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Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble's second album, Couldn't Stand The Weather, recorded in 19 days and released in 1984, found the band riding the wave of Stevie's Bowie association and the success of their smouldering debut of the previous year - the trio were at the top of their game, and brimming with confidence.

Hooked up with legendary producer John Hammond, they were booked into day-only sessions in New York's legendary Power Station studios, meaning they had to set up and take down their gear on a daily basis. The well-documented, self-destructive drink-and-drugs-fuelled mayhem was well underway too, but at this point, they could handle it. They were a Texas hurricane hitting the Big Apple.

On the eve of the 20th Anniversary of Stevie Ray's tragic death, the album's been re-released as a Legacy Edition. It adds three previously unreleased bonus tracks from the 1984 Couldn't Stand The Weather sessions, four tracks previously released on 1999's Expanded Edition, and a live gig recorded in Montreal in August 1984.

Remastering-wise, there may not be much in the way of drastic sonic alteration here to get our teeth into. Instead, we'll revisit this still-underrated record with an eye to which licks you can steal (NOTE: the timings mentioned are taken from the album tracks, not the embedded live versions), and to appreciate the powerhouse that was Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble at the height of their pomp once again.

So batter that Strat, tune down to Eb, dust off your cowboy hats and Indian headdresses and let's go...

L-R: SRV, Tommy Shannon and Jimmie Vaughan © Jean Krettler

1. Scuttle Buttin'

One of two self-penned instrumentals on the record, Scuttle Buttin' is a stinging statement of intent that became SRV's de facto set opener. In the same way as Texas Flood's showpiece, Rude Mood, took Lightning Hopkins' Lightning Skyhop as its original inspiration, Stevie Ray confessed that Scuttle Buttin' was: "Just another way of playing Lonnie Mack's Chicken Feed."

Every true blues fan remembers where they were when they first heard it - its mixture of speedy runs, daredevil fingerslides and chunky doublestops, not to mention its brimming energy, was only ever again rivalled by Say What! on 1985's otherwise lethargic follow-up album, Soul To Soul.

Learn this lick: Apart from the deft, right-hand-testing main lick (those are finger slides, not bends), any blueser needs the arresting rhythmic, pick-and-fingers doublestop lick at 1:01 in their vocabulary.

Listen: SRV - Scuttle Buttin' (live at Montreux Jazz Festival, 1985)

2. Couldn't Stand The Weather

One of his most inventive compositions, it's a huge frustration that Stevie never explored this rich vein of songwriting further. Channelling the funkier aspects of Hendrix's chordal approach and chaining it to a roaring Stax-like rhythmic drive, the Doppler effect of brother Jimmie's Leslie-cabbed guitar holds the rhythm down cold.

And the solo section is a breathtaking display of how to harness FX, fierce vibrato and a Strat's tone control to subtly intensify a guitar solo.

Learn this lick: One of the slickest pentatonic runs anyone ever pulled out of a guitar neck, listen to 4:17 for a demonstration of just how much Stevie owns the funk...

Listen: SRV - Couldn't Stand The Weather (live at Newport Jazz Festival, 1985)

3. The Things (That) I Used To Do

Also featuring the thick, chorused keyboard-style rhythm voicings of big brother Jimmie, this Guitar Slim cover even outshines Texas Flood in the relentlessness stakes. Utterly torrential from start to finish, Stevie strings together colossal doublestop runs and bends those .13 -.58 strings to finger-bleeding breaking point here.

Proving his versatility within the narrow slow-blues format, he rarely touched on this molten, less glassy, mid-saturated tone in subsequent recordings. More's the pity...

Learn this lick: The insistent, cloying hammer-on onto the A note over the V chord at 3:41 is an economical yet surprisingly effective device for any blues toolkit.

Listen: SRV - The Things (That) I Used To Do (live in Honolulu, 1984)

Next: tracks 4-7

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