Jimmy Vaughn Tilt A Whirl

Jimmy Vaughn SPOTLIGHT:

DM: I had a younger brother who was hit by a car and died just a few years before your brother’s death in that helicopter crash. After a few weeks or months people stopped beginning every conversation with, ‘I am so sorry to hear about your brother.’ For you that never goes away. I just can’t imagine how you dealt with that for all these years. Let’s talk about that if you don’t mind.

JV: The first thing I realized is that there is no privacy when it comes to my brother. You have all these fans who talk about him like it is some kind of religion and I understand that, but they didn’t know him. He was MY little brother. I wanted to protect my memories of him because they were mine. It was really hard.

I mean I would be at the grocery store bending over and grabbing a can a coffee and someone who I don’t know comes up on me and starts screaming and crying, ‘Oh my God. I am soooooo sorry about your brother.’ I am just trying to get some coffee.

People remember where they were when they got the news, they remember the sadness that they had and they want to share that with you and they hadn’t dealt with it. I mean, it’s not about me, but I guess I bring that emotion out in them. I’ve learned how to accept it better. I don’t get upset with them anymore. I just didn’t know what to do with any of that.

DM: How could you? There is no way to anticipate the shock, sadness and sense of loss on a very emotional personal level and then have to deal with ongoing public side of it.

JV: That is exactly right. Time helps you deal with it better, but you never get over it. I think people are really going to enjoy seeing all this stuff. There are a lot of his personal things in there. There is some of his hand writing on some of the famous songs he wrote. Some of them had different titles, but you can tell what they are. We have some of his guitars, some of his clothes. We are going to have one of his amplifiers set up so the guitar geeks can check that out. It should be really good.

DM: So you have had all these items in your personal possession all this time?

JV: Yes

DM: Have you received any pressure from various Stevie Ray Vaughan fan clubs or others to put these items on public display over the past twenty four years?

JV: I can’t worry about what people want me to do or think I should do. I don’t spend my life worrying about what others think. I decided I am just going to not think about any of that stuff. I made a decision to just live my life and be happy. Here is the weird part. There are a lot of Stevie fans who like to sit around and argue, ‘Stevie is the best and Jimmie don’t know shit. I like Stevie. No, I like Jimmie. No, Stevie is the greatest. No, Jimmie is the greatest and Stevie is wrong and on and on.’

DM: Music is not a sport. It is art. The reason I like sports is because there is a scoreboard. The reason I like art is because there isn’t one.

JV: Exactly! Blues music is a language and everybody has their own accent. As far as my brother’s playing is concerned he was an AMAZING guitar player who had his style and his own voice and I am extremely proud of him. That’s why we are doing this exhibit. It should be fun. It will run for several months maybe even a year. It has also been very healing.