Stevie Ray Vaughan

Fort Worth, Texas    Visited October 2013

 I grew up playing the guitar and loving great guitar playing.  But during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s I wasn’t listening to a lot of rock music.  About a decade or so ago I went back to listen to stuff from that era and I ran head-on into a tornado of Stratocaster blues named Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Listening to his music seemed to connect you with the limitless emotional possibilities of electric blues guitar.  Watching him play convinces you that the art of music performance flows from deep places in the soul.  I’ve wanted to do a pilgrimage to SRV’s place for a long time.  I made it last year.  Here’s the story.

Stevie Ray and Jimmy Lee

Stephen Ray Vaughan was born October 3, 1954 in Dallas Texas.  He was the second son of a WWII vet who probably suffered from PTSD.  It was an abusive environment to grow up in, and young Stephen’s life was hard.  At the age of seven he saw his older brother Jimmie Lee playing the guitar.  The instrument became a passion and escape.  By the age of 12 Stevie was playing in local Dallas cover bands.  His early exposure was to blues and rock music and his seminal musical influence was Jimi Hendrix.  As Vaughan would say later,

"I love Hendrix for so many reasons. He was so much more than just a blues guitarist–he played damn well any kind of guitar he wanted. In fact I'm not sure if he even played the guitar–he played music."

Teenage SRV

Stevie’s obsession with music was a major distraction from school.  Teachers attempted to work with his musical interest by offering formal music education.   But as a self-taught musician it just didn’t take.

“I took music theory for one year in high school and flunked all but one six-week period. That's because I couldn't read music, and the rest of the class was already eight or nine years into it. The teacher would sit down and hit a ten-fingered chord on the piano and you had to write all the notes down in about ten seconds. I just couldn't do it.”

Early Seventies Rocker Days

At 17 Vaughan dropped out of school to try to make a go of music and moved from Dallas to Austin.  In the early Seventies he played in a variety of cover and blues bands trying to find what fit his vision.  He developed a reputation as the hot new Texas blues player.   In 1977 he formed a blues band he called Triple Threat Review.  Two years and a couple of personnel changes later the band solidified as Steve Vaughan’s back-up band, rechristened Double Trouble.  With the change in the band name Vaughan also began to use his middle name as a musician. 

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble spent the next two years on the Texas bar circuit honing the blues-rock groove that became their hallmark.  In 1982 they got their first major gig outside Texas with an opportunity to play the Montreux Jazz Festival.  This was their breakout moment.  One reviewer who was there recounted SRV’s performance.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Montreux Jazz Festival 1982

"He seemed to come out of nowhere, a Zorro-type figure in a riverboat gambler's hat, roaring into the '82 Montreux festival with a '59 Stratocaster at his hip and two flame-throwing sidekicks he called Double Trouble. He had no album, no record contract, no name, but he reduced the stage to a pile of smoking cinders and, afterward, everyone wanted to know who he was.”

Early 80's

‘Everyone’ included two rock stars at the festival, David Bowie and Jackson Browne.  Each took an immediate interest in Vaughan.  Browne offered the band free recording time in his LA studio.  And Bowie signed up Steve as a featured player on his next album.  Another luminary in the audience at Montreux was John Hammond, the legendary music producer.  Shortly after the festival Hammond signed SRV and Double Trouble to a recording contract.  In early 1983 David Bowie’s album “Let’s Dance” came out with Vaughan playing on eight tunes.  The album became Bowie’s bestseller to date.  A few months later SRV’s first album, “Texas Flood” was released. 

Over the next few years Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble built a reputation as a powerhouse live act through incessant touring and recording.  However with the success came the downside of drugs and alcohol.  The downside bit Stevie Ray Vaughan hard.  By 1986 he was ingesting a quarter ounce of cocaine and a quart of whiskey daily.  Performances became erratic and on a tour in Germany the guitarist collapsed.  An emergency hospital stay and intensive rehab followed.  For Stevie Ray Vaughan, it worked.  As he reflected later, “I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn't death.” 

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Mid 80s'

By June 1989 a sober SRV and Double Trouble had rebounded and reached new heights as a band.  With the release of the album “In Step” the guitarist and his band had become both a critical and commercial success.  “In Step” went gold and won a Grammy for best blues album of the year.  Blues legend Bonnie Raitt summed up the rejuvenated power of a drug free Stevie Ray Vaughan,

“He lived and breathed his music like he'd never get out alive, but he did get out... and the way he played and grew after his sobriety took away the last excuse for us blues hounds to stop living that deal with the devil just to be real.”

In 1990 Stevie and his brother Jimmy Lee recorded for the first time together.  An album was to be released in the fall of the year.  In August of that year, the Double Trouble tour arrived in East Troy, Wisconsin.  During a show on August 26 Stevie Ray participated in a jam that included a who’s who of contemporary blues guitarists – Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and even Stevie’s brother Jimmy Lee.  It was to be Vaughan’s last performance.  Fortunately, video of that final jam on "Sweet Home Chicago"   has been preserved.   

Following the concert around 1:00 am on Aug.27, he jumped on a helicopter with some of Clapton’s crewmembers.  Shortly after take-off in foggy conditions the chopper crashed, killing all on board.  Stevie Ray Vaughan was 35 years old.  







Stevie Ray Vaughan was buried in his home town of Dallas following a memorial service that included many of the great musicians who had come to appreciate the gifts and art of the quiet and universally liked guitarist.  Among the notable reflections, maybe the words of Eric Clapton best capture the essence of the musician Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I don't think anyone has commanded my respect more, to this day. The first time I heard Stevie Ray, I thought, "Whoever this is, he is going to shake the world." I was in my car and I remember thinking, I have to find out, before the day is over, who that guitar player is. That doesn't happen to me very often, that I get that way about listening to music. I mean, about three or four times in my life I've felt that way, in a car, listening to the radio, where I've stopped the car, pulled over, listened, and thought, I've got to find out before the end of the day, not, you know, sooner or later, but I have to know NOW who that is…  and I remember being fascinated by the fact that he never, ever seemed to be...lost in any way...It was as though he never took a breather...or took a pause to think where he was gonna go next, it just flowed out of him. It's going to be a long time before anyone that brilliant will come along again.”

Just a few weeks after Stevie’s untimely death, his album with Jimmy Lee, “Family Style” was released.  The record was a commercial hit and ended up winning a Grammy.  Within just a few months after SRV’s death the new album and Stevie Ray’s back catalogue had sold 5.5 million records. To appreciate the brothers check out this video of them playing  "Pipeline" together on the same double-neck guitar.

Stevie Ray and Jimmy Lee Vaughan

The legacy of Stevie Ray Vaughan has grown since his untimely death.  Unlike most musicians who die prematurely, the artist who passed from the seen in 1990 was not a tragic figure.  He had won his battle with the excesses of rock and roll stardom and had brought the blues he loved to a wider audience.  Stevie Ray Vaughan is universally considered to be one of the top ten guitarists in rock music history.  

   The above are from the Hollywood Guitar Center Museum in Hollywood, CA, which I visited with my son in June 2013. Just above is a somewhat creepy plaque.  Over that are jackets and guitars used by SRV in performance.   

On a trip to Dallas for a conference I connected with a friend of mine, Steve Gonzalez, who had moved to Texas from the Philly area.  I had asked him if he minded if we tried to find Stevie Ray’s grave.  Little did I know that Steve is a huge SRV fan and he was all about the plan.  We found Laurel Land Memorial Park in a suburban area south of Fort Worth. 

Just a few months after this, in March 2014 I had the opportunity to be in Austin, where there is a great statue of SRV memorializing the artist in the town where he made his name.  

At SRV statue in Austin with SG church planting guys

I can't end this post without a few recommendations. Here are a personal top three videos of SRV at his best. 

• Perhaps Stevie's most well known composition,"Pride and Joy"  from the legendary 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival show that put him on the map as a guitarist.

• Here's a killer live version of SRV's cover of Stevie Wonder's Superstition, played on his famous guitar "Lenny".

• Given the acknowledged influence of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie's cover of my favorite Hendrix song,"Little Wing", has to be on my list.  I couldn't find a video with quality to do justice to the live recording on his greatest hits album, but this at least gives a feel for SRV's take on it.  

The beauty of the blues

Wyatt Earp

San Francisco, California    Visited June 2014

One of the interesting things about this hobby is that you learn how people wind up in places you never think they would.  Such is the case with the colorful and meandering life of western legend Wyatt Earp.  How did one of the great gunslingers of the Old West wind up buried in a Jewish Cemetery in San Francisco?

Wyatt and his mom

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born March 19 1848 in western Illinois to a farming family.  Wyatt’s father and brothers fought for the Union in the Civil War but Wyatt was too young to serve.  He tried to run away from home several times trying to enlist but was caught and sent back each time.  After the war the family moved to California where Earp began his rollicking career throughout the Old West.  By the age of 21, he had already done stints as a teamster, boxer, gambler and local lawman.  He was married in Missouri at 21 but his first wife died of a fever.  Shortly after this, he ran afoul of the law on various counts and struck out for the west, making his living along the way as a buffalo hunter and a lawman in Wichita and Dodge City. 

Wyatt Earp - Lawman

His wanderings eventually took him to Texas, where he gambled for a living.  It was at this time that he found himself surrounded by angry desperados – surviving the fight with the crucial help of John Henry (Doc) Holliday.   Eventually Wyatt’s brothers set on relocating to the new mining town of Tombstone, Arizona.  Wyatt and his common-law wife Mattie Blalock arrived in Tombstone along with Doc Holliday in November 1879.  His brother Virgil took up law enforcement in  the boomtown and Wyatt tried his hand at gambling and mining – ultimately settling in as a stagecoach guard.  

The Earp Brothers and Doc Holliday in the Tombstone days

Over the next two years, the Earps had several run-ins with local cowboys which  culminated in what has come to be known as the Gunfight at the OK Corral.  This  fight may be one of the most overblown events in American history.  It is usually depicted as an epic battle between a large gang of cowboys and an outnumbered quartet of dedicated lawmen.  What is true is that it occurred in Tombstone near to a fenced area known as the OK Corral – and it took place between the three Earps and Holliday and four members of the Clanton group.   




The two groups were about six feet apart when the shooting started.  About thirty shots were fired in the 30 seconds fight.  Three of the Clanton group were killed in the gunfight and Wyatt’s brothers were both wounded.  Wyatt was untouched.  They Earps were later cleared of murder charges because they had been temporarily deputized prior to the fight.  The Gunfight at the OK Corral was a minor historic footnote until dramatized and popularized by a 1931 Earp biography and subsequent movie depictions. 

For an interesting depiction of the gunfight check out this mashup of scenes from the 1993 movie "Tombstone" with Kurt Russell as Wyatt and the 1994 film "Wyatt Earp" with Kevin Costner in the title role:  Gunfight at the OK Corral 

 

Current photo of the losers of the Gunfight at the OK Coral

The gunfight didn’t end the Earps problems.  Further recriminations resulted in the assassination of Wyatt’s brother Morgan and Wyatt’s revenge killing of four cowboys).  Over the next several years Earp traversed the west, sometimes working for the law, sometimes running from it – to Kansas, Idaho, and El Paso before ultimately arriving in San Diego, CA during a real estate boom in 1887.  Earp purchased a number of properties which were turned into houses of gambling and ill repute. 

In the early 1890’s Wyatt moved with his third wife Josephine to San Francisco where he got involved in horse track racing and boxing.  He left San Fran for Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush in 1903 and a couple of years later he followed gold fever to Nevada for the gold rush there.  At the age of 62 Earp moved to Los Angeles where he worked in a vague law enforcement role – essentially doing things that were illegal for the police to do.  By the 1920’s he had moved to Hollywood where he consulted on silent westerns. 

Wyatt in 1928 - about a year before he died

Eventually Wyatt and Josephine moved up to San Francisco where he lived out his final years in relative peace.  On January 13, 1929 Wyatt Earp died of cancer at the age of eighty years.  His funeral was a social event and two of his pallbearers were famous western film stars – William S. Hart and Tom Mix.  Josephine, who was Jewish, had Wyatt cremated and buried in Hills of Eternity – the Jewish cemetery in the Colma community just south of San Francisco.  Remarkably, in all his gunfights Wyatt Earp never suffered a gunshot wound.

Famous lawman Bat Masterson, a friend, described Wyatt Earp this way:

Wyatt with his friend and fellow western legend Bat Masterson

Wyatt Earp was one of the few men I personally knew in the West in the early days whom I regarded as absolutely destitute of physical fear. I have often remarked, and I am not alone in my conclusions, that what goes for courage in a man is generally fear of what others will think of him – in other words, personal bravery is largely made up of self-respect, egotism, and apprehension of the opinions of others. Wyatt Earp's daring and apparent recklessness in time of danger is wholly characteristic; personal fear doesn't enter into the equation, and when everything is said and done, I believe he values his own opinion of himself more than that of others, and it is his own good report he seeks to preserve.

I visited Wyatt Earp’s grave on my trip with my son Grant to California in June 2013.  While it’s kind of odd to see the western script on his grave marker it is probably apropos for a man whose legend was made in Tombstone. 

William Wilberforce

London, England     Visited November 1997

It is a privilege to post a blog on one of my heroes.  William Wilberforce – a man of humanitarian commitment, of political good, of resolute character and, most of all, of true Christian faith in all of life. 

Young Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 to an upper middle class family of Yorkshire, England.  With the early death of his father, young William was sent to London to live with relatives.  However, the relatives turned out to be evangelical Christians, which unnerved his mother and caused her to bring William back home until college.  Wilberforce attended Cambridge where he was a popular but somewhat indifferent student.  However, it was at Cambridge where he met William Pitt, son of the great Prime Minister and his future advocate and friend. 

Wilberforce boyhood home in Hull

Pitt persuaded William to run for Parliament, which he did upon graduation from University.  Wilberforce was elected to the seat from Hull in 1780 at the age of 21.  In his initial years in Parliament he was known for his oratory skills but not much else.  He primarily saw his position as a means of personal advancement and was a popular but largely irrelevant MP. 

In 1784, while on a grand tour of Europe he engaged in conversations with his traveling companions, who were evangelical Christians.  Somewhere on this trip Wilberforce was confronted with the wastefulness of his life in light of the claims of Christ and he believed the Gospel for salvation.  I was looking for a description of Wilberforce’s conversion and couldn’t find anything compelling.  However, that problem was solved earlier today, March 29, 2014 at the 2014 Verge Conference in Austin, Texas.  I was attending the last session of the conference and the speaker Bryan Lorritts unpacked the life and significance of the life of William Wilberforce in the cause of social justice.  I took some video where Lorritts beautifully describes Wilberforce’s encounter with “the train wreck of the Gospel".

Returning to England, William found himself in a dilemma of conscience.  He wanted to dedicate himself to the cause of Christ and began to wrestle with a call to the ministry.  It was around this time that he rekindled an old relationship with John Newton, who was pastoring in London at the time.  On December 7 1785 he met with the renowned pastor to seek his counsel.  Much to the young man’s surprise, Pastor Newton encouraged him to see his calling in the political arena.  Newton’s recollection of the meeting is recounted in a letter to William Cowper:   

We had much conversation.  I judge he is now decidedly on the right track.  His abilities are undoubtedly very considerable, and his situation and connections are likely to afford him ample scope for usefulness in public life.  I hope the Lord will make him a blessing, both as a Christian and as a statesman.  How seldom do these characters coincide!  But they are not incompatible. 

Wilberforce early years in Parliament

Wilberforce returned to Parliament committed to perform his duties in concert with his Christian values, giving political attention to a range of England’s social ills.  He also connected with a group of upper class Christians in London who formed a missional community that became known as the Clapham Sect.  It was through these relationships that William became sensitized to the evils of the slave trade.  While slaves were little seen in England, the Empire was expanding largely on the economic benefits of slave trading.  But as he became more and more aware of the horrors of the trade Wilberforce took this cause as the passion of his life and career.  




As he said, 

"So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."

 

Wilberforce in his prime

The story of Wilberforce’s herculean fight against the economic and political establishment to abolish the slave trade began in 1787 when Pitt asked him to head the parliamentary fight in the cause.  The young and still popular MP threw himself into the task confident in quick success.  It wasn’t to be.  By 1789 he had introduced twelve resolutions on the slave trade.  All were defeated by technical maneuvering without coming to a vote.  Over the next fifteen years he introduced eight bills, only to have each of them defeated; and each time it seemed more and more unlikely that he wouldn’t see victory in his greatest cause.  

A satirical cartoon depicting what opponents of abolition said would happen in British society under Wilberforce

Barbara Spooner Wilberforce

In these years William suffered also from a number of ailments (likely including ulcerative colitis).  He resorted to the use of opium, which at the time was considered a wonder-medicine with little understanding of its addictive strength.  Tireless work on abolition interspersed with debilitating seasons of illness left little room in his life for consideration of marriage and family.  But in 1797, at the age of 38, he met twenty-year-old Barbara Spooner and soon married.  The marriage was lasting and deeply loving and ultimately resulted in a family of six children being born over the next ten years.

  

With the death of his lifelong friend William Pitt in 1806, Wilberforce renewed his efforts to rid the nation of slave trading with a new tactic.  Rather than attacking the trade directly he worked through the political maneuvering that had so long thwarted his efforts to limit the trade.  Capitalizing an already existing law involving trade with the French, he was able to get a bill passed that had the indirect effect of making about 75% of the economics of the trade against the law.  With the axe laid to the root, Parliament took rallied around the moral issue over the next year and the abolition of the slave trade was finally passed in England in 1807.  

The fight for abolition was movingly portrayed in the 2007 film "Amazing Grace".  Here is the  trailer for the film.

While a significant victory for justice, abolition did not end slavery in England.  Wilberforce spent the remainder of his life working to end slavery in the British Empire, as well as on other justice and morality causes.  He also worked through his office and contacts to advance the cause of Christian mission in England and all her colonies.  William’s health continued to deteriorate in the first decades of the 1800s.  By 1830 he was a powerful symbolic figure and writer for abolition but too frail of health to actively campaign.  Finally, on July 26, 1833 government concessions guaranteed the passage of the Bill to Abolish the Slave Trade. With the vote on the bill a month later 800,000 slaves throughout the world were legally freed from bondage.  Three days later, on July 29, 1833, William Wilberforce’s fight was over and he passed into glory.  

Unfinished portrait 1828

William Wilberforce had requested to be buried at his sister’s home but Parliament prevailed upon his  to have him buried with high honor at Westminster Abbey.  He was laid to rest near his friend William Pitt.

Queen Elizabeth at Wilberforce tomb - Westminster Abbey

I visited Westminster Abbey two times in the nineties – one time with my brother and a later time with guys from my pastoral team.  Neither time was I able to take pictures.  I’ll be back. 

           

Your blogger at Westminster Abbey

James Monroe

Richmond, VA          Visited September 1998

James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States and the last of the Founding Fathers to ascend to the nation’s highest office.  Revolutionary War veteran, Founding Father, senator, governor, diplomat, Secretary of State – there may have been no president in history better qualified to occupy the nation’s highest office.  

James Monroe was born into a wealthy Virginia plantation family in 1758.  His parents died when he was in his teens and he wound up enrolling at the College of William and Mary in 1774.  Williamsburg was a hotbed for revolutionary sentiment and Monroe found himself caught up in it.  James and some friends raided the Governor’s Palace and stole a cache of muskets and swords to the fledgling Virginia Militia.

"Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutze - James Monroe is holding the flag.

 With the outbreak of the war James Monroe enlisted in the Continental Army, soon joining George Washington’s army in New York.  He proved himself an able soldier and was severely wounded leading a charge on a cannon in the Battle of Trenton (December 26, 1776).  Following his recovery Monroe was promoted to major, and he later served as a colonel in the Virginia Militia through the end of the war. 
  

James Monroe had developed a relationship with Thomas Jefferson during the war and after Independence joined Jefferson’s law practice.  He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1783.  During the Congress, he met his future wife Elizabeth and, a year later the 27-year-old James and the 17-year-old Elizabeth were married.  The couple moved to Fredericksburg, VA where James set up a law practice.  The Monroe’s ultimately had three children.

Inauguration of James Monroe

In 1788, Monroe was named as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.  He voted against ratification because the document lacked a Bill of Rights, which was, of course, later added.  He was appointed to the US Senate from Virginia, but in 1794 was sent by President Washington as Minister to France, only to be recalled in 1797.  He served three years as Governor of Virginia and then, in 1803, was sent back to France by President Jefferson to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase.  He later served as minister to England, returning to the States to run for president in the 1808 election.  He was easily defeated by James Madison, but was later asked by Madison to serve as secretary of state.  Monroe held this office during the War of 1812 and organized the evacuation of Washington prior to the British attack on the city.  After two terms, Madison declined to run again for the presidency and Monroe easily won election in 1816.

 

Official White House portrait by Samuel Morse

James Monroe entered the presidency at the time of greatest national stability and prosperity of any president up that time.  He was universally popular and, because of significant travel, was remarkably well known throughout the country.  The major event in his first term was the complicated political and constitutional arrangement that became known as the Missouri Compromise.  The Compromise was an attempt to resolve the first sectional dispute over slavery since the Constitution was ratified.  It was in essence a trade-off of the admission of Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state with an agreement to keep free/slave state balances in the years to come.  In the long term, the compromise didn’t resolve the slavery issue.  It took the Civil War to do that.    

James apparently selling his Monroe Doctrine

James Monroe has the distinction of being the only president to run un-opposed for the office (due to the lack of an organized opposition party) and he won what amounts to a second term by acclamation in 1820.  The biggest event of Monroe’s second term became known as the Monroe Doctrine.  Concerned with the threat of European countries (including Russia) re-colonizing the Western Hemisphere, President Monroe used his 1823 Congressional Address to declare that the United States would consider any invasive action by a European Power in the Western Hemisphere to be an attack on American interests.  The US government had no real means to enforce the doctrine, but it happened to coincide with British interests and the British Navy served as the practical enforcement agents of the policy.

A history of Monroe's presidency.  Also check out a Disney version of Monroe's life  here

Portrait of the President in retirement

Like his predecessors, James Monroe declined the opportunity to run for a third term as president.  He left office in 1824 with significant personal debt and retired to his home of Oak Hill, VA.  His wife Elizabeth passed away in 1830 and James moved to New York City to live with his children.  His health did not sustain and, on July 4, 1831, he died in New York at the age of 73.  James Monroe is the third of the first five presidents to die on Independence Day.  He was initially buried in New York City, but was later moved to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA. 

 

Gilbert Stuart Portrait of Second Term Presidency

James Monroe is usually ranked in the top ten presidents by those who do those sorts of things.  His presidency in many ways signaled the end of the colonial era of American history.  He was by all accounts a bright and capable leader who built consensus and worked often with the opposition in the pursuit of what he felt would be the national interest.  His mentor Thomas Jefferson said of his protégé,

'Monroe was so honest that if you turned his soul inside out there would not be a spot on it.'

 

I visited Hollywood Cemetery with my family as part of a two-day trip to Richmond on our way to a beach holiday.  I didn’t even know Monroe was buried in the Cemetery when I went.  I just saw an unusual wrought-iron crypt as I was driving through the cemetery and checked it out.  Hollywood Cemetery is a must see for anyone interested in Civil War history in the Richmond area.