By adding two members to
Double Trouble
-- keyboardist
Reese Wynans
and saxophonist
Joe Sublett
--
Stevie Ray Vaughan
indicated he wanted to add
soul
and
R&B
inflections to his basic
blues
sound, and
Soul to Soul
does exactly that. It's still a modern
album, yet it has a wider sonic palette, finding
Vaughan
fusing a variety of
,
rock
, and
styles. Most of this is done through covers -- notably
Hank Ballard
's
"Look at Little Sister,"
the exquisitely jazzy
"Gone Home,"
Doyle Bramhall
's impassioned
soul-blues
"Change It"
-- but
's songwriting occasionally follows suit, as well. Even if only the tortured
wailer
"Ain't Gone 'n' Give Up on Love"
entered his acknowledged canon, he throws in some delightful
-
funk
touches on
"Say What!,"
the instrumental wah-wah workout that kicks off the album, and the
Curtis Mayfield
-inspired closer,
"Life Without You,"
captures
at his best as a composer and performer. It's such a seductive number -- such a full realization of his
ambitions -- that the rest of the album pales in comparison. In fact, for all of its positive attributes,
winds up being less than the sum of its parts, and it's hard to pinpoint an exact reason why. Perhaps it was because
was on the verge of a horrible battle with substance abuse at the time of recording or perhaps it just has that unevenness inherent in transitional albums. Still, he has good taste in covers, his originals are sturdy, and there's not a bad performance here, so
winds up enjoyable in spite of its flaws, and it clearly points the way to his 1989 masterpiece,
In Step
. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine