The long-sought-after audio of the 1983 TV collaboration between Stevie Ray Vaughan and blues legend Albert King will finally be re-released in its entirety.
Recorded live for television at CHCH-TV studios in Ontario on December 6th, 1983, and shown on PBS here in the States, In Session is the only known recording of King and Vaughan together.
It will be available on October 18th on three LPs or two CDs, and in digital formats, including hi-res audio. It will include the debut audio release of three tracks from the show -- “Texas Flood,” “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town,” and “Born Under a Bad Sign,” which is available now to stream or download.
While Vaughan had only one album under his belt when this session took place, he and King went back a decade earlier in Stevie Ray's hometown of Austin, Texas, where King was playing a show and was hesitant about a “skinny white kid” joining him onstage. Vaughan’s older brother, Jimmy Vaughan, recalled that night, saying, “When Stevie was 19, we were at Antone’s and Albert King was playing. [Club owner Clifford Antone] says to Albert, ‘You’ve got to let this kid play, because he’s (amazing).’
“Now Albert had heard it all, but he got Stevie up there, and Stevie commenced doing Albert King licks. There was silence at first. Everyone stood there with their mouths open. They couldn’t believe it. But Albert loved it. He put his arm around him, and from then on it was Albert and Stevie. Everybody went, ‘Whew, that was scary.’ I would never have tried that, but you’ve got to admire the audacity.”
Vaughan, 35, died in a helicopter crash on August 27th, 1990, and King, 69, from a heart attack two years later on December 21st, 1992.