Stevie Ray Quotes & Sayings

I kept listening, kept going to see people, kept sitting in with people, kept listening to records. If I wanted to learn somebody's stuff, like with Clapton, when I wanted to learn how he was getting some of his sounds - which were real neat - I learned how to make the sounds with my mouth and then copied that with my guitar. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Even though there's reasons to try things that may or may not work, it's still a real intimate way to finish the song with everybody right there in the band just locked in. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

To be honest with you, I'm not sure what a pop tune is. I'm sure if I hear it on the radio, I'd say that's pop or this or that. But, really, what I pay attention to the most is just music that moves me. It's all at least a root-type music instead of a formula. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Ya know, right now the most important thing in my life is to make sure you understand that, first of all I thank God I'm alive today, and I mean that. I spent too many years of my life thinking that the big party was the whole thing. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed. — B.B. King

I actually wanted to be a drummer, but I didn't have any drums. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

You knew the difference between Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, straight away. Now everyone sounds like each other, and I don't think that's right. — Bobby Womack

The whole deal is when you walk onstage, you're up there bigger than life. People idolize you. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

When I play from my mind I get in trouble. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Day by day night after night Blinded by the neon lights Hurry here, hustlin' there No one's got the time to spare Money's tight, nothin' free Won't somebody come and rescue me? I am stranded, caught in the crossfire Stranded, caught in the crossfire! Tooth for tooth, eye for an eye Sell your soul just to buy, buy, buy Beggin' a dollar stealin' a dime Come on can't you see that I I am stranded, caught in the crossfire — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I play as many different things - piano, sax and harp parts - as I can at once. Whatever I can fit, whenever I need to. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I wanted to play saxophone, but all I could get were a few squeaks. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

The way people come into your life when you need them, it's wonderful and it happens in so many ways. It's like having an angel. Somebody comes along and helps you get right. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

My baby she's a long and lean, you mess with her you see a man get mean. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I show more blind rage than Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles wrestling in a steel cage. — Chino XL

Do the thing you love to do. Hank Williams died at the ripe old age of twentynine. Stevie Ray Vaughan at thirty-five. Jesus at thirtythree. Don't think you're special and the Lord's gonna bless you with time. — Jill S. Alexander

I was walking around trying to act cool, like I had no fear at all.
But I was afraid, afraid that somebody would find out just how scared I was.
Now I'm finally realizing that fear is the opposite of love. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Some of us can be examples about going ahead and growing, and some of us, unfortunately, don't make it there, and end up being examples because they had to die. I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn't death. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

The Marshall is supposed to be 200 watts, but mine's never worked right; it peaks out at 80. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Absolutely, I grew up listening to soul music. People like Stevie, Aretha, Ray Charles, Michael and Prince. My parents' record collection was all I had when I was a little kid. If it wasn't that, it was something else in their collection. — Jesse McCartney

You know, there's a big lie in this business. The lie is that it's okay to go out in flames. But that doesn't do anybody much good. I may be wrong, but I think Hendrix was trying to come around. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It's the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

It's definitely true that Stevie Ray Vaughan is one of my all-time favorite guitarists. — Kirk Hammett

I don't play with a lot of finesse. I usually play like I'm breaking out of jail! — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I was taught to think the next week or month or year will only get better than it is today. So I just keep waiting to see how great it will get! — Stevie Ray Vaughan

But between sets I'd sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

The problem with taking amps to a shop is that they come back sounding like another amp. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

What I am trying to get across to you; is please take of yourselves and those that you love; because that is what we are hear for, that's all we got, and that is all we can take with us. Are you with me? — Stevie Ray Vaughan

The way I play, I go through a set in a year. So I put '58 Gibson Jumbo Bass frets on all my necks. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I figured out how to get the guitar to rumble ... I put it on the middle pickup, turn the tone know down, grab it by the wang bar, and just shake it on the floor ... a Stratocaster is pretty tough - I wouldn't recommend that anybody do that with their ES-335 — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Lots of times I'll play lead and rhythm together. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Jazz changes and all. But I don't know the names of what it is I'm doing. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

While I was sleeping, I had a beautiful dream that all the people of the world got together on the same wavelength and began helping each other. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Lonnie was ahead of his time, but at the same time he was right in there with Albert Collins's Cool Sounds. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I think there are always people who, when they get the bug to play an instrument, they want to get as good as they can with it rather than just be simply adequate at it. You run into them every once in a while - some kid who wants to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan, for whatever reason, and plays exactly like him. — Todd Rundgren

I mainly use Stratocasters. I like a lot of different kinds of guitars, but for what I do, it seems that a Stratocaster is the most versatile. I can pretty much get any sound out of it, and I use stock pickups. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

All the Strats have personalities of their own and feel completely different. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Music really is a way to reach out and hold on to each other in a healthy way. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I'm just doing the best I can now to keep this going ... trying to grow up and remain young at the same time. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

After I changed the string we picked up right where we left off - and punched back in at the same time. I don't know if this has ever been done before. The engineer sort of looked at us weird, but we got it on the first take. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other; our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our enemies. That is to help each other and not hurt each other. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I love my baby like the finest wine, I'll stick with her until the end of time. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Ray Charles, who said to Stevie Wonder, Maybe we're white. Never got a dinner! — Red Buttons

I've put my life back together, but it's all a growing process and that's neat, too, because if you stop growing, what good is it musically? So that is what I am looking forward to - growing. In some ways, I felt stagnant in my life and it showed. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I remember the beginnings of the Kurzweil reading machine. I was one of the first to meet Ray Kurzweil and purchase the reading machine in Boston. To think that the machine was at least two and a half large suitcases at the time, and now you have a camera and it takes a picture and you have sound. — Stevie Wonder

I always loved LeAnn Rimes and especially Clint Black for his soulfulness. As I've gotten older, my influences have broadened - John Mayer, Michael Buble, Stevie Wonder, Keith Urban, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the Beatles - all of these artists have somehow been a part of my development as a songwriter. — Hunter Hayes

I've been trying to grow up some myself, in my heart, and it's happening quick and I feel good about it, and I want that to come out in the music. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Music has become really important now. It's helped me to open up more and take a chance on loving people. Music is a good reason to care. It's just a vehicle though. It's a way to try and give somebody something that you feel. If trying the best I can isn't good enough, I'll just have to try harder next time ... it's all I can do. If I do the best I can, then at least I did the best I could in this life The way I like to look at it is ... if that's the last time /I ever got to play, I'd better give it everything I've got. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Looking back in front of me, in the mirror a grin. Through eyes of love I see, I'm only looking at a friend. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

That's how it happens, livin life by the drop. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

And sometimes to help them we have got to help ourselves. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

I got a lot of paradoxes in my life. I guess I'm a real confused person, but there are some focused parts to my life now, and I'm slowly trying to put all the pieces back together. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I'd try it too. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

What I can play is blues. She was never that into blues. I can salve with Lightning and Cotton, BB and Clapton and Stevie Ray. I can blast Son Seals singing Dear Son until the coyotes in the creek raise up a sympathetic sky ripping interpretation of the harmonica solo. Piercing howls and yelps. Sounds like it's killing them and also like they love it. Which when you get right down to it is the blues. — Peter Heller

It is the human things that make life good, the unexpected kindness, the friendly note, the bracing word, the neighbour's extra loaf of bread she leaves at our back door. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan was very intense. Maybe that's what caught everybody's attention. As a player, he didn't do anything amazing. — Ritchie Blackmore

I use heavy strings, tune low, play hard, and floor it. Floor it. That's technical talk. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

No, Kramisha, he's not black. He's a killer bird with evil for his Daddy. — P.C. Cast

God it's good to be here walkin together, my friend. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Some people don't understand that but it's nice when it really just gets to the point then that it [music] doesn't get played so much that you're overdoing a lot of things; that it's fresh ideas. And they come out fresh and if you're already in the mode, I guess, to simplify some things so that it comes across better on record, it's the right time to be tasteful with somethin'. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

If you hit the front end on the right-hand side you could turn that one on by itself and if you hit on the left-hand side you could turn it on and off. And in the middle it was like serious overdrive. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Well there's floodin' down in Texas. All of the telephone lines are down. Well, I've been tryin' to call my baby, Lord, and I can't get a single sound. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

When I heard "Pride and Joy" by Stevie Ray Vaughn on the radio, I just said "Hallelujah" .. he was just so good and strong and he would not be denied ... he single handedly brought guitar and blues oriented music back to the marketplace — Richard Betts

Some golfers fantasize about playing in a foursome with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Sam Snead. The way I hit I'd rather play in a foursome with Helen Keller, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder. — Bruce Lansky