Can Rich Men Sing the Blues? THE FABULOUS T-BIBBS ffll OUT
These are the best and worst of times for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. After 14 lean years and four commercial flops, the Austin, Texas-based critical darlings rode the wave of the blues revival and their own hit single, “Tuff Enuff,” to the biggest success in the band’s career.
Can Rich Men Sing the Blues? THE FABULOUS T-BIBBS ffll OUT
FEATURES
Roy Trakin
by
These are the best and worst of times for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. After 14 lean years and four commercial flops, the Austin, Texas-based critical darlings rode the wave of the blues revival and their own hit single, “Tuff Enuff,” to the biggest success in the band’s career. You’d think the group’s co-leaders—balding, Detroit-born, SoCal-raised, Texas-bred
singer/harpist/songwriter Kim Wilson and good ole boy guitar-slinger Jimmy Vaughan—would be enjoying the slightest bit of a last laugh at the expense of the T-Birds’ history of detractors. Aww, they’re just a blues band. Or worse yet, they’re only (sneer) a bar band...
“That’s pretty insulting,” snorts Wilson, roused from a deep slumber on a couch at his record label’s West Coast offices for a midday chat. “The way most peo-
ple use it, it’s derogatory. But, hell, I grew up in the bars—know what I mean? I grew up playing those joints and I’m proud of it. The whole thing now is to turn these 10,000-seat arenas into big beer joints and have that kind of fun and interaction with the audience.”