Powerful Stuff

“We don’t have any big secret plans to [reunite], but I’ve always thought it would be fun to do. Maybe someone out there could try to set that up!”

debut album, , released in 1979, totally transformed the blues genre. The T-Birds played from the heart of the beat to the sole of the feet — good-time, Saturday night, juke-joint-rocking blues. For most, that was the first time that they would have been aware of Texan guitar ace Jimmie Vaughan. Each track on the record was a mini primer into every facet of the art of blues guitar, whether it be tasteful, economical soloing or subtle comping behind vocalist Kim Wilson’s virtuoso harp playing. The Thunderbirds released three more albums before unexpectedly breaking into the mainstream with their crossover hit single, “Tuff Enuff,” in 1986. For Vaughan, perhaps it wasn’t that unlikely. “We’d been trying to get a hit record for years,” he says. “It wasn’t like we weren’t trying to get into the charts; it just never happened for us before