Jimmie Vaughan, the Texas blues guitarist whose tough and lean approach helped bring roadhouse blues and R&B to a wider national audience in the later decades of the twentieth century, first gained prominence as co-leader of the Fabulous Thunderbirds alongside vocalist Kim Wilson from 1979 through 1987. In 1990 he teamed with his younger brother Stevie Ray Vaughan for the album Family Style, then stepped out on his own with Strange Pleasure in 1994. Subsequent releases included Out There in 1998 and the era’s strongest seller, Do You Get the Blues?, in 2001. He joined Omar Kent Dykes for On the Jimmy Reed Highway in 2007 and Lazy Lester for Blues Stop Knockin’ two years later. The best-selling Plays Blues, Ballads & Favorites arrived in 2010, followed by Plays More Blues, Ballads and Favorites, which also credited singer Lou Ann Barton. Vaughan resurfaced in 2019 with the hit album Baby Please Come Home, and Last Music Co. marked his seventieth birthday in 2021 by issuing the multi-disc box set The Jimmie Vaughan Story.
Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Vaughan first picked up the guitar while still a boy and absorbed influences from both blues and rock & roll. During his teenage years he performed in several garage-rock outfits that never broke through. At nineteen he relocated to Austin, where he spent his initial years working in a succession of local blues-bar bands. In 1972 he assembled his own unit, the Storm, which backed numerous touring blues artists.
The following year Vaughan encountered vocalist and harmonica player Kim Wilson. Within twelve months the two had launched the Fabulous Thunderbirds, adding bassist Keith Furguson and drummer Mike Buck. For the next four years the group worked Texas clubs and built a loyal following. By the close of the decade the T-Birds had landed a major-label deal with Chrysalis Records and appeared poised for broader success, yet none of their early albums charted and the label dropped them at the end of 1982.
While the Thunderbirds searched for a new contract, Stevie Ray Vaughan exploded onto the national stage with his debut Texas Flood. In the ensuing years Stevie Ray dominated not only the Texas blues circuit but the larger American music scene, leaving Jimmie and the band fighting for traction. The T-Birds finally secured a fresh major-label agreement in 1986 with Epic/Associated; their first release for the imprint, Tuff Enuff, became an unexpected smash, moving more than a million copies and yielding a Top Ten title track.
Throughout the remainder of the eighties the Fabulous Thunderbirds attempted to recapture that momentum, often steering toward smoother, more commercial sounds. By 1989 Jimmie had grown dissatisfied with the group’s direction and departed. Prior to beginning a solo career he recorded the duet album Family Style with Stevie Ray. Shortly after the sessions ended, Stevie Ray died in a helicopter crash in August 1990; Family Style reached stores a few months later that fall.
In the wake of his brother’s death, Jimmie stepped away from music for a couple of years. After occasional live appearances he returned in 1994 with his solo debut, Strange Pleasure, which earned favorable notices and solid sales. He toured the country in support of the album, then issued Out There in 1998. Released in 2010, Plays Blues, Ballads & Favorites presented Vaughan interpreting material by Jimmy Reed, Little Richard, Roy Milton, Roscoe Gordon, and other formative inspirations. The companion collection Plays More Blues, Ballads & Favorites appeared the next year. Over the following eight years he concentrated on live performances and session work. Alongside Billy Gibbons and Charlie Sexton, he played a key role in persuading guitarist and songwriter Sue Foley to return to Austin from Canada; the three collaborated onstage and contributed to her widely praised 2018 album The Ice Queen.
Vaughan had quietly amassed a collection of blues and R&B demo recordings. Those efforts surfaced in mid-2019 as Baby Please Come Home, a Grammy-nominated set of classic covers drawn from the catalogs of Lloyd Price, Jimmy Donley, Lefty Frizzell, Richard Berry, Chuck Willis, Bill Doggett, T-Bone Walker, Etta James, Fats Domino, Gatemouth Brown, and Jimmy Reed. The sessions took place live on the floor of a San Marcos studio under producer Mike Flanigin, featuring Vaughan’s longtime musical circle along with guest vocalists Georgia Bramhall and Emily Gimble.
To celebrate his seventieth birthday, Last Music Co. issued The Jimmie Vaughan Story, a large-format 12-by-12-inch box containing five CDs of archival recordings (including twenty-nine previously unreleased tracks), a 12-inch vinyl pressing of Do You Get the Blues?, two 7-inch singles, and a hardcover book that includes an autobiography, numerous rare photographs, and a special edition of Rodder’s Journal whose cover highlighted the guitarist and his car collection.
