A Facebook commenter watches a video of Stevie Ray Vaughn playing Texas Flood live and coughs:
"the guitar rules but the drum and bass will just put me to sleep. Still numb, player. I feel nothing! Way to masturbate all over the pentatonic scales while the rest of the band takes a nap, Stevie!"
To be fair, Stevie occasionally dribbles a few knuckle children on the Aeolian scale as well, but let's not quibble.
This is probably the most succinct summary of why I came (ahem) to SRV so late in the game, long after I fully appreciated Hendrix, Clapton, et. al. The man wields perfect technique in service of profoundly soulful riffs...and his rhythm section has all the feeling of a click track. I've told every drummer I've jammed with that I have no interest in their "playing dead" as a direct response to the (at first inscrutable) embarrassment I felt when I first heard Stevie's band. Play with me, not for me, I say.
I have less problem with the whole arrangement now, especially after he added in a keys player, but that's mostly because I've dismissed the issue as a flaw of the Texas Blues genre.
So, yeah.
P.S. The odd font size and formatting of this post completely elude me, try to fix it though I have....
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