Rememberin' Stevie

Album: Damn Right, I've Got The Blues (1991)
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Songfacts®:

  • This instrumental is Buddy Guy's tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in a helicopter crash a year earlier. Vaughan was 20 years younger and heavily influenced by Buddy Guy, but in the '80s Stevie was a lot more popular, part of a wave of blues guitarists that were crossing over to white audience. Vaughan, like his friend Eric Clapton, took every opportunity to champion Buddy Guy, which helped earn him a record deal after nearly a decade without one. Guy's first album under this deal was Damn Right, I've Got The Blues, which includes "Rememberin' Stevie." The album was very well received and won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
  • In his autobiography When I Left Home, Buddy Guy tells this song's origin story. He wanted to honor Stevie Ray Vaughan with a song, and first considered covering one of his songs, then decided to write his own. He tried coming up with a lyric to express how he felt, but the words didn't come. So Buddy went in the studio, had the engineer turn off the lights, and started playing. When his producer, John Porter, asked what he was doing, Guy said, "Rememberin' Stevie." That became the title of the song.
  • Buddy Guy was on stage with Stevie Ray Vaughan when he played his last licks. It happened at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin on August 26, 1990. Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughan were opening for Eric Clapton and, at the end of the night, they all took the stage along with Stevie's brother Jimmie Vaughan and Buddy Guy to jam on the song "Sweet Home Chicago." They took helicopters after the show to Chicago, but Stevie's crashed, killing him at 35.

    The night of the concert, Stevie Ray Vaughan told Guy they needed to make music together, and Buddy was looking forward to it. "'Rememberin' Stevie,' I thought that if it did happen, it was gonna happen in blues heaven," Guy wrote. "I pictured the band - Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Fred Below, Little Walter, Stevie Ray Vaughan. That's a band worth dying for."

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