Pride and Joy of Austin, Texas: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s Debut Expanded for Legacy Edition

Double Trouble is getting double-sized from Legacy Recordings and Epic Records.

1983’s Texas Flood, the debut album of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, is turning 30 in 2013, and Legacy is celebrating with a two-disc 30th anniversary edition of the classic LP.  Due on January 29, the 2-CD set will include one bonus track appended to the original album, and an entire second disc of unreleased live material.

The late Vaughan, who tragically perished in a 1990 helicopter crash, made his reputation on the Texas club scene in the 1970s as one of the most exciting and innovative guitarists around.    Younger brother of another blues great, Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray played in The Nightcrawlers with Leon Russell’s onetime musical partner Marc Benno and famed Austin singer/songwriter Doyle Bramhall, and joined Denny Freeman in The Cobras.  But it was the Triple Threat Revue that morphed into Double Trouble, the unit with which Vaughan would set off a blues revival in, of all decades, the 1980s.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble – Stevie Ray (guitar, vocals), Tommy Shannon (bass) and Chris “Whipper” Layton (drums) – caught the ear of David Bowie at the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival, and the ever-astute artist enlisted the blazing guitarist for his hit Let’s Dance album.  Jackson Browne was similarly impressed and offered the band use of his Los Angeles recording studio, leading to the recordings which found their way to a man who knew a little about the blues: John Hammond, Sr.  The elder Hammond played a major role in the careers of artists from Benny Goodman and Count Basie to Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan, and he brought the Texas trio to Epic Records.  The recordings were remixed and remastered, and Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble were off and running.

Executive produced by Hammond, Epic’sTexas Flood album was produced by the band with engineer Richard Mullen.  With both originals (hit single “Pride and Joy,” “Love Struck Baby”) and covers (The Isley Brothers’ “Testify,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Tell Me”), Texas Flood caught on with record buyers.  “Pride and Joy” reached No. 20 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and the album made it all the way to No. 38 on the Billboard 200.  Grammy nominations soon arrived, too, for the album’s title track and “Rude Mood.”

What will you find on the upcoming release?  Hit the jump!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Ace Compiles Otis Redding Songbook, Louisiana R&B and King’s Northern Soul

Ace Records has long been, well, aces where soul music is concerned.  Three recent releases have arrived courtesy of the Ace and Kent labels, and connoisseurs, collectors and casual fans alike will all find plenty to enjoy on these incendiary new compilations.

The rich recorded legacy of black artists has been a cornerstone of the Kent soul and R&B library.  Kent launched a “Black America Sings…” series with titles dedicated to the Lennon and McCartney and Bob Dylan songbooks, a sort of companion to the label’s Songwriters and Producers series.  With a new installment, Kent turns its attention to another singer/songwriter: Otis Redding.  Hard to Handle: Black America Sings Otis Redding brings together 25 sides of simmering soul, with every track written or co-written by the late Redding.  Naturally, the most famous recording of Redding’s most famous song is here: Aretha Franklin’s 1967 “Respect.”  The song earned both Franklin and Redding their first pop chart-topper and remains a cornerstone of the pop and soul songbooks today.  Not far behind is “(Sittin’ on the) Dock of the Bay,” a posthumous success for Redding following his untimely death in a December 1968 plane crash, and heard here via the Staple Singers in a Stax recording produced by the song’s co-writer Steve Cropper.  James Carr takes on another iconic Redding composition, “I Can’t Turn You Loose,” in a 1977 recording for Goldwax, and William Bell offers “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)” in a 1967 Stax rendition.  You’ll also hear performances from soul royalty like Judy Clay, Maxine Brown, Irma Thomas, Percy Sledge, Arthur Conley, and Lou Rawls, and Kent has gone the extra mile (as usual!) with the inclusion of three previously unreleased tracks: Mitty Collier’s “I’m Missing You,” as recorded for Chess, Conley’s “A Year, A Month and a Day” from the Atco vaults, and Take 2 of Redding’s own Volt recording of “Loving By the Pound.”  Otis Redding is well remembered today for his scorching soul vocals, but Hard to Handle is a reminder of the man’s titanic gifts as a songwriter whose compositions were supremely adaptable in the pop, soul, funk and R&B idioms.  Indeed, some songs here were never recorded by Otis, so here’s a chance that shouldn’t be passed up to check them all out.

Another long-running series is continued with the third volume of King Northern Soul.  Volume Two arrived in 2001, but producer Ady Croasdell has located another 24 rare tracks from the vaults of the company that James Brown called home.  These tracks date from 1962-1973 and feature some of King’s brightest performers along with those on associated labels DeLuxe, Federal and Hollywood.  Naturally, Brown and his associated acts are represented in various capacities on the 24-track disc; JB co-wrote Charles Spurling’s “That’s My Zone (He’s Pickin’ On),” and The Brownettes’ “Baby, Don’t You Know.”  Marva Whitney is heard on Hank Ballard’s “Unwind Yourself,” and Ballard himself is represented with Rudy (“Good Lovin’”) Clark’s “I’m Just a Fool (and Everybody Knows)” produced by Steve Venet for Screen Gems but released on King!  Stax favorite “Packy” Axton appears via L.H. and the Memphis Sounds’ “Out of Control,” the Memphis Sounds being Packy’s group and L.H. being one L.H. White.  Billy Cox, of Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys, accompanies Hal Hardy on 1967’s “House of Broken Hearts.”  These funky and incredibly rare Northern Soul floor-fillers have been annotated by Croasdell for this volume, which will surely leave you wanting more!

After the jump: we go Boppin’ by the Bayou, and have track listings and order links for all three titles!

Cyber Monday Deal Week is Here: Your Music Deals Calendar and Daily Pick!

Every day from Monday November 19 through Saturday December 1, Amazon.com is offering a variety of deals that steeply slash the prices on many releases we’ve featured right here at The Second Disc.  Every morning during this period, we’ll spotlight one of those deals, but you can click on the banner above NOW through December 1 to access the complete Cyber Monday Music Deals Calendar!  Keep checking back as deals are updated often.  Remember: any time you purchase something from Amazon after clicking from our links, a portion of the sale helps us here at The Second Disc!  As always, thanks for your support!

TODAY’S PICK:

For our last day of Cyber Monday week deals, let’s close out with two great deals going on at the same time: on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. PST, you can order the latter two of Rush’s Sector box sets. Featuring new stereo remasters of 10 out of 15 of Rush’s Mercury albums (that’s everything from 1977’s A Farewell to Kings to 1987’s Hold Your Fire), each box also features a 5.1 surround mix on DVD-Audio of one of the band’s classic albums (A Farewell to Kings getting the treatment in Sector 2 and Signals (1982) in Sector 3). At $25.49 apiece for two boxes of 10 albums, it’s a heck of a way to cap your week of savings!