By JAMES L. DICKERSON

The Fabulous Vaughan Brothers, Jimmie & Stevie Ray

The Fabulous Vaughan Brothers Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan, two sons of Texas whose pyrotechnic guitar work introduced an entire generation to the blues, are given full biographical treatment by a writer who tracked their careers for five years, until Stevie Ray’s sudden death in 1990, and afterward as Jimmie pursued a solo career that continues to flourish. Based on scores of interviews with such well-known contemporary musicians as B.B. King, Robert Cray, Ron Wood, the late Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and others, The Fabulous Vaughan Brothers follows the two brothers from their modest Dallas roots to their emergence onto the Austin music scene. The brothers’ subsequent recording experiences in Memphis, which the author sees as being crucial to their overall development as musicians, are also described, as well as their early bands and, of course, their work together on Family Style. When Stevie went to Memphis to record his last solo album, In Step, he told his publicist Charles Comer, he didn’t want to do any interviews while he was making the album. When Dickerson asked to interview him for his syndicated radio show, Pulsebeat—Voice of the Heartland, he made an exception. “Why wouldn’t he?” explained Comer. “Dickerson was involved with the blues, everything he was into.” It was Dickerson’s connections in music that made this book a one-of-a-kind reflection on the brothers’ music.