Voodoo Chile (slight return). Whether I hear Hendrix play it or Stevie Ray Vaughan cover it, I get chills up and down my spine on that opening lick. Not the chunka chunka chunka of muted strings that opens the song, the first actual notes that sing out whooaaawww waaah wah wah wah whoooaw waaah wah wah wah. . If you've heard the song, you know what part I mean. It just sounds great. Although I can't see Hendrix's fingers for anything on his live concert DVDs, I can clearly see Stevie Ray Vaughan's fingers dance up and down the fifth, seventh and ninth fret of his custom Fender Stratocaster in a few of his concert DVDs. I picked up this book hoping for some more help.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Lighting Blues 1983-1987 is a TAB book for 25 of SRV's great songs from Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, Soul to Soul, Live Alive and the movie Back to the Beach. In other words, this book contains the music, lyrics and tab notations to play 25 of the songs of Stevie Ray Vaughan on the guitar.

Right from the beginning, it tells you to tune your guitar down a half step, no problem. E becomes E flat, B becomes B flat etc. at a slight twist of the tuning keys, or a click of the knob if you own one of those awesome new Fender Stratocaster VGs.

What is TAB?

For those of you unfamiliar with TAB, simply put, it is an easy to read notation system for playing guitar. You don't need to read music to be able to read tab, although it helps to be able to read music enough to know timing. I can't really read music, but my guitar teacher told me how to interpret the timing reading music. TAB simply put, shows you what frets to put your fingers on, and when to bend notes, perform hammer ons, hammer offs or slides. TAB won't tell you which fingers to put on what strings or whether chords should be played on an upstroke or a down stroke, but if you are playing guitar long enough to read TAB, it does sort of fall into place.

How Much Can You Learn from a Book?

Using Voodoo Chile (slight return) as an example, the notation even gives information like use wah wah and distortion. The tab shows the whole intro of chunky sounding muted riffs before breaking into the note bending intro licks. Tremolo indications are shown above the first note, the hammer ons are shown, the 1/4 note bends, even a note indicating to use your thumb for the high E string (well actually the E flat string, if you are SRV tuned), everything is there.

What isn't there is just exactly how the heck does he get THAT SOUND! I wish my Line 6 Spider III had a setting called SRV, that would solve a lot of problems for me. The Spider III I own and use is a modeling amp that mimics 12 classic amplifiers from clean to insane metal, and includes echo, reverb, chorus delay and distortion effects at the turn of a few knobs. It even has 400 presets! well I'm standing next to a mountain chop it down with the edge of my hand. If only it was that easy, 'cause [I wanna be] a voodoo chile, yeah Lord knows. I know the book is accurate too, because I've watched Stevie Ray Vaughan play the song dozens of times. His fingers fly right to the string and fret the book shows, even down to the upper E (flat) string 10th fret to open string slide. My guitar teacher had tabbed out the intro for me as well, and his notes were the same as indicated here, and Paul is excellent at tabbing songs for guitar.

Songs Included

From Texas Flood: Dirty Pool, I'm Cryin, Love Struck Baby, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Pride and Joy, Texas Flood.

From Couldn't Stand the Weather: Cold Shot, Couldn't Stand the Weather, Honey Bee, Scuttle Buttin' Stang's Stwang, Voodoo Chile (slight return)

From Soul to Soul: Change It, Come On (part iii), Gone Home, Life without You, Look at Little Sister, Lookin' Out the Window, You'll Be Mine.

From Live Alive: Ain't Gone n give up on Love, I'm Leaving You (commit a crime), Say What, Superstition, Willy the Wimp

From the movie soundtrack for Back to the Beach: SRV's version of Pipeline.

Level of Book

Let's be honest here, Stevie Ray Vaughan isn't exactly playing simple power chords when he performs. I got this book to learn a few key sections of songs by him that I like and enjoy. To really benefit from this book to a full extent, you need to be a skilled guitar player, this book is not for beginners. I bought it anyway, I'm determined.

Value $25 bucks for 25 songs, that's a buck a song! Most of these songs are awesome though, so I think it's well worth it. Heck, if I can learn the opening lick to Voodoo Chile (slight return), I will consider it 25 dollars well spent.

Testing This book was tested using the song Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) played on a Line 6 Spider III amplifier set to Blues with medium Reverb and a 60th Anniversary Fender Telecaster in half step tuning using both pickups.

Summary

Nike sneakers won't make you play like Mike Jordan any more than nikenow.com would deliver you a real pair of Nike sneakers; but a Fender Stratocaster, this book and LOTS of practice just might make you be able to play the songs of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Actually sounding like Stevie Ray Vaughan? Well, this book doesn't quite provide that.

Other TAB books and Guitar Books

The Best of AC/DC
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Black Sabbath Tab Book
Franz Ferdinand
Guns N' Roses Complete
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Metallica .. and Justice for All
The Rolling Stones Singles Collection - The London Years / Guitar Tab Edition
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Lightning Blues Lead Guitar
Neil Young Anthology

Chord Master - How to Choose and play the right guitar chords
Total Scales Technique and Application
Electric Guitars - The Illustrated Encyclopedia


and you also may want to check out Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Live at the Mocambo

Recommended: Yes