Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble live at the Mann Music Center in Philly - June 30, 1990!

0:05 SPEAKER_05: Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The concert room is a podcast session dedicated to concert performances, performers, bands, and artists who played on the stage at the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena and all the surrounding venues in the Philadelphia area back in the heyday years of concerts and shows. Okay, and thanks for joining me. Got a great show lined up today. Gonna feature one of my favorite artists and musicians, and that is Stevie Ray Vaughan.

0:38 SPEAKER_05: Very excited to do this and uh well overdue. We're already uh winding up season two, and I I think it's really a great time to uh you know feature Stevie Ray uh here on the podcast. Quick background on Stevie Ray before we get to our featured performance. Stevie was born in Dallas, Texas. He, of course, was an American musician, best known as the guitarist and frontman of the blues rock trio Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble. He is, of course, considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of blues music, and one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

1:21 SPEAKER_05: Now in the early seventies he moved to Austin, where he began to gain a nice uh following after playing gigs on the local club circuit. And shortly after that, uh Vaughn joined forces with Tommy Shannon on bass and Chris Layton on drums, and they formed Double Trouble, and that was in 1978. Now the band established itself in the Austin music scene and soon became one of the most popular acts in Texas. They soon got a record deal in 1983 with Epic Records. They recorded their debut album shortly after called Texas Flood, and then, of course, catapulted upwards in the mainstream by way of recorded concerts and TV appearances, more albums and successful tours that all followed them into the mid to late nineteen eighties.

2:19 SPEAKER_05: Now tragically, on August 27, 1990, Vaughn and four others were killed in a helicopter crash in after performing uh at the Alpine Valley Music Theater. And this loss is really still felt today. It was very, very shocking, uh and just sudden. Um really quite unbelievable when we uh when we think about that, because we watched his career all the way from uh you know, the late seventies uh especially in the eighties. And then uh you know, in nineteen ninety, uh tragic uh tragically he was killed in that helicopter crash.

3:05 SPEAKER_05: You know, thank God we have you know, a ton of material and we have again um recorded concerts, his TV appearances, all those great albums, and uh, you know, great audio uh from his performances uh that we can enjoy and you know, buying his albums and listening to him and celebrating him and uh, you know, his band and his legacy. And speaking of concerts, this brings me to today's podcast session featuring Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble in a later performance at a really special venue here in Philly that is near and dear to all of us, and I believe Stevie Ray loved playing here at this venue because he came back to it a few times.

3:54 SPEAKER_05: I cued up two songs from his blistering show on June 30th, 1990, at the Man Music Center. He was uh in the middle of his uh live alive tour. Um we all know about his uh problems in the eighties, his substance uh problems, but here he um finally got clean, he's sober, and uh, you know, they were just on fire, and this tour was just absolutely spectacular and fierce. But a real quick background on the Man Music Center, uh, if you will, because this is the first show where I'm featuring a band or artist from this venue.

4:38 SPEAKER_05: Of course, I've talked about all the venues and featured performances at um all the venues in the Philadelphia area and spoken about them with my guests in interviews. And then, of course, is the legendary spectrum, our mothership. The Tower Theater and JFK Stadium, so those are the really big three that I've kind of featured, and a lot of us back in the heyday days of concerts uh would attend, and it wasn't really just always the spectrum. A lot of shows at the tower, a lot of shows at JFK Stadium, but there's also the Mann Music Center.

5:20 SPEAKER_05: The man is an outside venue. It's located in Philadelphia. It's actually just outside of True Center City, and it's in really the spacious Fairmount Park area uh of Philadelphia. And this venue is built like an amphitheater, includes uh the view of uh Philly skyline, uh there's seats beneath the man's pavilion, and then you can sit under the stars on the great lawn outside of the pavilion, uh, with seating around forty six hundred forty-seven hundred, I'll say, under the pavilion, and I think I probably fit about another close to eight thousand on the lawn, so it was really a big venue.

6:05 SPEAKER_05: Uh, but it was outside. Acoustics were really just absolutely spectacular. Just great views from the stage everywhere, and it was really, really uh a wonderful, acoustically acclaimed venue. For me, I saw a lot of shows there, uh especially in the spring and the summer on some really beautiful nights. Some of my most favorite concert memories are at the Man Music Center. Off the top of my head, uh I saw the original lineup of Jefferson Airplane. I think that was around eighty seven, eighty-eight, maybe.

6:41 SPEAKER_05: Uh awesome. That was just absolutely great. Uh, and Cheap Trick opening for Rio Speedwagon was another one around the same time. Late eighties. Um these two just kind of come up here in my mind. Uh countless others. Really a great night under the stars, see your favorite bands, and really a diverse venue for for music genres. Everyone from Celine Dion to Bob Dylan, Blondie, Willie Nelson performed at the man. And you know, you whatever music genre genre you were into, um there was an artist that would play at the man.

7:22 SPEAKER_05: It could be jazz, it could be funk, it could be R and B, it could be rock, it could be folk, and of course, uh bands like Jefferson Airplane, Arya Speedwagon, Teep Trick, uh that I just mentioned, and of course, some blues with Stevie Ray Vaughn, and that again that'll bring us uh right back to our show right here. So that's what the man is. Uh that's what we called it. The man. You know, we're gonna go into the man tonight. I got tickets to the man. Um, you know it's just gonna be a great, beautiful night.

7:54 SPEAKER_05: Now, as far as Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble and Philly History, we'll go back to the Texas flood era. He performed at a show uh at Ripley's Music Hall in 1983. This was October 20th, 1983. This was really an important kind of date because this was recorded and simulcast on local rock radio station WMR. Was later released in 2013 with his 30th anniversary edition of uh Texas Flood, and he included uh expanded into a two-cd set, comparing the original remastered album of Texas Flood with this previously unreleased 1983 live performance from Ripley's Music Hall in Philadelphia, and I actually featured uh a performance at Ripley's Music Hall with my Bon Jovi podcast.

8:57 SPEAKER_05: You can go back and listen to that. Get a little history on Ripley's Music Hall, which was located on South Street here in Philadelphia, about a 4,000-seat hall. And um interestingly enough, uh this October 20th show was the night before he opened up for the Moody Blues, who played at the Philadelphia Spectrum, and that was October 21st, 1983. And as far as the Spectrum speaking, which including this October 21st, 1983 Moody Blues show, he played the Spectrum May 23rd, 88 with Robert Plant, and then November 11, 1989 with Jeff Beck.

9:41 SPEAKER_05: Great Night of Tunes there. And we'll circle back to the Man Music Center, uh, because Stevie Ray Vaughn actually played four shows there. And I'll just kind of go back to what I said in the beginning. I think he really loved playing these kind of venues, um, especially here in Philadelphia. Um, he played uh June twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-six. He played uh June 30th in eighty-seventh, and then he came back on October twelfth in eighty-seventh, and then he played, of course, this feature performance that I'm gonna do today on my podcast.

10:19 SPEAKER_05: And that is the June 30th, 1990s show. So that's it. That's the story, that's the history, and let's get to a couple of tunes here from the show at the man, so you can listen, put yourself inside the man that night. The show was recorded, and also simulcast on local rock radio station WMMR. Uh the band is introduced by our own local legendary DJ at WMMR, uh Joe Bonadonna. Um you're going to hear him introduce the band here because I'm going to play the opening song from that evening. And you'll hear Joe Bonadonna, WMMR's DJ, introduce Stevie Ray and Double Trouble.

11:04 SPEAKER_05: He said, I'm gonna cue up Scuttle Button opening song on the night, and then we're gonna jump around to about the ninth song in the first set, and that's one of my favorite songs, uh Cold Shot. So it kind of gives you an idea of how great uh Stevie Ray was, you know, uh on the on the instrumentals with Scuttle Button. Um really incredible, and then how uh great bluesy and finesse and wonderful uh he is on the sort of like the slower songs, much bluesier uh on cold shot. So that's what we'll play.

11:43 SPEAKER_05: So enjoy Stevie Ray Von on the man stage. This is June 30th, 1990. Scuttle Button and cold shot.

11:53 SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to the Mad Music Center in Philadelphia.

11:59 SPEAKER_00: Please welcome Stevie Ray Von and Double Triple!

21:02 SPEAKER_05: And that sounded great. Really hope you enjoyed that. I really wish I was there that night or was able to see him, but uh I am really thankful we have all these great recordings and archives, and I really hope you were able to see uh Stevie Ray back in the day, and if not, I hope this kind of gives you the feeling of being there on one night during the tour where he and his band were just absolutely on fire. He is really sorely missed. And uh please go out and support his music and and uh you know buy his records, pull up all his concerts and his performances and his appearances, and uh you'll you'll see what I mean.

21:46 SPEAKER_05: I am of course gonna put a link to the full show uh on the show notes. And uh again, hey, thanks for tuning in, and as always, thanks for downloading my show. Like I mentioned before, we're winding up on season two, and I'm kind of preparing some interviews coming up. Uh but for now, let's just keep rocking out with great performances and around the uh Philly area back in the heyday days of concerts. Please feel free to subscribe, tell a friend, drop a comment on my website. I'll put a link to my website there uh in the show notes, and if you have any suggestions for artists or shows, I'll certainly uh again include a link to my website uh with the full show here at the man.

22:32 SPEAKER_05: Take care, and I'll see you again in the concert room.