A new Fabulous Thunderbirds box set is bursting with powerful stuff by Jimmie Vaughan & Co. – including an entire unreleased album from 1978. Here, Vaughan talks T-Birds and Strats and Fender amps, and tells us what flips his switch
Jimmie Vaughan is still kicking at 74, but he’s endured a few setbacks along the way, mostly in the form of three recent heart attacks. After the third of these – which happened in 2022 – the Texas blues guitar slinger underwent successful quadruple bypass surgery.
Two years later, Vaughan was diagnosed with “a curable form of cancer.” But this also seems to be at bay, as he just wrapped a rippin’ tour beside fellow guitar legend Bonnie Raitt.
“I’m feeling great,” Vaughan tells GW when asked about his health. “I just did a tour with Bonnie – 30-something shows – and I went to Europe before that. We had a great time.”
Meanwhile, Vaughan is preparing to revisit his iconic – and undeniably influential – days with his old band, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, via a new box set, The Jimmie Vaughan Years: Studio Records 1978-1989.
“I’m really proud of the Thunderbirds and my participation with them,” Vaughan says. “And the new box set has the Doc Pomus recordings from before we signed with Takoma Records; nobody has ever heard those. And there’s also all the stuff on Takoma, like Girls Go Wild, What’s the Word, T-Bird Rhythm, Butt Rockin’, Tuff Enuff, Hot Number and Powerful Stuff. So there you go!”
Vaughan has come a long way since his Fab T-Birds days, dropping nearly a dozen solo offerings, which netted him four Grammys and one Blues Music Award even before we take into account 1990’s Family Style, the album he recorded with his late brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Regardless, his approach to guitar remains as simple as it was in the earliest days of the T-Birds.
“It sounds silly, but if you mix it the way you want it, you’re always gonna like it,” he says. “Just play what you want to hear. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time. If all of my favorite guitar players were in the same room, and it got to me, I’d think, ‘What am I gonna do? Play what I want to hear’!”