Can Rich Men Sing the Blues? THE FABULOUS T-BIBBS ffll OUT

Can Rich Men Sing the Blues? THE FABULOUS T-BIBBS ffll OUT

FEATURES

Roy Trakin

by

These are the best and worst of times for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. After 14 lean years and four commercial flops, the Austin, Texas-based critical darlings rode the wave of the blues revival and their own hit single, “Tuff Enuff,” to the biggest success in the band’s career. You’d think the group’s co-leaders—balding, Detroit-born, SoCal-raised, Texas-bred

singer/harpist/songwriter Kim Wilson and good ole boy guitar-slinger Jimmy Vaughan—would be enjoying the slightest bit of a last laugh at the expense of the T-Birds’ history of detractors. Aww, they’re just a blues band. Or worse yet, they’re only (sneer) a bar band...

“That’s pretty insulting,” snorts Wilson, roused from a deep slumber on a couch at his record label’s West Coast offices for a midday chat. “The way most peo-

ple use it, it’s derogatory. But, hell, I grew up in the bars—know what I mean? I grew up playing those joints and I’m proud of it. The whole thing now is to turn these 10,000-seat arenas into big beer joints and have that kind of fun and interaction with the audience.”

The slightly rumpled bluesologist—he cut his teeth backing up idols like Muddy Waters, Lazy Lester, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, George Smith, Eddie Taylor and others—is way too busy to be vindictive, anyway. Last year, the T-Birds logged a total of 340-plus days on the road—leaving a scant three weeks off.

“You only start thinking about that stuff when you’re doing lousy,” says Kim, “When you do well, you forget about it. For one thing, you can’t really ever beat that rap. There’s always something different coming that you have to prove yourself against. If you start thinking you’ve made it, you’re gone. That’s just the way it is. That’s life.”

Indeed, the Thunderbird’s own success is being held against them when comparisons are made between the brand-new Hot Number elpee and its mega-successful predecessor. On the one hand are those who will say the band has stuck to what proved a very successful formula. (Of course, if they’d departed from their roots rock approach, critics would be

quick to sniff out signs of selling out.) The T-Birds are caught, as it were, between the rock (’n’ roll) and the hard (market) place. Jimmy Vaughan, wearing shades against the afternoon sun, doesn’t appear to mind that the new single, “Stand Back,” sounds tike a cross between “Hold On (I’m Coming)” and the band’s own “Tuff Enuff.”

“That seems like a pretty good place to be,” he drawls lazily. “That’s just our style. We sure didn’t go in there to make it come out that way. You’re never quite sure exactly how it’s gonna turn out.”

Kim, who penned the tune, seems surprised by the comparison.

“I honestly didn’t realize it at first,” he says. “It was really weird. I do see now that the chord changes are almost the same. You just draw from things you heard a long time ago, but maybe haven’t heard in a while. Sometimes you don’t

know where the hell it comes from. I’m just a big fan of Muddy, Jimmy Reed, Stax, all that stuff...

“A guy named Harmonica Frank once told me something long ago. He was a white guy who used to sing with a harjD in his mouth, so everyone thought he was black, and he had a bunch of R&B hits. He said, ‘If you didn’t do something somebody else did, you wouldn’t be doing anything.’ And it’s true. That’s where this music comes from... it’s all in how you attack it. Even Muddy got his stuff from Son House and Robert Johnson. But he incorporated himself into it and got something unique. I’m not trying to do someone else, I’m trying to do us. You gotta do it like you and you’ll be fine.”

‘‘I don’t know what kind of music we play anymore,” adds Jimmy. “It’s got all sorts of stuff in it, from country to blues to R&B to rockabilly. That’s why it’s hard to call it any one thing. It’s our version of it.”

One thing you’ve got to say about the Fabulous Thunderbirds. They’ve remained true to their chosen style of music. The group’s breakthrough came with a song that didn’t compromise their approach one iota.

“This kind of music has been abused for so many years,” complains Wilson. “That’s the reason it was shelved. Not for the kind of music it is, but for the way it was treated by the public. We decided we wanted to represent this music the way it was supposed to be... which is fun. Not just ‘I’m crying in my beer,’ though that can happen, too. I don’t live in a gutter, which is the way a lot of these blues guys come off... ‘I play blues, man.’ Oh, yeah, well so do /...”

“We just went in and tried to entertain ourselves,” says Jimmy about making the new album. “You gotta try to have fun, otherwise it turns into a job. And that’s what I got into a band for in the first place: so I wouldn’t have to work. Not that I’m against working, but we get to play music we like and get paid for it. How lucky can you get? We’re getting away with murder.”

But now that the surprise factor is exhausted, will they continue to get away with what is, to begin with, a limited vocabulary? Can the T-Birds avoid falling into a trap of cliches and repeating themselves ad infinitum?

“I’m a lot more single-minded now,” insists Kim, as in hit single. “Without losing our integrity, I tried to do something I could see radio going for, but still remains the Thunderbirds. That’s what I’ve been trying to do all along... if not necessarily get airplay, at least reach a broad range of people. The nice thing about ‘Tuff Enuff Is it didn’t just appeal to a single group of people. A lot of different people could relate to it.”

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“Pm not purist,” echoes Jimmy. “Pm ^nly a purist when it comes to the Thunderbirds. There are some things I won’t do. I knew Tuff Enuff’ was something special. I only go by whether I like it or not, I don’t care if anybody else likes it. If I like it, I love it. I don’t think about whether something will be a hit or not. Not fo brig, but between you and me, I think everything we do should be on the radio, f play music for other people, but it’s rhgin^ fo^ me. That’s why I started playing, to amuse myself.”

Certainly their time seems to have /dome, with radio’s increasing acceptance gf bands like Los Lobos arid Robert Cray.

“Hopefuily, we opened up some doors for people,” says Kim. “But we had to open our own |oor first We had our foot in there so long, a cold draft started coming in and they decided to let us in. 'Tuff: Enuff’was a very special song. It opened up my mind to our potential. It’s hard to •write a song everyone’s gonna like and at the same time keep your integrity and pride. I don’t wanna write something that’s gonna make me wince every time I hear it on the radio.” ¶

“We just stuck with this, now finally, people are saying, OK, go ahead," says: Jimmy of the publie%oew-found attention to the band. “Before they didn’t want to know But now, it’s time to put up or shut up.”

The expectations are higher, the stakes are raised... Now that they’ve had a taste of the heady atmosphere of the Top 10, can the Fab T-Birds repeat? Getting; there is tough, but ask any sports champion: defending is even tougher. ■

“Not to brag, bumf between you and me, I think everything we do should be on the radio. ” —Jimmy Vaughan

“I always figured if we stuck with this long enough, everything would turn out alright,” states Jimmy. “Which is what we’re stilt doing Sticking with it Even if they took away our record deal and all the radio airplay, we’d still be playing, we’d still be doing the same thing. This is what we do. We’re always gonna do this. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again.”

“I’ve blown Muddy Waters’s mind onstage with my playing," boasts Kim. “I can’t even put into words what it was like to be up there with Muddy. He was royalty. He Is royalty. He’s not dead. That’s one thing no one can take away from me. That was success. These people were my idol^i^iiTh% treated me as an eguei,

“We have a good tinrfe playing. You have to have a lot of self-worth to keep going, eating eggs three meals a day. But we always thought we had something to offer. And by God, nobody was gonna stop us. That’s it. We knew what we could

do and we did it.”

As for charges that success might spoil the T-Birds’ ability to perform the blues, Kim Wilson argues convincingly in his group’s defense.

“I may be fat, but I’m still hungry,” he laughs. “It all comes down to the love you have for the music. You don’t have to be kicked around or knocked down to sing the blues. It’s ail in the emotion, what.the music does to you. That’s what should come out. All the people I have worked with have put their sanction to our music. If they’re right, I must be doing something right. If you think I’m soft, I’ll show you who’s soft.”

And if this album shouldn’t do quite as welt as Tuff Enuff...

“It would upset me because I wouldn't want to lose my new house,” deadpans Vaughan. “But you can’t think about that. You gotta move on. We just have to start thinking about the next record, keeping our minds on the music. Otherwise, you’ve got to grow up, and who wants to do that?”

The Fabulous Thunderbirds have their feet firmly planted in the rich loam of rock ’n’ roll’s roots. Their world is not the ephemeral turf of the ever-changing Top 40. You believe the T-Birds when they tell you they would be doing what they were doing even if nobody else was watching.

“When somebody tells me l can’t do something I feel like telling them, ‘Well, why don’t you just ask Muddy Waters?’ ” says Kim. “That shuts ’em upli {/ wonder why7) When I get older, I’ll be working the coffee house circuit just like Muddy did, playing that low-down, dirty shit.”

If that’s not tuff enuff for you, I don’t know what is. They may play the blues for baby-boomers, but the Fab T-Birds ain’t no yuppies.