Stevie Ray Vaughan Soul To Soul on 180g 45RPM 2LP From Analogue Productions

The Best SRV Has Ever Sounded in Analog

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s myth making was already complete by the time that his third record in as many years was released in October 1985. But no one could have expected the artistic leaps and additional prowess the guitarist displays on Soul to Soul, a record on which Vaughan added a full-time keyboardist and saxophonist, and dug deep into his native state’s musical well for soul, R&B, and surf motifs.

While mindful of the blues’ capacity to mourn and ponder, Vaughan concentrates on turning every song into an occasion for hope, no matter the subject. He and Double Trouble—now complemented by keyboardist Reese Wynans and saxophonist Joe Sublett, the expansion indicative of the guitarist’s interest in jazz, R&B, and, true to the album’s title, soul—aim to soothe, treating each note as an extension of their own feelings.

Recorded at a time when the pop landscape became inundated with plastic synthesizers, mechanized beats, and robotic emotion, Soul to Soul brings music’s basic elements back home, exploring roots passages while taking Vaughan’s hallmark fusion down a road that travels from Dallas to Memphis to New Orleans and beyond.