The news came suddenly yesterday that Jimmie Vaughan had suffered a heart attack the previous week – on Wednesday, Jan. 23. He was treated at Pomona Hospital Medical Center in Southern California with a coronary angioplasty and stent.
A statement issued by management spokesperson Gretchen Barber didn’t elaborate much:
“He’s progressing well after this routine procedure and was discharged from the hospital on January 25th. Jimmie feels fine but was advised by his cardiologist to rest at home for a month. He regretfully had to cancel a scheduled trip to the Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai, India, as a result.
“Mr. Vaughan said, ‘I feel really good and I can’t wait to get back to work with my band.’”
Further details from that camp are few, but it confirmed this morning that, “Vaughan is home in Austin resting for 30 days then plans to tour at the end of March up towards NYC to perform at [Eric Clapton’s] Crossroads [Guitar Festival],” which is scheduled for April 12-13 at Madison Square Garden.
The Dallas-born guitarist became a Texas legend in his teens, starting with the Chessmen during the late Sixties. Alongside an exodus of blues players from the Metroplex, he moved to Austin in 1970. That contingent of young white musicians connected with the capital’s post-segregation blues scene and fueled the Eighties blues revival begun by Vaughan in the Fabulous Thunderbirds and other bands such as Paul Ray & the Cobras, Southern Feeling, and the Nightcrawlers.
It was a remarkable period in local music, out of which sprang Stevie Ray Vaughan, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 1990. In recent years, the elder Vaughan (executor of his brother’s estate) has released as series of excellent solo discs with longtime friend and singer Lou Ann Barton, including Plays Blues, Ballads, and Favorites and Plays More Blues, Ballads, and Favorites.
A four-time Grammy winner, Jimmie Vaughan will turn 62 on March 20.
This article appears in January 25 • 2013.