Stevie Ray Vaughan
The Fire Meets the Fury
(Smokin’)

As one of the lucky few who had a chance to see blues guitar master Stevie Ray Vaughn play live, I can tell you firsthand it is an awesome experience. The new live album, The Fire Meets the Fury, taken from his 1989 tour with Jeff Beck (who doesn’t appear on the album), gives a good sense of exactly why.  The 11 tracks include amazing versions of Vaughn’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” as well as “Tightrope,” “Texas Flood,” and a climatic encore of Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.”

The songs have been floating around as bootlegs for a number of years, however this audio is improved, even though it’s still not terrific. It’s really the spirit and playing though that steal the show on the album.  Recorded just a year before Vaughn’s tragic death, the album has an almost prophetic exchange as Stevie thanks God that he’s lucky enough to be there that day in the passionate, almost 13-minute rendition of “Life Without You,” which was written about the loss of his good friend Charley Wirz.  The album also has great versions of classics like “Cold Shot” and the upbeat intro “The House Is Rockin,” so it’s a no-brainer for any Stevie Ray or blues guitar fans.