Stevie Ray Vaughan Couldn’t Stand The Weather on 180g 45RPM 2LP From Analogue Productions

The Best SRV Has Ever Sounded in Analog

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather blows with gale-force intensity, moves everything in its path, and contains beautiful moments of calm at its center. Caught up in the momentum gained from his brilliant debut, the guitar slinger comes on with a startling degree of authority, confidence, and swagger that hadn’t been witnessed in the blues realm in decades.

Here, in the form of the jaw-dropping version of “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return),” is Vaughan’s touching acknowledgment of Jimi Hendrix’s looming influence. And in the hopping instrumental “Scuttle Buttin’,” there’s a lingering taste of the guitarist’s playful personality and pyrotechnic skill. Brother Jimmie Vaughan assists on the title track, redolent with the slinky rhythms gleaned from rural Texas bluesman and down-home attitudes.

As he did on Texas Flood, Vaughan closes out the record in high style, bringing the concoction of smoldering blues, sultry shuffles, and jukejoint boogies to a simmer with the instrumental “Stang’s Swang”—dedicated to jazz great Grant Green and punctuated with Stan Harrison’s fiery tenor saxophone lines. Gutsy, gritty, and ceaselessly original, Couldn’t Stand the Weather served further notice that Vaughan was here to stay and demanded to be heard. The double platinum sales figures and Grammy nominations were additional confirmation of that fact.