In Stevie Ray Vaughan

Epic's The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble gathers two discs' worth of the late blues guitarist's work, including many live performances and a few tracks with the Vaughan Brothers. The collection presents Vaughan's material in roughly chronological order, from the 1980 live recording "Shake for Me" to 1989's "Life by the Drop." It also touches on most of Vaughan's definitive songs and performances, including "Tightrope," "Wall of Denial," "Couldn't Stand the Weather," and "Cold Shot," and live versions of "The Sky Is Crying," "Superstition," and "Rude Mood/Hide Away." Though this album doesn't offer anything that hasn't already been released in some form or another, it does go into slightly more depth than several of the other Stevie Ray Vaughan retrospectives by presenting both his greatest studio hits and some of his best live work.

To celebrate what would have been the 60th birthday of Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954-1990), Epic Records/Legacy Recordings will issue Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: The Complete Epic Recordings Collection, collecting the trailblazing blues guitarist's most scintillating studio and live works.

While 2002's Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble is the place to go for the complete picture, Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: Stevie Ray Vaughan works well as a nice single-disc introduction to the work of the influential blues guitarist. Perhaps a few more hits could have been included to make this more attractive to the curious buyer, but with a previously unreleased live version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and a track listing that dodges much of the 1995 Greatest Hits collection, this does offer an alternative for longtime fans.

The 2013 mini-box Original Album Classics rounds up the early-2000s expansions of Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, and Soul to Soul at an affordable price point. It's arguable that SRV's best work came a bit later (In Step often seems like his best), but all three of these showcase the guitarist at his best and this package is a good bargain.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble formed the most impressive blues act of the 1980s, which made Vaughan's death in a helicopter crash at the start of the '90s all the more tragic. He grew up in Dallas, the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan (cofounder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds). Stevie began playing in clubs at 12, and by 17 had dropped out of high school and moved to Austin. There followed years of struggling until April 23, 1982, when Vaughan and his group, Double Trouble, played a private audition for the Rolling Stones in New York. The gig led to an invitation to appear at the Montreux Jazz Festival, at which Vaughan was seen by David Bowie, who hired him to play guitar on his Let's Dance album, and Jackson Browne, who offered the free use of his recording studio. Vaughan took up that offer after being signed by legendary talent scout John Hammond to Epic, recording his debut album, Texas Flood, in the fall of 1982…

Stevie Ray Vaughan's second album, Couldn't Stand the Weather, pretty much did everything a second album should do: it confirmed that the acclaimed debut was no fluke, while matching, if not bettering, the sales of its predecessor, thereby cementing Vaughan's status as a giant of modern blues. So why does it feel like a letdown? Perhaps because it simply offers more of the same, all the while relying heavily on covers. Of the eight songs, half are covers, while two of his four originals are instrumentals – not necessarily a bad thing, but it gives the impression that Vaughan threw the album together in a rush, even if he didn't. Nevertheless, Couldn't Stand the Weather feels a bit like a holding pattern, since there's no elaboration on Double Trouble's core sound and no great strides forward, whether it's in Vaughan's songwriting or musicianship.

The 1996 concert video A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan gathers Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, B.B. King, Art Neville, Dr. John, and brother Jimmie Vaughan to celebrate the talent and life of the modern electric blues guitar virtuoso. Double Trouble and the Tilt-a-Whirl Band support these stars as they interpret Vaughan's songbook in an 80-minute concert; brief interviews with the featured artists enrich the proceedings with even more respect and affection. Highlights of Vaughan's performance on the PBS series Austin City Limits hit home just how great a talent was lost when he was killed in 1990. Ultimately, though, A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan focuses on the uplifting memory of his warmth and musical gifts, keeping them alive with the help of his very able friends.

Epic/Legacy expanded Stevie Ray Vaughan’s second album Couldn’t Stand the Weather in 1999, adding four outtakes and an interview excerpt to the eight-track original, but the 2010 Legacy Edition expands it further still, retaining those four cuts, adding four songs from the posthumous compilation The Sky Is Crying (“Empty Arms,” “Wham!,” “Close to You,” “Little Wing”) along with three previously unreleased alternate takes (“The Sky Is Crying,” “Stang’s Swang,” “Boot Hill”), and a full, unreleased concert SRV & Double Trouble gave at the Spectrum in Montreal on August 17, 1984. Apart from “Empty Arms” and “Stang’s Swang,” every studio outtake is a cover, underscoring how Vaughan spent much of Couldn’t Stand the Weather drawing from his influences and synthesizing them into his own voice, and their addition actually strengthens the album considerably. With that in mind, the lively concert on the second disc is a bonus treat, evidence that SRV & Double Trouble were flying very high during 1984 and one of the better complete live sets in Vaughan’s discography.