Customer Reviews

Strange Pleasure

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This CD, and the tour that resulted from it, took me by surprise.
Jimmie Vaughan's band is amazingly tight, his vocals are much better than expected. The songs are from a far better musical era. They are reminiscent of something that came from Memphis in the 60's. He uses no bass player. The organist uses bass pedals to round out the bottom of the sound. Austin guitar legend Denny Freeman plays both rhythm guitar & piano and is equally deft at either instrument. The doo wop singers he brought out on tour (after they blew him away in the studio)were a great compliment to his sound. I loved this CD. A tip for guitar players trying to cop his sound: Many people have written in articles that he has gone to an open tuning, with a capo. I was able to talk with him and found that he tunes conventionally, but uses the capo on the proper fret for the key of the song he is playing. This allows him to pull off the strings from any position to get a note which is in key with the song. It is like playing every song in the key of E. This makes his sliding/pulloff licks work. He was not using an open tuning as many people believe. Anyway, buy the CD and good luck playing his chops. Remember, SRV looked up to him. That is a reccomendation.

This is Jimmie Vaughan's first solo record, and it was released four years after brother Stevie's tragic death. Here he gives us a great slab of electric blues. Of course, his laid-back jam-back-at-the-house kind of a feel is much different than Stevie's impassioned, lets-go-kick-ass style. However, Jimmie and Stevie are similar in the fact that they both make music that goes down nice and easy. Even when Stevie plays a loud, piercing solo it still is so fluid and so perfectly played that it is easy on the ears. I like so call this the "Vaughan sound". Just very Texas blues. Jimmie also has that instantly recognizable tone. Everyone knows who it is when they hear it. Okay, now back to the record. Jimmie plays superbly on this cd. He rocks it up with Boom-Bapa-Boom, which was featured in Major League II, Don't Cha Know, and Hey Yeah. He also slows it down a little bit with songs like Sweet Soul Vibe. And then there is the highlight of the disc, Six Strings Down, his tribute to Stevie. With just an accoustic guitar and a couple of backup singers, he gives the best tribute to Stevie that anyone could. The first time I heard it, I cried. Because you could tell from listening to him that he was dealing with the pain very well but he still was hurting inside. This is one of the best blues songs ever put to tape.

Overall, this is Jimmie's best cd so far. I don't personally think he will ever take over the world with his music, because he doesn't draw attention to himself. But that doesn't stop him. He is as big a legend to me as Stevie is. Not just because he is Stevie's brother, but because he is a fantastic guitar player, and one of the most underrated guitar players of all-time. It's a damn shame. And another thing, Jimmie is also a great singer for the music he does. He hardly gets any credit for that, so I am giving him that now. I am glad that Stevie got you to sing on Family Style, for that was the start of something great. Stevie is my all-time favorite, but if anyone says that Jimmie isn't very good, they should be shot. Rock on, JLV!

Fans of Jimmie Vaughan's razor sharp blues playing with the Fabulous Thunderbirds will be somewhat puzzled by his post Thunderbirds departures on Strange Pleasure. Here Vaughan's post-modern twist on blues seems to rely less on adherence to form and more on capturing an almost intangible blues "feel". Vaughan's chunky, economical guitar playing has become much more unpredictable, riskier, even abstract. The band seems to kick out funky grooves with such understated cool that some critics, apparently Emaps Phil Sutcliff among them, seem to miss the point entirely: the album is an exercise in stripped down, sympathetic, give and take ensemble work (dig that Hammond B3!), layered with well-designed parts and rock-solid architecture that simmers beneath a laid back surface. But Strange Pleasure goes beyond craft. Every song on the album seems to have a sense of not-quite-right weirdness, seems to be hiding something subversive just out of sight. Ever wonder how David Lynch might have turned out had he played the guitar? Here is my best guess.

Jimmie Vaughan is great, period. Forget any negative comparisons to brother Stevie, Jimmie's first solo album is the polar opposite of Stevie's fire and brimstone blues style. Soulfull, laid back, funny and fun, thats it, yeah.. Jimmie eschews any of his Fabulous Thunderbirds guitarisms and finds warm, mellow grooves to make his own. Boom Bapa Boom and Don't Cha Know have that Jimmy Reed medium shuffle he uses so much, but are infused with much more humaness and warmth than on any T-Birds album. Jimmie's average-man-on-the-streets kind of voice and his off-kilter lyrical style take the listener on a trip to some exotic but somehow familar place. Is it possible to be happy and have the blues at the same time? Maybe the answer is in Don't Cha Know. Two Wings is a quirky blueprint of the happy/sad perspective Jimmie brings. Somehow a little more than just melancholy... The title track, Strange Pleasure, is an all too short acoustic blues instrumental with a hauntingly abstract quality...a lonely city street on a rainy night...by Kandinsky? Tilt a Whirl is another pleasant instrumental in a lounge jazz kind of vein. Jimmie's homage to lost brother Stevie is but one of the heartfelt songs on this release. "Three blind boys" backup singers (a J. Vaughan quote), Hammond B3 organ, Flamenco guitars and Jimmie's telepathic blues guitar add up to....picture a New York Tiki lounge on blues night in 1965...maybe I ramble. Pick this CD up and transport yourself.

On a trip through Dallas in 1994, my friend dragged me to his Sound Warehouse (remembre them?)store to meet Jimmy Vaughn, who was promoting his new disc, Strange Pleasures...as we waited to greet him, I thought about his work with the T-Birds, and believed him to be a competant musician...turns out I knew very little about Jimmy.He signed the disc, shook my hand and was very pleasant. It has been seven years since and it's the only disc that never becomes tiresome. I hear something different every time, from the instrumentation to the vocals, sometimes the music just conjures up different images in my mind--a west Texas landscape, a small town in the Mississippi Delta, etc....THIS DISCS MOVES AND GROOVES...it is flat out my favorite CD in my collection. Music doesn't get any more enjoyable than this

THIS ALBUM SMOKES. ENOUGH SAID. FROM THE MOTOWN SOUNDING 'HEY (YEAH)' TO 'PUTTY IN YOUR HANDS,' THIS ALBUM IS 100% ENJOYMENT. I CAN NOT GET ENOUGH OF IT. IF IT'S NOT IN THE PLAYER AT HOME, IT'S IN THE CAR. YOU CAN SIT BACK AND RELAX WITH IT, OR YOU CAN PUSH THE PEDAL TO THE FLOOR AND PASS EVERYONE. I CRIED WHEN I READ ALONG TO 'SIX STRINGS DOWN.' TOUGH TO SAY WHAT THE BEST SONG IS, SINCE THEY'RE ALL GOOD. I'D HAVE TO GO WITH EITHER 'DON'T CHA KNOW' OR TILT-A-WHIRL. SIMPLY PUT, BUY IT!!!!!!

When I heard Jimmie Vaughan was releasing a solo album I couldn't wait. He could finaly play the blues the way it was meant to be played, from his heart and soul and his only, and what a solo debut it is. I could listen to every single and never get bored, which is very rare these days. From the bouncy Boom-Bapa-Boom to the somber Six Strings Down (A tribute to little brother Stevie Ray) this is excellent music for people who enjoy real music. If you get a chance to see Jimmie live, you're in for a treat. He's electrifying on stage and a true gentleman off the stage as well. Thanks for sharing this music with us Jimmie.

Admittedly I am a hardcore blues fan, but this album is unexpectedly stunning.... it evokes a sound that is long in the past that the soul of the blues lover longs for... if 10 stars were available, I would gladly give it!

I had the strange pleasure to see Jimmie perform in a small venue in '94 and to meet him afterward. This is a wonderful album; my favourite song has got to be "Love The World". Jimmie, you speak my language.

From the rock- a-billy sound of Boom-Bopa-Boom to the soul touching mood of Sweet Soul Vibe it is a total enjoyment. Six Strings Down is Jimmies tribute to Stevie and touches the heart. Very good. Buy it.