looking back on the record from 40 years down the road Chris said, “We just played who we were.” My sincere thanks to Chris for taking the time to speak with me.
You can see the rest of the videos in the “On Fire At 40″ series here.
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