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Stephen Ray Vaughan was born on October 3, 1954 at Methodist Hospital in Dallas, Texas to Jim and Martha Vaughan. His brother, Jimmie Vaughan, is three years older. At age 7, Vaughan acquired his first guitar, a Sears toy guitar with only three strings. Among the first songs that he learned to play were hits by The Nightcaps, a Texas garage rock band that had a national hit in 1962 with "Wine, Wine, Wine." In 1963, Vaughan got his first electric guitar, a hand-me-down from his brother.

Jimmie Vaughan's friend, Doyle Bramhall, heard Stevie Ray Vaughan playing a song called "Jeff's Boogie" by The Yardbirds, and was impressed. Bramhall would help Vaughan’s singing and songwriting development. In 1967, Vaughan’s first band, The Chantones, played an outdoor show at Robert E. Lee Park in Dallas and began to advance beyond school dances and private parties. During the summer of 1970, after falling into a barrel of grease while working for a fast food restaurant, Vaughan quit his job, formed his first relatively long-lasting band, Blackbird, and devoted his working life to music • Stevie Ray Vaughan Website • Stevie Ray Vaughan Discography

Joe Louis Walker was born in 1949 in San Francisco. He came from a musical family, amidst the early influences of T-Bone Walker, BB King, Meade Lux Lewis, Amos Milburn, and Pete Johnson. Walker first picked up the guitar at the age of 8 and became a known quantity within the Bay Area music scene by the age of 16. Whilst publicly performing through his teens, he soaked up many more influences (especially vocalists like Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Bobby Womack & Otis Redding). Over these early years, Walker's musical pupilage saw him playing with John Lee Hooker, JJ Malone, Buddy Miles, Otis Rush, Thelonious Monk, The Soul Stirrers, Willie Dixon, Charlie Musselwhite, Steve Miller, Nick Lowe, John Mayall, Earl Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix. By 1968, he had forged a close friendship with Mike Bloomfield; they were roommates for many years until Bloomfield's untimely death.

This event was the catalyst that forced Walker into an immediate lifestyle change. He left the world of the blues and enrolled himself at San Francisco State University, achieving a degree in Music & English. Throughout this time, Walker was regularly performing with "The Spiritual Corinthians "gospel quartet". After a 1985 performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, he was inspired to return to his blues roots whereupon he formed the "Bosstalkers" and signed to the Hightone label. Under the auspices of Bruce Bromberg & Dennis Walker, • Joe Louis Walker • Joe Louis Walker Discography

Recent research has uncovered documentation showing that in the 1930s and 1940s he had reported his birth year as 1913 on both his marriage license and musicians' union card. A 1955 interview in the Chicago Defender is the earliest claim of 1915 as his year of birth, which he continued to use in interviews from that point onward. On the other hand, the 1920 census lists him as five years old as of March 6, 1920, suggesting that his birth year may have been 1914. The Social Security Death Index, relying on his Social Security card application, lists him as being born April 5, 1915. • Muddy Waters Website • Muddy Waters Discography