Track Listing

1. Say What
2. Ain't Gonna Give Up On Love
3. Pride And Joy
4. Mary Had A Little Lamb
5. Superstition
6. I'm Leaving You (Commit A Crime)
7. Cold Shot
8. Willie The Wimp
9. Look At Little Sister
10. Texas Flood
11. Voodoo Chile
12. Lovestruck Baby
13. Change It
14. Life Without You

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23217 in Music
• Released on: 1993-04-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

CD Description
Stevie Ray Vaughan is a red-hot talent whose fiery playing and passionate delivery have seen him heralded as the futureof the blues, alongside such notables as Robert Cray. For 1986's LIVE ALIVE, three albums into his career, Vaughan added pianist Reese Wynans to the Double Trouble duo of Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, fleshing out an already-potent sound. Originals like "Change It" and "Say What" find Wynan's rollicking playing gilding Vaughan's unusually funky playing, while Wynans and Vaughan play off one another in percolating covers of material by Stevie Wonder ("Superstition") and Hank Ballard ("Look At Little Sister").
As always, Vaughan pays tribute to his elders-Buddy Guy ("Mary Had A Little Lamb"), Howlin' Wolf ("I'm Leaving You [Commit A Crime]"), and Jimi Hendrix ("Voodoo Chile [Slight Return]"). Although this Hendrix version lags a bit, Vaughan's playing is exemplary on the shuffling "Cold Shot" and downright playful on "Love Struck Baby", where older brother Jimmie joins in the fun.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding live album
If you're already a Stevie Ray Vaughan fan then this album will give you all the masterful control of his instrument plus live atmosphere too. The songs will be familiar if you know the four studio albums (recently re-released on Legacy with bonus tracks and highly recommended), and Stevie shows here how he can really do it live. One of my favourite SRV albums.

A great live album
The late Stevie Ray Vaughan rocked on stage. His rendition of Howlin' Wolf's "Commit A Crime" may lack the raw punch of Wolf's original, but that's a minor complaint...most of this album is simply excellent, filled with gems from Vaughan's first three albums.

Stevie Ray's muscular and versatile guitar playing is sublime, with more grit than most of his studio orginals. His vocals are good, too, and the song list is magnificent, featuring the rare, non-LP track "Willie the Wimp" about the bizarre 1984 funeral of a Chicago "wiseguy".

Other highlights include Vaughan's best song, the superbly groovy "Pride And Joy", as well as "Look At Little Sister", "Cold Shot", "Love Struck Baby" and the slow blues "Texas Flood" and "Ain't Gone 'N' Give Up On Love", but there are really no weak songs, and this album should appeal to fans of both blues and rock music.
The sound is good, although not always crystal clear, and the band is excellent. Several songs actually sound better in this live setting than on the original studio albums, partly because of the blistering blues-rock arrangements which include keyboards (piano and organ).

Apparently some people feel that Vaughan's playing wasn't up to his usual standards when this album was recorded, that he must have been having a bad night or something. I've heard a lot of live SRV, and I can't make any sense of that claim, especially since "Live Alive" wasn't recorded during just one show, but actually incorporates cuts from different concerts in both 1985 and 1986. He must have been having some bad years, then, and this myopic claim sounds particularly absurd when it is brought forward by people who then go on to praise Stevie's "Live At Montreux" album. Several of these performances are from, yes, you guessed it, the very same 1985 Montreux performance.

Contrary to what some people have apparently heard and chosen to believe, this is a very enjoyable, soulful live album, and it is highly recommendable to anyone with an interest in Stevie Ray Vaughan, or contemporary blues and blues-rock in general.

Guitarslinger at his finest
One of the favourite sons of Texas, this album captures SRV at his best - whether playing full on Texas boogie, slow blues, or his excellent reading of Hendrix's Voodoo Chile. This is, in my opinion, a better live album than the Carnegie Hall set (still worth a listen, though), with Willie the Wimp being one of my personal favourites. A true loss to the music world...