SRV Clones

I was at work today and thinking about how SRV was my first guitar hero and how I patterned my whole style after him. There was nobody that touched SRV in my book and he introduced me to Blues greats such as Albert King, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush , etc and Jimi Hendrix. Stevie took from all his influences and came up with the best Blues tone ever IMO and brought a shred element to the Blues. My reason for this post is to reflect on how many guitarists he influenced and more on how many became clones of SRV and how I became obsessed with them all an later completely disillusioned by the vast majority of them and how it made me withdraw from my first love the Blues for ten years or so. I sometimes listen to Stevie now and only one of his clones do I listen to albeit rarely and that is Kenny Wayne Shepherd but I only find half of one album (Live On) to be good nowadays. I've noticed on his last few albums how's he's tried harder not to sound so much like SRV but these efforts are of even less appeal to me. Sorry guys, I was just reflecting on it and had to rant about it.

On another note the only other Blues guy from the '90s I listen to is Jonny Lang but he's not really a clone of SRV, he sounds more influenced by Albert Collins, Freddie King and Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm. John Mayer is influenced a lot by SRV but he does it in such good taste and is a great lyricist as well IMO to the point that he has some originality.

Hey if all these guys can get folks to listen to some good old blues artists then it's a good thing. I haven't heard much Jonny Lang but the little I have heard is pretty good, I really like Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and agree "Live On" is the better of his albums, that I've heard, I really took a liking to him cause he sounded so much like SRV. I thought John Mayer was just some new age funky butt loving artist when he first came out, but then I saw him play on an Eric Clapton's Crossroads guitar fest thing, along with Buddy Guy and B.B. King and other greats, I was like really John Mayer? What the hell is this dude doing on this show, but damn I was so wrong he really rocked on guitar, he had some great blues influence to his style that made me a fanboy of his now.

Stevie was one of my early influences on the guitar, and got me to look deeper into the blues. I must confess, though, that once I got there, Stevie seemed a little...dull by comparison.
Still, he probably turned more white people on to the blues than southern guilt, so for that I thank him.

Thx for answering guys. I agree that SRV made people look deeper into the Blues and that IS a good thing. I think that was his point b/c he had a lot of cover tunes as well as originals up until "In Step" where there were more originals than covers. I for one didn't think he was dull in comparison to the older Blues greats and one reason is the use of horns in Blues especially from the '60s onward and for some reason I never liked that much. Stevie didn't do that that I can recall off the top of my head but I was never fond of adding a keyboard player to Double Trouble full time.

Yeah once you add a third guy to a group called double trouble, I guess you should call it triple threat? I agree Stevie is the one that got me into back tracking into the blues greats, so thanks Stevie were ever you are.

Triple Threat? Stevie was in a band called The Triple Threat Revue. I wasn't big on Reese Wynans' contributions to Cabptain Beyond's Sufficiently Breathless album either.

Been a long time of SRV myself. And like you Akeldama, I searched long and hard for SRV clones. After exploring the usual suspects (Lang, Sheppard, Healey, etc.) I've come to the conclusion that Stevie was one-of-a-kind. He's one of the few guitarists that can send a chill up my spine from just a solo alone.

I've been on a recent SRV kick in the last month or so. Revisited all of his studio albums, his box set, the album with brother Jimmy and a few live discs. Even though I have the "regular" version already, I've been eyeballing the recently released Couldn't Stand the Weather 30th Anniversary edition. The main disc is the same, but there is a 2nd disc of a live performance from a Philly show back in '83(?). I can't get enough of SRV live.

Man all the remasters from a few years ago had some good stuff but I had to rebuy the 30th anny of CSTW as well. I hate when they do stuff like that.

I love Couldn't Stand The Weather, easily my favorite SRV album.

The first two, The Sky Is Crying & In The Beginning are essential.

Akeldama wrote:

Man all the remasters from a few years ago had some good stuff but I had to rebuy the 30th anny of CSTW as well. I hate when they do stuff like that.

That's what I have, the remasters from a few years ago. I still want to get that CSTW though. I wouldn't normally go out of my way for live material, but in this case I'll do it for 2 reasons:

1. It's Stevie. Like Hendrix, no 2 performances were the same. Hearing his manic, coke-fueled, sweat-drenched performance is always welcome.

2. The live recording was from my hometown in a nightclub that no longer exists and the performance is introduced by a local DJ that's still on the air in Philly. It's kind of a cool captured moment in time.

Excellent reasons man. Do you like the box set?

Akeldama wrote:

Excellent reasons man. Do you like the box set?

Yea, I like it well enough. I honestly haven't listened to the whole thing front-to-back in some time, but I shuffled in all the tunes from it on my mp3 player with everything else from SRV. I like his extended live jams mostly.

Live At The El Mocambo is prolly my fave in concert DVD of his.

Akeldama wrote:

Live At The El Mocambo is prolly my fave in concert DVD of his.

The only dvd I have is the one that came with the boxset. And at the time, I didn't have a dvd player to watch it. I think I viewed it once a few years ago. Should give that a fresh spin one of these days when it's slow in work.