This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
When he was alive, blues guitar god Stevie Ray Vaughan was always being likened to Jimi Hendrix. Well, the comparisons are even more apt a decade after his death. But I’m not referring to his playing.
Like Jimi, Stevie Ray has become a posthumous cottage industry for his label, which continues to reconfigure, repackage and re-re-rerelease his four discs of studio material in various forms — being sure to enclose a new track here and there to keep the faithful reaching for their wallets. The theme this time: Slow blues. The tracks: Ain’t Gone ‘N’ Give Up On Love from Soul To Soul, Texas Flood’s Dirty Pool and so on. The treats: A live version of Tin Pan Alley with Johnny Copeland that was left off Live Alive; what sounds like a demo of The Sky Is Crying from Couldn’t Stand The Weather sessions; a live take of Texas Flood off the Live At The El Mocambo video; and the title cut, an Albert Collins jam from last year’s In Session CD on Stax. The verdict: Sure, the extra tracks are magnificent — pretty much every note Stevie played was. But at a price of about a buck a minute for the all-new material, fans will be the ones singing the blues.
