The Real Deal: Greatest Hits Volume 2 Jonesboro GA

The Real Deal: Greatest Hits Volume 2

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble

Epic / Legacy Records, 1999

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 03/26/1999

Stevie Ray Vaughan has been gone now for over eight years, yethis legacy as one of the best blues guitarists who ever livedremains. Interest in Vaughan's music has hardly waned since histragic death, with new albums (comprising of a few outtakes andlive performances) occasionally grace the marketplace.

Obviously, one Greatest Hits album was not enough to contain the geniusthat he was... prompting the release of The Real Deal: Greatest Hits Volume 2. Unlike many "secondbest-of" albums that seem to scrape the mediocre material from thecatalog, the 16 songs on this disc are just as enjoyable and movingas any that you would find on the first collection.

Covering almost his entire recorded legacy (only Live At Carnegie Hall doesn't have tracks pulled from it),Vaughan's growth as an artist from the John Hammond days ("LoveStruck Baby") to the survivor of his own personal hell ("Wall OfDenial," "Riviera Paradise") is chronicled here. And even if you'renot into the blues, there will be something on this collection thatwill make you like Vaughan.

Don't be surprised if you find yourself saying, "Why wasn't thistrack included on the first best-of?" I can't explain how songslike "Look At Little Sister," "Empty Arms" or "Voodoo Chile (SlightReturn)" didn't make it onto the original Greatest Hits album. They just didn't, okay? The Real Deal rectifies that problem, simply, by notfeaturing one weak track on it.