Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan

An instant New York Times bestseller

The definitive biography of guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan, with an epilogue by Jimmie Vaughan, and foreword and afterword by Double Trouble's Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon.

Just a few years after he almost died from a severe addiction to cocaine and alcohol, a clean and sober Stevie Ray Vaughan was riding high. His last album was his most critically lauded and commercially successful. He had fulfilled a lifelong dream by collaborating with his first and greatest musical hero, his brother Jimmie. His tumultuous marriage was over and he was in a new and healthy romantic relationship. Vaughan seemed poised for a new, limitless chapter of his life and career.

Instead, it all came to a shocking and sudden end on August 27, 1990, when he was killed in a helicopter crash following a dynamic performance with Eric Clapton. Just 35 years old, he left behind a powerful musical legacy and an endless stream of What Ifs. In the ensuing 29 years, Vaughan's legend and acclaim have only grown and he is now an undisputed international musical icon. Despite the cinematic scope of Vaughan's life and death, there has never been a truly proper accounting of his story. Until now.

Texas Flood provides the unadulterated truth about Stevie Ray Vaughan from those who knew him best: his brother Jimmie, his Double Trouble bandmates Tommy Shannon, Chris Layton and Reese Wynans, and many other close friends, family members, girlfriends, fellow musicians, managers and crew members.


About the Author

ALAN PAUL is the author of the New York Times bestseller One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band, the definitive book on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band and Texas Flood: the Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan. The latter has been optioned and is being developed for both documentary and feature films. His first book, Big in China, is about his experiences raising an American family, forming a band and becoming an unlikely rock star in Beijing. He also founded Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the music of the Allman Brothers Band, featuring members of the Dickey Betts, Jaimoe and Gregg Allman bands. He is a regular guest on radio shows and a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Guitar World, and other publications. He lives in New Jersey.

ANDY ALEDORT has been an essential contributor to the international music scene for 35 years, working as a journalist, instructor and performer. He has conducted hundreds of interviews and lessons with the world's greatest guitarists for Guitar World and other publications, and toured and recorded with original Jimi Hendrix bandmates Mitch Mitchell and Buddy Miles and Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble. He was a member of Dickey Betts and Great Southern for 12 years. He has also sold over one million instructional DVDs and teaches guitar privately and via online sites such as Truefire. He lives on Long Island.